Whisperings

Ironically Sunday’s paper carried an article “bad marriages a health hazard” by health write Clair Weaver. Below is a summary of it.

“Couples who are trapped in a bad marriage are more likely to have heart attacks and die early, according to research that highlights the dire physical consequences of troubled relationships.

Those in the worst marital strife have been found to be 34 per cent more likely to develop heart disease than people in good partnerships. Experts attribute this to stress.

 The study of more than 9000 mostly married British adults, published in the archives of Internal Medicine last week found the quality of marriage was the most important factor.

It comes in the wake of research revealing women who stay silent and bottle up their  feelings during marital disputed have a much greater risk of dying than wives who let rip and express themselves.

But for men, being married is the most important factor in maintaining good health and avoiding early death regardless of arguments.

Other close relationships such as friends and relatives were also found to be crucial in avoiding heart disease and early death.

The Australian Family Association said the study might be limited in its usefulness because it compared bad marriages only to good ones, rather than people who were single, never married or divorced.”

This is similar to being ill-treated by ones’ parents. Ok, may be bad analogy.  

This is similar to parents cooing over the visitors’ child and caters to their every whim while their own is kept lurking in the background, totally ignored. Yeah, I think that is as good an analogy as any. I watch confused unable to comprehend why things are, the way they are.

I have every right to be accepted and validated as the visitors’ child. May be more so!

It is my home after all.

 Why is WordPress not pressing my words?  Api kalu da?

All my comments are picked up as spam, gobbled by Akismet and damned to the dungeons. Before I figured that out, I clicked ‘submit comment’ in answer to a comment made by one of my regular visitors.(in Cafe Culture) It just went to oblivion. I tried again and again and again, and…. ..they all went to nether land.  After the first few tries, WordPress popped its head every time I clicked ‘submit’, to inform me, that it looks like— from their high ground– I am duplicating comments. Helloo… had they appeared in the comment column, then ‘yes’ guilty as charged. But they did not, did they? Finally I gave up. Little did I know they were duplicated in spam.

That was then, this is now. I have written a new post since.(Knock Knock) When someone commented on it I thought I’ll reciprocate and clicked ‘submit’. Yes just like previous times my comment just vanished. Gobble-smacked.

As an honourable law abiding citizen I fight for my rights, so I did some detective work to get to the bottom of why I am suddenly persona non grata in my own place, when commenting.

I want to write, comment and read. no more no less.  Detective work eats a sizeable portion of my precious time.  

I am a highly sought after person with a demanding schedule and a hectic, head-spinning life.  So when an extra lug is added, the head stops at the wrong position in the spin. Not happy Jan!   I   do have a life outside of blogging you know.

Anyway after much digging I found out the culprit. Akismet gobbled up my comments! With my new found knowledge I sent my last comment - on ‘Knock Knock’ - to where it should have gone in the first place.

I am spam in my own place.

Go figure!                                                                                                                                           

I thought of writing this when I read couple of posts (this and this) about arranged marriages and readers thoughts on the subject. I did not want to answer on respective posts on people’s blogs, as my answers would have consisted of issues that were not raised hence my response would have been lengthy.  Also, add to the fact I did not want to counter people’s personal thoughts on their personal space.

I would like to address the concept of ‘arranged marriage’ itself. Is it still prevalent in today’s SL society?

For me there are two sets of marriages in SL; ‘love’ and ‘proposed’.

Are we confusing ‘arranged’ with ‘proposed’ marriages?  – I know it is a classic term used in SL but that is the term we use.   

We all know what love marriage is. What about proposed marriage? 

Is ‘proposed marriage’ the same as an ‘arranged marriage’? In an arranged marriage, the bride (or groom) has no say in the matter. In my view, the scales are heavy on the bride not having any say.

Proposed marriages however are entirely different. The two people involved do have a say in the matter. It is comparable to a blind date in the western society. You may not love each other as such but will like each other enough to say ‘yes’ to the ‘proposal’. One disadvantage would be the limited timeframe in getting to know each other before taking the plunge.

Personally speaking, I almost married my father’s, friend’s nephew. I thought he was ok, when we were introduced. I did not mind him so we met regularly –the getting to know process – I assumed he liked me too.

One day I heard from a mutual friend, the doc was in love with his uncle’s daughter and the uncle did not want him to marry his daughter. Doc had told the mutual friend “my uncle is pressuring me to marry Mia” That was enough for me to put an end to the fiasco.

Had that eventuated in marriage it would have been an ‘arranged marriage’ for him and a ‘proposed marriage’ for me as no one pressured me to marry him. This btw, is when I was younger (I am a mother of an eighteen year old now) and the society has changed to some extent.

Some people touched on the subject of why arranged marriages work or seem to work. It could be due to the simple fact, how our minds are habitually conditioned  (towards marriage) in a society like ours. Perception of, ‘A marriage is for life’ when you take the plunge does have some bearing in how we behave. If I am to put it simply  , having the thought of ‘no recourse’ when marrying, makes us just settle and accept. 

Sometimes it may seem to work because someone has given in, and majority of the time it will be the female. To quote a dear friend of mine about her marriage “we are together because I am used to him”. What she meant was, it is a mechanical process for her.To the outside world, they are the epitome of what a marriage is all about - A loving caring wife and a caring husband who provides well for his family and go to Mass together, every Sunday.

Degree of importance given to the compatibility of the horoscopes is higher in a proposed marriage than the compatibility (in real world terms) of the two people involved. I do not understand how this works yet I have heard countless parents say to their children,”you may not like him/her now, but the horoscopes are a perfect match and the astrologer said if this marriage is to take place, sky is the limit”. Claiming such a hypothetical can add pressure on the prospective bride/groom to say ‘yes’ to an unreal ‘rosy future’.

If I am to weigh the two, (love vs. proposed) give me ‘love’ any day. If (or when) such a union soured down the track, at least there will be some happy memories to fondly recall,  whereas to do the same with the other will be hard.

Sometimes a proposed marriage can be too barren from the very beginning to reminisce in the form of memories.