As a nation, we’ve always prided ourselves on having traditional values, where family comes before anything else. In urban India marriages are still arranged, the joint family system endures even if it’s a tad bit shaky, and 20-somethings are still divided about issues like sex before marriage. No matter how emancipated we may appear outwardly, a majority of modern Indians become conservative when it comes to life’s bigger decisions. Which is why people are shrugging off recent statistics that suggest two out of five marriages are breaking up in Mumbai, as damn lies. However, the evidence is staggering, even if it is almost unbelievable. Mumbai and Thane registered over 17,000 marriages between January and October in 2007, and there were close to 8,000 applications for divorce in the same time period. The data available is far from conclusive because it’s not clear whether the divorce applications are only of people who got married within these 10 months. Yet, it’s broadly indicative of the fact that people are splitting when things don’t work out. Divorce is a cultural indicator and in the context of urban India, it’s a positive trend. Twenty years ago people stuck around together miserably because they had no options; families frowned upon separations, women didn’t have enough money to survive on their own, and of course, the eternal reason, children. Now, marriage therapists’ say parents encourage daughters to move out if they’re not happy, and Delhi schools have allotted extra points at admission time for single parents. The systems of India, geared towards the family are slowly changing course, to accommodate single parents and divorcees. Mumbai’s high divorce rate shouldn’t surprise us. How are our lives in cities in India any different from people living in New York and London? Executives in Mumbai work in a global culture and deal with the same problems that their western counterparts do: stress, no time, long commutes, all issues that can potentially create fissures in relationships. Divorce rates in the US have remained stable at just over 40 per cent for the last 20 years, but that could be because marriage is on the decline, and more people are opting to cohabit. However, worldwide, cohabiting couples have twice the break-up rate of married couples. So, what’s the difference, considering even the Indian government is acknowledging claims by cohabiting couples that break up? These days there’s huge potential and opportunity in India and the finality of marriage in these racy times can be a bit of a dampener. The seven-year itch is officially referred to as the two year itch. People expect to be happy all the time and are chasing the happily ever after dream, as any Karan Johar movie will tell you. Eventually, reality sets in, maybe they should try renting Life in a Metro where people explore different options and discover, what they had wasn’t so bad after all.leher.kala@expressindia.com
