RELATIONSHIP BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE - PART 2

Valiant Knight Says…

Relationship before marriage is often referred to as “courting” which can be defined as a period when a man and woman do things together or individually to try to please each other or improve their relations, often so that they will do something they want them to do for each other. “Marriage” on the other hand is a situation when the man and woman is already attached to each other for “better or for worst”, it is a situation that is completed! Such being the situation, it is only natural that relationship before and after marriage cannot and do not remain the same.

Taking the male point of view to this matter, I would like to point out that man are expected for most of their earthly existence to be the one doing the chasing in a courtship. Cavemen had to use their clubs to knockout Cave Women and drag them home to be their mates. Actions were expected on the part of the men and the women sort of have to remain passive. In today’s modern society, this trend is slowly becoming outdated and more and more women are either playing equal part or the aggressive part when courtship is concerned!

The differences in relationships before and after marriage will depend on what form of courtship is being played out by the couple! If the traditional form of courtship is the norm then the differences would be tremendous, however, if the courtship is of the modern kind, the differences would be less.

A man when courting a woman is expected by tradition to play a more active role. He is supposed to make the first move, so to speak. He must be the one to pop the question when he wants to date the woman, he is the one that must suggest the location they want to be at, he must be the one to make all the moves to improve their physical and mental relationship and finally he must be the one to propose (pop the question). If he is to do all these things, what is the woman’s role? She merely has to respond. Either she has to agree or disagree. If she agrees with the man’s wishes, all goes well. If she doesn’t, usually as tradition dictates, the man has to make alternative suggestions and proposals until the lady agrees! We call these making alternatives as pampering and accommodating the women! If you look at it carefully, is it so? In actual fact, to a man, he is merely making moves that would put him in a position to win over the woman for something he has set out to accomplish! So, to him he is not pampering or accommodating his prey but rather some strategy to accomplish capturing his prey! Thus, women are falsely led to believe that their future husbands would pamper and accommodate them in their whims and fancies.

Why is this so? It is so because during courtship, when the prey is not in the lair, the hunter (man) must adopt tactics that are craftier and deceitful whereas once the prey is trapped (in marriage) there is not much necessity for craftiness on the hunter’s part. It is like hunting wild animals and harvesting domesticated animals for food! To hunt for an animal that is roaming you have to track, set traps, make sure that your bait is the right kind and make the move to kill at the right moment, if not you lose your prey. Whereas, when you rear and breed animals in your farmyard, they are there at your mercy to pick and slaughter or to keep for breeding purposes or for produce!

So, using traditional methods to ‘hunt’ for a spouse, a man would do anything to get his prey and once he has accomplish the ‘hunt’ and in this case of marriage which is rather similar to domestication of a wild animal into a tame one, the techniques used by him would be entirely different.

Luckily for women, civilization has made man less Cavemen like and therefore the above illustration is no longer absolutely similar. However, the Cavemen mentality of some men are stronger in some men than others, therefore, you find that some marriages result in extremely different circumstances for the women from that of the time of courtship! More civilized men treat their wives in a manner that is closer to the approaches used during courtship. Their marriages are more akin to a life-long courtship. This is rather romantic and lucky is the couple that can continue to do so.

Women, on the other hand must not expect life after marriage to remain the same as life before marriage! Luckily, many women adapt into married life with ease and performed their traditional role of housekeeping and looking after the family well. This pleases the man of the house and keeps relationship easy going without conflicts. The man goes out to earn to support the family, the wife stays at home to keep house, cook, look after the children.

Modern society disrupts this trend nowadays and wives go out to earn a living to supplement their husbands’ income, too. The ideal set up of the family unit becomes disrupted. Someone else must do the house cleaning, the cooking and looking after of the children. The husband returns to a home that is without a wife waiting with everything spick and span and the meals already cooked and the children well looked after by the wife! The security of the wife being safely tucked at home is no longer there. She is out in the world, mixing with others, being influenced and at times seduced! She is evolving into something different from the girl the husband once courted! Such dramatic changes set the path to separation and possible divorce eventually.

Even if the wife is not working and the man earns more than enough, she is not going to be home bound! The exposure to outside influence and attractions from society is too tempting to keep a woman in her traditional role. Even at home she is bombarded with external temptations via TV, radio and the printed media and now the Internet. She becomes dissatisfied with her state and thus evolves too. Eventually, her husband finds her to be different, more demanding, less tolerant and thus the happiness of returning home to a wife and family is no longer there. He too finds distractions elsewhere. He goes into an affair which is more familiar and like what it was he expected!

Therefore, today’s breakups and divorces are the result of changing situations in our environment and not because individual man or woman changes. Unless you are shielded from the influences of society via the mass media and live a traditional life as some Muslim or conservative families expect around the world, then expect dramatic changes in relationships before and after marriage. This is even true should you marry and marry again and again.