Archive: Further Exchanges on Marriage @ SM
HMF:
Sashi: "No amount of "due diligence" or a number of "test drives" are good enough guarantors that it will all work out""a careful review of the available social science evidence suggests that living together is not a good way to prepare for marriage or to avoid divorce""
But people test drive cars and practice due diligence anyway, right? Pre-marital co-habitation is one method, not the only one. I believe that social dynamics, relationship maintenance, connecting emotionally, or as the ubiquitous female buzzword "chemistry" are skills like any other - playing piano, riding bikes, solving differential equations - and can only develop with practice. To those that recoil and say "No way! You make it too serious and scientific bla bla" I call them naturals, they naturally develop those skills, and rarely have to think of their mechanics. But make no mistake.. they ARE skills."
S: I agree with the point you make regarding development of "relational" skills. That said, I think these are skills (I am thinking of kindness, empathy, emotional resilience etc more than the skills required to "romance" effectively - this is not to implay that "romance" skills are not required but that they are minor, atleast in my system of thinking) that someone accquires (or learns over) a lifetime from his/her entire web of relationships (family, friendships, work relationship etc), and not necessarily from "test drives" alone. Again, as you said, not every one has to "test drive" in order to learn the "soft" skills required for great marriages - they can acqure from other sources as well.
HMF:
"I think kindness, empathy, are natural qualities, no one is born an adulterer or mass murderer or anything else for that matter. It's a matter of uncovering them. Romance skills (actually I don't like that term, I prefer social dynamics) can only be acquired from test drives."
S: Isn't "uncovering" the EQ type skills/ qualities (such as kindness, empathy, emotional resilience etc, which you say are innate human qualities - and to which I agree with reservations) a matter of learning through the more complete web of human relationships than just romance/ dating/ "test drives"? One can be an effective/ charming "dater", and never be any further in uncovering/learning these skills, mainly because they are usually learned (and come into play) in the long run. And all this reminds me of a story from the life of Buddha.
That said, your ciritique on how the "arranged marriage" system can be a deadline-based, guilt-tripping, societal pressure cooker is quite on the money .
My Daily Notes
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Russian Coppers
Warning to all readers of feminist persuasion: this is a blatantly sexist post
So how many lads here got hot under the collar (and elsewhere) when Xenia Onatopp got on top of Bond of James, in order to finish him off with her extra powerful thighs (for a long time afterwards I wished for such a good death), panting with orgasmic fury, in the movie "Golden Eye"? Okay, I see that every hot blooded males' (and a few female as well) hands are up. Now many of us may dismiss Ms. Xenia On-the-top as just another Bond babe with a Russian twist. But no, kind readers, Russian women in uniform are regular hotties. How you ask?
First, consider Oxana Fedorova, an ex Russian policewoman, and more importantly, an ex Miss Universe. Wiki has this to say about Ms. Fedorova's prowess:
"Fedorova scored 9.88 in the swimsuit competition, the highest score ever during the swimsuit events in the history of Miss Universe Pageant."
I know the more piggish folks reading this post might want to verify if Ms. Fedorova deserved that 9.88. So here is some evidence/ eye candy. Okay, unlike us desis, with our Femina/ Lux/ Bata/ Rin Supreme/ Godrej Fridge/ "I Want To Be Mother Theresa Like" Miss. India, dem Russians send AK-47 shooting cop-hotties into battle. Still there is some doubt, innit, whether Ms. Fedorova is a classic outlier in the femme-cop-fatale crops?
In order to put this question to rest forever, I did more research for you kind readers. And the conclusion? Ms. Fedorova is merely an exceptional specimen of the highly dangerous and deadly crops of cop-hotties. And Moscow Police, along with providing them those snazzy mini-skirts and high heels, lets them compete with each other by running a beauty contest billed "Miss. Security".
Don't you wish you were in Russia*, being pulled over by a cop-comrade of Oxana wearing that un-cop like uniform, and getting handcuffed to her wrist as she demands, in Russian, "kak vas za-voot pa-zhal-sta?"**
*When it is time to pay for your sins, be sure to demand the cop-gods to send you to Russia and not Iran. I know Mr. Ahmed-i-(nutty-am)-jenad scares most Amirkans with his nukuular wet dreams but these Persian cop-ladies are far more scarier! And mashallah, Persian women are usually dolls.
**Your name please? However, if your luck is bad, you might draw the Guvernator (playing Ivan Danko), who in his robotic voice, will demand that you spread your legs, pronto.
My Daily Notes
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An Archived Comment On Marriage
A comment (with editing; required when one attempts coherence under painkillers) I made over at SM, in response to this one:
'Most arranged marriages do not end in divorce because there is no exit option in Indian society. There is no such "safety net" in "love marriages" and that's why you see a lot more people from your town divorced. You should be celebrating their right to get out of unhappy and often abusive relationships not berating "love marriage" as being on par with arranged marriage.M&A deals have a "due diligence" phase. Car dealers have a "test drive" and yet desis even today enter into the most important thing in their life blindfolded. Don't do your due diligence or test drive well you have a lemon on your hands!"
No amount of "due diligence" or "test drives" are good enough guarantors that it will all work out. In other words. while these may be "necessary" conditions for some one to "jump da broom" but are not "sufficient" conditions to ensure that the eventual marriage is a not lemon. Besides, if you consider the kind of hard nosed scrutiny and data collection (which is too business or CIA like even) folks are subjected to (at least in India; once my parents were out of town, and I had to field a telephone call from a distant uncle of a potential groom who wanted to talk to my father about the general behaviour and demeanor of a girl who lived down the street) under arranged marriages, you would not be able to say there is no "due diligence" in arranged marriages settings.
All this, discounting the issue of how initial conditions ("due diligence" and "test drives") are not all that accurate in predicting what the final state of the complex system (marriage) will be. Finally, I remembered that there was a 2002 study put out by the National Marriage Project @ Rutgers, which indicated (I haven't re-read it since then) that "a careful review of the available social science evidence suggests that living together is not a good way to prepare for marriage or to avoid divorce". Here is a well written (recent) blog post on this subject of cohabition before marriage or "test driving".
Just some more food for thought.
My Daily Notes
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