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I am sure each one of us knows one or the other failed marriage in our immediate or extended family or friends circles. Failed marriages are as common and normal as successful marriages. But family and friend circles only remember/highlight failures with weird confirmation bias.
The typical society norm in India has been arranged marriage not just within same religion, but also within same caste group, and certainly avoiding same Gotra.. and so on. This is true regardless of which religion we follow. There is strong cultural and historical context to it.
To be honest, we all have seen horrible disastrous mismatches in our own family/friend circles even when following the so called "best practice" of arranged marriage within same community. Till previous generation, these disasters were lived lifelong due to society pressures.
But with confirmation bias, only those disasters get highlighted which were "against the norms". So all our family/friend circles will keep on coming up with discussions of 'failed love marriage' , more so if they were inter-caste, and definitely if they were inter-religion.
The fact is, for one such failed marriage which was 'against the norms', each of us can count at least two such marriage disasters which were perfectly 'within the norms'. Earlier, they used to live the disaster considering it their destiny, but not anymore.
In this generation, divorces/separations are happening like never before. Nothing wrong as such in that. If the previous generation of females had similar levels of education and economic independence, they would have seen similar numbers of divorce cases. That's the fact.
And the levels of divorce/separation cases are bound to go up with more and more women becoming more educated and economically independent. Simply because they have stopped taking all the adjustment-shit alone, as they are equally (or even better) qualified than their partners.
Unfortunately that is the cost next few generations will have to pay in order to bring Gender equality in these terms. Our great-grandmothers could not study, they ensured our GrandMa started going to schools. Our GrandMa couldn't go to college, they ensured our Moms do.
Ours Moms went to college but hardly worked, so they ensured their daughters start working after college and be on their own, so that they don't have to compromise in life and relationships just because they are females. And the next Gen will be one step further. That's a fact.
Each one of us has witnessed this journey within our own families over last 100 odd years. The degree of variation might be there, but the direction is exactly the same. Whatever we see in terms of divorces/separations has everything to do with this new factored Gender Equality.
So lets stop beating the bush in terms of counting failed marriages with our confirmation bias. It has hardly anything to do with going "against the norm". It has everything to do with stupid expectations of jackass men in this generation (and any generation for that matter)..
..who expect their highly educated and qualified wives to earn a fortune in their profession, and also work as kaam-wali-Bai in their household, and be an apsara in the bed, that too without expectations of a decent performance even in that subject. Guess what: not gonna work.
Only thing that is going to work is teaching our Sons to stop behaving like spoilt brats and start respecting Women with the same level of decency that they expect for themselves. That will survive the relationship in real sense, regardless of religion / caste binaries.
