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| The Need to Understand Patterns of Life | | | Vijay Garg
Dynamism lies at the heart of life, and nowhere is this more evident than in human relationships — especially those formed through marriage and family. The institution of a lifelong man–woman bond remains one of the most complex experiences
Dynamism is the essence of life. Anything which exists will have some movement, some growth, and some energy to it. It will be born at a point of time, grow, develop, and gradually wither away.
This is the essential cycle of life. It is available in plants, animals, and human beings. This is a domain worthy of its own exploration, fit enough for a specialisation with many permutations and combinations. Amongst the more obvious cycles of life is the birth, growth, flowering into its fullness of creatures, and ultimately their detachment or demise. All living creatures go through this cycle.
The depth of this exploration is deep and intense. This would need many efforts over many centuries to get to any conclusion worthy of even being tossed around. To make the topic manageable in the time and space of this text, it may be desirable to talk about the area of ‘relationships’ only.
By definition, the ‘relationship’ can only exist between entities. It can be between two people of any breed and variety. The period of time spent between the two can be cyclical and capable of many undulations. Some reading of patterns can be interesting. One of the areas of relationship that is fairly universal in character is the relationship of ‘marriage’/‘family’.
Herein, a man and a woman come together with an implicit contract to spend time with each other in a bond. Generally, marriage involves a one-to-one commitment between a man and a woman, usually including the procreation age.
One could hasten to add that procreation is not essential to a marriage, but a marriage often leads to identifiable procreation. This is important because it constitutes the core of a family. This is a universal pattern, bereft of variations in race, creed, region, and more. Often, two people in a marital relationship are referred to as a couple, and they live together, grow together, and very often have a shared household. The shared household opens up many concerns of proprietorship, ownership, and more.
Usually, the fondness and necessity of the relationship between a couple make it unnecessary to have a legal framework on every aspect of ownership.
Goodwill, love, affection and pure, simple good sense allow a couple to navigate their relationships without too many tumbles or pitfalls. Life exists because of the normal smoothness of good sense and how relationships are essential to moving things, preserving things, and keeping them going. The coupling does not end there but has many ramifications that may require a legal framework of a civil society. This itself is a complicated and extensive area that may elude exhaustive treatment in the definitional constraints of this text. The conjugal relationships would normally be between a man and a woman.
The purpose of this text is to have some thoughts on the nature of relationships between a man and a woman in a marital/ family relationship over a period of time of, say, roughly 30 to 40 years.
Of course, one realises that all these ‘figures’ can and do vary, and generalisations are only helpful to a limited extent. Like in any relationship, in a marital / family relationship, for understanding the various lights and shades, some assumptions could be made.
Broadly, this assumption would mean that a man–woman relationship in a marital/ family mode begins in the twenties and, other things being equal, spans the entire lifetime till the persons approach their seventies, eighties, or more.
The average lifespan of the marriage, therefore, could be assumed to be about 40 to 65 years. In between, the concept of family comes in and various generations would need to be recognised within the family. The period of relationship between two individuals, covering 40 to 65 years, can have many lights and shades. In the early years of the relationship, physical proximity may be more prominent than it would be after 35 or 40 years.
In the beginning years of marriage/family, there may be more resilience and accommodation than what the marriage/family may experience as it goes on. It will be hazardous to predict which way the relationship will go with the passing years. It may end up making the relationship fonder, or the relationship may experience turbulence.
This is where relationship research becomes important. Some application of scientific methods would be useful in understanding patterns of relationships. Unfortunately, publication and serious research in this area is little, compared to the need for thought and understanding. This text would have served the purpose if it drew attention to the need to look at the holistic rollout of a man–woman/family relationship, in an institutional mode, over 40 to 65 years of possible existence. Its relevance and utility for helpful intervention in the lives of families would be high. A beginning could be marked by couples voluntarily recording their experiences over decades of being together.
Gradually, a research methodology will develop, but that may take time. An organised thought on developing a research methodology for understanding family life would clearly be, also, useful.
One could, indeed, use applied research for making life more insightfully pleasant and enriched. Among other things, this would help in families dealing amongst themselves and building a more stable platform for better relationships. This has obvious advantages for a well-integrated social framework and greater happiness all around. Applied research has much to recommend itself.
Vijay Garg Retired Principal Educational columnist Eminent Educationist street kour Chand MHR Malout Punjab |
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