Young Couples and Difficulties
and Challenges in Marriages
Dr. Francis Eluvathingal
The
scope of this paper is to evaluate and to identify the difficulties and challenges
young couples face in their married life. As specified in the
Canon Law, by marriage a man and a woman enter into a contract giving their
personal consent to live together as partners for their whole life. This
contract is for a life of love, caring, understanding, communion, fellowship,
giving, taking, sacrifice, etc. The
model of Christian marriage as per St. Paul is the way Jesus loved the Church:
a total self-giving even at the cost of sacrificing one’s own life (Eph 5: 25).
Various
Possibilities of Marriages in the Catholic Migrant Context
In
this changed times, one may be surprised to see different types of marriages among
the migrants in mega cities such as arranged marriages, love marriages, civil
marriage between two free persons, civil marriage between one divorcee and the
other free, marriage between two divorcees, marriage into other religion,
marriage of convenience, living together of free or divorced, etc. From among the
total number of marriages more than 65% of them are arranged marriages between
two Syro-Malabar Catholics. The remaining are arranged marriages or love
marriages persons of other Catholic or non-Catholic Churches and about 10% with
non-Christians.
Some
Experiences
Family
issues related to love marriages are on the rise nowadays.
1.
Some love
marriages between Catholics and non-Christians are contracted with the
provision of the disparity of cult. But when they start living together, the
faith matters a lot for each one. The disparity then leads to conflicts
especially when there are children.
2.
The parents
insist that a Catholic should get married only to another Catholic especially
when they come to know about the religion of the other party. This situation
forces the Catholic party to heed the plea of the parents and finally give
consent to marry a Catholic. Unfortunately in some cases, they secretly continue
the relationship with the person in love. This obviously leads to the break-up
of marriage.
3.
Undue
interference of the parents in the family life and decision making of the children
leads to the break-up of marriage. Over possessiveness of the parents is found
to be another reason.
4.
Spending
time together during the marriage preparation course also benefits positively
as they come to know each other in a deeper way. Sometimes they realize their incompatibility
and they decide to cancel the marriage. Cancelling the marriages after fixing
it or even after engagement is on the increase.
5.
The Church insists that a person must have sufficiently developed
faculties of intellect and will, to be able to judge and to will a truly human
act. Marriage involves decision making. Discretion of judgement refers to the
capacity of intellect and will to specifically evaluate, decide and freely
enter marriage. Intellectual maturity is the most basic level expected in the
adults who make a commitment for whole life. But unfortunately in some adults
this reasoning is overpowered by only emotions. Still worse situations occur
when this reasoning is done by some other minds like parents, or other kith and
kin.
Difficulties
and Challenges:
1.
In the decision making process, who takes the final decision
for the new family: the young couples or their parents? A decision forced on by
the parents is undesirable. At the same time, many feel insecure about the
decisions taken by the young couples alone as it lacks perfection. I would say,
a perfect decision making should be a process where the young couples take the
final decision with the constant consultation with the parents who would help
them to evaluate and decide. A decision made by the parents against the will of
the young couples is unjustified.
2. I see serious dangers when the
youngsters got married only because they were in love. The only reason for
their marriage was ‘in love’. The other key factors for a successful married
life were not taken into serious consideration. Love need not be the only
component that sustains a whole life together but rather is one of the many important
components. What is necessary is that one loves the partner whom one marries.
3.
Nowadays,
one of the major problems of the young couples is having different faiths as a
result of the Disparity of cult marriage. I analyse this problem as one where
our youngsters do not have the conviction that the person whom they marry should
also have the same faith. If our youngsters consider disparity of cult
marriages as the fashion of the day, living our faith as one family will be
almost impossible and it will result in the disintegration of the family thus
the stability of the community will be at stake.
4.
Conversion
of heart only should lead to conversion to another religion. I fear sometimes
that some non-Christians, get converted only for the sake of getting married.
