Marriage being the most ancient and regarded as the first social institution of the recorded human history is continuously, though slowly, losing its sanctity and moral foundations in the contemporary times. A sanctioned system for two individuals to commence living together, a social and cultural aspect serving as the causation for the manifestation of a system called family is what is needed. With two individuals from similar or different backgrounds coming to terms in sharing their rest of life, a family involves a lot of essentials that go about in making an exemplary living. But the sacred cocoon has developed cracks and is beset with chaos in the contemporary society and Kashmir is no exception. Apart from great immoral blows like pre-marital relations, live-in relations, romantic love affairs, lusty and deviant thoughts and acts, the most dreadful of all these are the extra-marital affairs.
Extra-marital affair is the most prevalent problem that is engrained in every society from time immemorial. Just trend has changed; earlier no one spoke about it and today people talk about it freely. Today it is the most common issue that frequents the doors of the marital therapists and the psychiatrists posing a challenge, as it is a traumatic interpersonal problem with intricate entanglements. Extra-marital affairs could be normally categorised into two, one with a superficial base like a one nightstand but always in a danger to get serious and the second, being highly demanding and posing a serious threat due to emotional entanglements. There are people who get into an affair primarily due to unsatisfied biological life together with many other sociological facts such as increased unaccountable mobility of spouses with weak family norms, lack of ethical standards and also access to partners. These people seek to keep their marriage intact due to the fear of social stigma or the reluctance to give away with their conveniences. The subject may or may not be in the notice of the partner. But the social realty emanates over a period of time in the form of family feuds and recurrent resentments start developing which culminates in the social rupture of the family.
CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES
An extra-marital affair owes its emergence to many different reasons branching out from socially ruptured marital settings. The most common ones could be unhappy marriage owing to incompatibility between the spouses, abusive marriages, financial instability, insecure family atmospheres or sometimes it begins as an experiment or even fun. While another factor which also plays an extensive role in flourishing of extra-marital affairs includes work places, social settings and also thrives in the business field owing to the materialisation of business objectives, etc. Some others get into an affair with an experimenting mood that entraps them finding it difficult to get free to justify the spouse or the partner outside the marital bond. Such spouses of modern times have come to terms with coping up with infidelity due to widened perception or vision or a change in the outlook towards life.
An example from a true life happening: a man, who had a love marriage, got into a relationship with another woman for fun. So now, on one hand he has a wife and on the other he has someone for fun and pleasure. So comfortable is he here that he wants to continue the same way. To cover the guilt of an affair outside marriage, he showers his wife with lavish gifts, sweet motivations, sycophancy, false praises, routine thank yous for being his sweet wife, beautiful lies, false swearing of being faithful to her, etc. Whereas another section of the society includes that man who falls in love outside his marriage, takes the girl to court and manages brief formality of marriage secretly, arranges a roof for her, enjoys for free, rages her modesty and continues it for long without any responsibilities towards her. Then entraps another girl, as for observations, often quiet younger than him, flirts her and finally does the same while avoiding the previous one and manages everything cleverly.
Even in cases where a person wants to put an end to his or her illicit affair, it becomes complicated if the partner within the extra-marital affair has a firm grip over the concerned person either emotionally or for other conveniences refuses to comply with him or her walking out of the affair. Also to judge whether one’s indulgence in an affair is right or wrong is open to the concerned person but they fail to think about it until it drops them in panic.
Sociologically speaking, mutual love is the basic platform on which the institution of marriage is structured. It is that which holds the whole system intact. It’s a new dawn in the lives of the two persons that is to tread the path of marriage with the spreading of the fragrance of a newly blossomed love for one another. But, it is love coupled with a proper comprehension of one another that accounts for a lasting marriage. But for any of the spouses being lied and cheated on by his/her spouse changes him/her in a way that never leads to home sweet home situation, instead it results in abuse, conflict, insult and even physical torture. Resilience and strength now become a quality that could never associate with such personalities. It makes them feel suspect every move, person and story that is told. It makes them question everybody and suspect everything. Sometimes it makes one feel like a fool.
Marriage is the beautiful binding or an entanglement of two lives. But it is not to be taken into consideration that one owns the other and extra possessiveness also hurts its foundations and either chokes the spouse or a more serious outcome would be its branching out into other disturbing elements like suspicion, embroilments that seeks to mar the prospects of a good marriage thereby contributing in compounding the existing pressures.
It is very important for the individuals to understand the fact that there exists a world outside one’s marriage. But it is wise and wonderful to dwell within a family bonding with caring, sharing and understanding, and also by giving room for the partner to breathe provided the things warrant so by the circumstances. The discovery or disclosure of an extramarital affair can have a devastating impact not only on partners but their offspring as well.
The increasing vulnerability of boss and female subordinates and vice versa is gaining momentum because of various socially established reasons including the lack of administrative ethics, ignorance of Islamic and religious values, the incessant delay in marriages, unemployment (girls lured by officers for providing jobs if they please them), poverty, lust for material assets (often thirst for dresses, gold and fashionable look entraps girls and women for bosses and friends) and finally feel themselves in trouble to manage the marriage and all its responsibilities. Also such affairs being treated now as a sign of authority, power, money as officers, bureaucrats, politicians, leaders, celebrities, etc, frequently resort to it for the sake of enjoyment, leisure time, media attention, and sinful nature and most importantly love affairs that do not last into marriages and have separate wedlock with others but continue to date even after marriage with other partners, etc. All have led to this disastrous condition which has even grown up in our society and expert observations reveal that it is on peak at the moment and will have its serious ramifications on the socio-cultural fabric.
REMEDIES
We need to understand and deliver our role as a spouse honestly to flourish and make our families thrive. Therefore, we need to delimit and avoid unnecessary gatherings at home and outside. We need to maintain family standards within and outside in the everyday life. Moreover, being followers of any faith, we need to inculcate the social values in our day to day life as ordained in the social laws of civilized life. The core principle of family values and norms as enshrined in the dichotomy of our own people and strangers which need to be practised and strictly implemented if the society has to be saved from the menace.
The other sociological realities are to be taken into view as extra-marital affairs are also an outcome of late marriages which give rise to pre /extra marital affairs. The problem has to be seen in the evaluative context because the individual is a by-product of the social institutions such as of marriage, family, religion and kinship, which have to be strengthened so that the menace is uprooted through the institutional effectiveness. We need community policing, moral education, involvement of youth to fight this alarming trend at societal level and also at institutional level the norms and values have to be enforced strictly.