Broken marriages: Coping with fallouts

When 37 divorce petitions are filed a day at any capital city of a nation, the incidence gives quite an idea of the tenuous relations of conjugal life in the urban space. The 37 cases mark a rise by two during the past few months over the 35 of the previous year. Then again, these figures do not include the broken marriages in the slums where the aggrieved party or anyone looking for leaving his/her partner does not care for such official separation by way of filing a divorce petition.

Of the complaints filed, 70 per cent are done by women who are mostly educated and solvent. Quite naturally, less than five per cent of such cases end in compromises. If anyone thinks that home confinement enforced by coronavirus is responsible for this high incidence of divorces, he/she would be off the mark. The fact is that the same trend has continued over the past nine years, according to a report. As the analysis claims, the rate of broken marriage is higher in the educated class. It may indeed be so, but the unregistered marriages that take place among the lowest segment of society living in slums fall apart like nine pins and go undocumented.

Women usually complain of nagging suspicion harboured by husbands, extra-marital affairs of husbands, drug addiction, physical and mental torture for dowries and last but not least impotency. On the other side of the argument by husbands, these include not following rules of Islamic Shariah, bad temper, disobedience and incapacity for begetting children. An analysis of 12,513 divorce cases submitted last year brings the above factors to the fore.

These are stated elements but there certainly remain other subtle issues that cannot be captured so simply and easily. For example personality clash, male chauvinism and women's insatiable pressure for achieving a high society status. If women are repressed widely, men satisfied with an honest and simple living are also subjected to constant psychological tortures in many cases. Both men and women bear with the hostilities up to a point, then they decide to part ways. If things get settled amicably, it is better for both. But in some cases either of the parties may fall a victim to the unbearable situation. Some of those cases end in tragedies.

Then there is yet another highly potent reason for a broken family. If children, when grown up, go astray, both husband and wife constantly blame each other for the failure to bring up the next generation up to their expectations. Life becomes poisonous for all the members of such families.

Broken families are not just a loss for people involved, in the ultimate analysis they prove a failure of society. Accepted that dissolution of marriages in certain cases is the best option and may indeed give both a new lease of life. But in most cases, the cankerous relations leave a deep laceration that at times leads to tragedies including suicides or murders.

In the Western societies, many now opt for living together, fearing that the relations may sour and should be terminated before the tipping point.

Even divorce has become common in those societies and in most cases those are brought to an end through mutual understanding and consent. This explains why independent and educated women here also file divorce suits in an overwhelming greater number. Those who are dependent have to bear with maltreatment and neglect because they have nowhere to go and live independently.

The occidental and oriental values differ to a large degree but with the infiltration of Western education and culture, things here are going the way of the West. Imitation of the very best of any culture is fine but it may be ruinous when the worst are equally embraced with open arms.        

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