In these cases usually there is no living of faith in the families. The
children, even if they are baptized, they are not given opportunities of family
prayers, Sunday obligations, nor they are sent for catechism classes. In some
cases, once the marriage is failed, even if they are converted Catholics, they
just go back to their original religion and do not care for collaborating for
anything further as per the laws of the church.
5. Among the migrant families, the
most of the cases the families are very small. They suffer from the lack of
family bond and hence lack of strength. Hence the parents totally depend on
their children for their future. Many parents especially mothers suffer from
the insecurity feeling and hence show total dependence on their male children.
This leads to undue interference in their family life. This phenomenon affects the
growth of the newly wedded couple. There are complaints of the friction between
the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law which also leads to separated life of the
spouses.
6. One or two children in the family
sometimes prevent the holistic development of the children. They get all they
want and need not share with anyone else. This leads to selfishness and egoism.
It is surprising to see the young families resist in sharing including their
salaries together. These are against the basic concept of family values of
giving and sacrificing.
7. The parents at that time of
migration in order to get foot hold in these cities had to undergo lots of
hardships. And they made sure that their children do not face the same
difficulties. Many elderly parents do not share their problems with their
children but they suffer in private. And some others do not include their
children in the decision making process. The parents take care of each and
every need of the family and of the children. Hence most of the children lack
practical knowledge and experience even to do small or big house hold
activities. When their children get married and found new families, they do not
know to take decisions, to handle many situations and do house hold activities.
8. The young families undoubtedly need
follow up programmes after their marriage and looking at the current
development , this simply has to be done. The strain and stress of the job
situations, increased financial burdens and loans, lack of other family members
for offering a helping hand, etc. contribute tremendously to the pressure of
the young families and they are not able to cope with the rigorous schedule of
family life. These situations force them to neglect their prayer life and
Sunday obligations etc.
9. For the growth in faith, the
small children need models and witnesses. In the Syro-Malabar Church tradition,
the grand-parents were also god-parents at the time of baptism of their
grand-children and they took initiatives for traditionally handing over the
faith to their grand-children. They were either living together or close by and
it was possible. Now among the migrant families, also because of lack of space
in small flats or houses, most of the young families live separately from their
parents and therefore the grand parents have no much chance to hand over the
faith to their newly born grand-children. This will definitely affect the
future of practising our faith in the young families.
10.
Career
oriented women become independent in the families. They earn good salaries,
sometimes more than men. These situations create problems such as inferiority
complex in men, lack of time and lack of interest by the women in the family
affairs, consideration of rearing children a burden, no qualitative and
quantitative interaction with the extended family members etc. The females demands
equality with the males to enjoy certain freedom.
11. The young families need lot of
follow up by the pastoral team in the parishes. Frequent enquiry about the
well-being of the families, making sure of their presence together for the
ecclesial activities, informal talks about the life adjustments of the young
families, invitation for counselling when problems are observed, etc. should be
under the permanent vigilance of the pastoral team.
12. Family counselling cell and reconciliation
forums are the need of the hour to help.
13. Some Practising Catholics do not
have the wedlock. It is a challenge to our community and for its stability. Wedlock
becomes a reason for anonymity for some migrants when they have contracted some
irregular marriages.
14. Alcoholism, TV/Internet/mobile
addictions, fun-picnic loving nature, free movement with friends, relativism,
consumerism, the onslaught of globalization, nuclear
family culture, imitation of the western culture, development of technology and
the resultant misuse of it, workaholism, wreaked havoc in the life and faith
life are the
other dangers affecting the married life.
CONCLUSION
The Syro-Malabar
church has a very rich tradition and patrimony which our forefathers treasured,
preserved and handed down through centuries along with unwavering faith. By
upholding sanctity of marriage, fidelity in marriage, maintaining family ties
and reputation they carried forward this legacy. The young couples need to
cherish these traditions and give due worth for the spiritual customs and life.
Though it might seem difficult, the pastors of the Church with the
collaboration of all need to address the issues related to the young couples
and to safe guard the faith of the individuals, families and the
community.
