Letting go the fear out of marriage

A happy marriage is the foundation of a stable family. As the culture of divorce spreads throughout the world, some sociologists even suggest that the end of family is only a question of time. The individualism and consumerism of the West is growing and taking its toll in the Asian countries which historically have enjoyed a strong family and community system. The institution of marriage, consequently family, is threatened by prevailing wider acceptance of divorce — the cause of broken individuals, families, children and immense suffering.

A major reason for rising divorce rates today is attributed to romanticized view of love and marriage. The general individual disillusionment with marriage is particularly fuelled by the consumerist media —cinema, television and fictional romance literature —which glorifies romance and creates an unrealistic, rosy and romanticized view of love. Individuals tend to look for heroes or heroines in their married relationships rather than committing themselves to the daily grind of life and the responsibilities and duties it entails. The focus shifts on pleasure maximization in a dreamy world than on a calm and stable lifestyle and realistic viewpoint. In the absence of mature and committed approach in relationships, the notions of romantic love grow out of proportion and lead to illusory attachment, causing fear and suffering.
Exaggerated Romance

The voracious media targeting popular consumption—witness the explosion of Harlequin novels, television soap operas, movies, advise tracts, and women journals... the same ideas about love and its woes are repeated over and over again and then ad nauseam. What is more, by all accounts vast numbers of individuals hunger for reading and hearing not only about love in all its many guises, but most continue to "fall in love", passionately and with romantic abandon... more often than not, romantic love tends to lead to marriage. And if individuals decide to divorce, most are eager to recommit themselves to another exclusive relationship.

And the cycle of falling in and out of love with its inherent suffering continues in the mire of loose morality in quest of "true love". That's the common story in our modern world. The romantic love carries within it the seeds of clinging attachment. One gets attached to the idea of romantic love, and then attached to the beloved. A person objectifies the other and tries to possess and control the beloved, curbing natural freedom so essential for the flower of love to blossom. The lovers mostly end up in imprisoning each other in the romantic cage and suffocate the relationship due to fear of loss, suspicion and jealously — all the bitter fruits resulting from misplaced notions of romantic love.