Can live in relationships be considered a new age form of marriage?.
Marriage is the social and legal approval of physical relationship between an adult man and an adult woman. It is not only concerned of physical relationship but also is the strong nexus between two hearts, two families, two societies and two cultures. Marriage is the start-up of an organized life.
In recent years a new sort of trend, live in relationships, is increasing among adults. It is basically living of two adult man and woman together without being married and physical relationship may exist between them. This seems quite attractive to the busy working young generation who has not the time to maintain a family or are not interested in that but wants to continue a love relationship. Many adults defend it as a mechanism to know each other at their best and to determine whether they can continue the relation and can transform it to marriage.
A live in relationship is like a marriage without all legalities and responsibilities but it is not parallel to marriage because of weakness of commitment. In a conjugal life partners care about each other’s responsibilities, each others commitment. A married couple will make every possible effort to save their relationships and seek resolution to problems and their understanding before splitting up than the people in a live in relationship. The very advantage of being in a live in relationship is its biggest disadvantage – Lack of Commitment.
Some people fear to family responsibilities or they are not interested in that. Because of all the pressure and responsibilities that come with marriage, couples prefer being in cohabitation to satisfy their various needs. It highlights weakness of human relationships.
A long time into the live in relationship, one of the partners may feel suffocated in the relationship due to lack of personal space. Some may feel even a sense of monotony which causes trouble for the relationship and could eventually lead to a heart breaking spilt.
It is not that misunderstanding or separation does not take place between married couple but they try to resolve the issue, they try to adjust among themselves, they try to accommodate with the situation and their child acts as a pole that binds them. A child is the supreme blessing of god in a conjugal life that brings happiness and inspires the couple to continue the relationship that is missing in a live in relationship.
Some may argue why to adjust in a relationship or its better to be separated than adjustment. But if we notice carefully we will understand that adjustment is one of the rules of life. It starts from the mother’s womb and continues lifelong. God has sent us in this earth to struggle, to adjust, to take responsibilities and we should not escape from these rather we should face these.
Marriage brings a lot of happiness not only to the couples or to the families but also to the society also. It creates such an atmosphere where relatives – natives – friends gather and makes a lot of fun, it fulfils the wishes of our family members and the conjugal relationship begins happily with a lot of well wishes. This aspect is hardly possible in a live in relationship. The sense of family remains vacant in live in relationships.
Some may argue that they are not bothered of society. They do according to their pleasure and interest. But we have to remember that we are social animal. We have to live in this society; we have to deal in this society. It’s not that we will live in deserted island with our beloveds and we will have no societal headache.
Live in relationship may be regarded as quite similar to marriage but it cannot be a complement to that. Marriage form a well ordered society with a lot of responsibilities happiness and misery and it is quite important for human reproduction.
-shuvajyoti dutta