It all began with that one question; why do we get married?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to vent out about the daily struggles of co-adulting. It’s simply a general wonderment. Why do we get married?

Is it love? Is it the need for companionship? Is it to have children? Or…is there something more?

In India, from childhood to well into our late teens, we are hauled to wedding after wedding in the family, of family friends, neighbors, neighbor’s family and so on. As children we are likely blissfully unaware of what a wedding really is. At least, what I remember of weddings when I was a child is wearing beautiful silk clothes, jewelry and flowers, getting cuddled and mollycoddled by many, facing utter confusion at the sight of the number of food items on my banana leaf, and running aimlessly around large, noisy halls with cousins or kids I would have just met.

But, in all our lives, there comes a day when we stop running around those large halls. There comes a day when we, like meerkats, suddenly take notice of that one moment in that wedding when everyone’s attention is turned towards that bride and groom on the stage. At that moment, the pakka vaadyam plays in full zest, the priests chant the mantras in loud, clear tones, heaps of flowers and grains of yellow rice rain on the couple. In that moment, a sense of boundless celebration pervades through the hall and we think; Ah… now THAT is one place I would like to see myself in one day.

That celebratory vision remains etched in our mind. Every person thereon that we like or date, we subconsciously wonder whether they would fit that image. We watch movies and read books that assure us that we will someday, find our soulmate, the love of our life, and all will be merry. We go through the grind of life, work and personal relationships, and we think, no, a wedding will be different. We have brief periods when we put away the thought of a wedding because of a broken heart, but we still hold onto that vision of happily ever after. At some point, we even face pressure from our family and society to ‘do the right thing’, yet we conquer that coercion by waiting for that grand vision to unfold with the ‘right person’.

One day, when we can’t find any more reasons to delay, we take the leap. Whether it is by choice or force, we leap and eagerly wait for that grand vision to unfold.

Except, it doesn’t.

After the initial pleasure of living with our partner wanes, we realize that life moves on as usual. What we are left with is another personal relationship to sustain with a partner who comes with their own quirks, habits, expectations and limitations.

We try hard to bring back that vision and make it a reality, only to realize that the vision has changed to something else; a child, a flying career, a dream retirement home maybe, or something like that.

When that one big vision fails to bring us lasting happiness, and in a snap our mind simply moves on to the next vision, we wonder; why do we really get married?

It’s not our partner’s fault. It’s not our fault either. It’s not our family’s fault. Not our society’s either. It’s just how we have been told to live, and told to think. At times, it’s what we’ve thought would give us happiness.

The beauty of questioning such a substantial part of our life, is that it sets off a series of questions about the biggest and smallest decisions we’ve taken in our lives so far; our choice (or seemingly our choice) of academics, our choice of cities we’ve lived in, our choice of values we’ve held on to, our choice of relationships we’ve lost and held on to, our choice of places we’ve been to. Hell, even the choice of food we’ve subjected our bodies to. Eventually, when we can probe no more, we realize that every single small and big decision we’ve taken in our life, we’ve done so to make ourselves happy. But, has that happiness really lasted? I bet not. Then, what is it that we were seeking? After going through a whirlwind of calmness and mayhem, I realized, what we are, after all seeking all our life through all these decisions is, contentment. Not happiness. Not desire. Not grand visions. But simply, contentment. Contentment in the truth that we are, right now, doing just what we are meant to be doing, being just who we are meant to be.

For me, this answer came from probing through my marriage to different parts of my past to the present. For you, this answer might come from shrugging those deep questions and simply looking deep into the eyes of your child and realizing that this is what we all, for a lifetime, are trying to go after — contentment.

So, one day, when we have no more harsh words to exchange, no more pennies to earn, no more houses to buy, and no more energy to fulfill our desires, when our partner, who was a big part of our celebratory vision and eventually daily life itself, simply becomes part of who we are, one we can and cannot live without, we find that moment of contentment in that acceptance, in that absence of expectation and wonder; why did we get married?

Maybe, because it is just as it was meant to be. We just chose to ignore it and set our vision elsewhere — behind or forward.