Arkotong Longkumer
In a recent commentary on the notion of modern marriages, or rather celebrity marriages, Professor Gideon Garter, in the Sunday Times supplement (Style Magazine) makes a very interesting argument. Using Nietzsche to demonstrate his quotidian sensibility, he proposes this argument.
“Rationality has been utterly lost in modern marriage, which is no objection to marriage, but rather to modernity. The abolition of marriage was key to Nietzsche’s critique of modernity. He argued that once shorn of its legal indissolubility and with the power to choose a spouse removed from the parents in favour of the couple, marriage no longer had any rational basis as an institution. To base marriage on love, he wrote, was more irrational still: “Never, absolutely never, can an institution be founded on an idiosyncrasy”. But base it on something real, such as the search for a celebrity fiancé to enhance the visibility of one’s own public image, and you have something beautifully nihilist, beautifully Nietzschean. Such as in the case of Billy Zane and Kelly Brooke, say, or Peter Andre and Jordan, or Tom Cruise and almost anyone.”
The objection to modern marriages, argues the author, is that rationality is divorced (no pun intended) from the notion of a familial sense of duty. This is not to say that modern marriages lack rationality, which the author discounts as “utterly lost”. Marriages can be utterly rational as well as utterly irrational. The traditional ideas of marriage, prior to the Troubadour tradition (which introduced the notion of romantic love) were largely that of fulfilling a social contract. In this sense marriages were mostly for economic benefit, social status, power relations, a contract between two families (as in paying dowry and bride price), as well as establishing and maintaining a prevailing class system. This contract was binding and obligatory; a break in the cycle (a love marriage, for example, involving the choice of two individuals) would often create disequilibrium in the social system.
Modernity, in its own way, has this gripping hold on how marriage is viewed. Marriage, to some people, is no longer a sacred institution with its ritualistic overtones, binding relationships. Weddings in churches or in temples, somehow pushes the idea that marriage is sacramental with its connection to religious symbolism. But can we truly say that marriage only exists in this Puritan form? Why can’t marriage exist outside of these formal contracts? Should marriage be limited in this way?
Many of my friends seem to revolt at this idea of marriage. They would rather, instead, rely on social responsibility and individual accountability to maintain a system where two people are happily in love and are willing to go into a lasting relationship without having it announced by a Priest in any setting, as if that is the only way marriages are sanctioned. Is this, then, a modernist argument, or is it rather a natural way of evolution?
I think the author, in the use of Nietzsche, has narrowed the idea of marriage to a certain function: that of critiquing modern marriage largely based on celebrity gossip and the razzmatazz of publicity. But moreover, it gives us a base on which to found a coherent argument: if an institution must be based upon something real, why can love not be that real something? Isn’t that the basic ingredient that makes marriage function?
In Naga society, the notion of marriage is still very traditional, something that is based on our social system, which is largely influenced by the Church. Conventional marriage is often sanctioned by the parents and approved by the church, marriage outside this conception is so often viewed pejoratively. Should we limit marriage to such a parochial notion? Of course, we cannot and should not apply solely modernist arguments to marriage: that of marriage being irrational or fleeting. Nietzsche argued that this modern view of marriage made it an absurdity and to have love as the basis for this institution a crazier idea still. An institution loses its impact if it is tailored to purely individual needs, rather than societal ones. But if love is that real something, then individual needs must also be acknowledged within this institution. This balance is, of course, offered neither by traditional society nor by modernity. It is only achieved by incorporating both these views.
Nietzsche obviously is critical of modernity, but to make marriage an accomplice in this rejection of modernity is irrational still. And, Nietzsche would, I think, quietly rejoice in the nihilism of modern marriages found in the searing celebrity columns that hardly offer us a commentary on how marriages should be, and yet marriage should not be judged on these fleeting examples. But the quip from Professor Garter is well intentioned and its reading should only lead one to form opinions on how modern marriages work in light of modernity and not on how modernity works in light of marriages.
Let’s start a debate on this issue: can the present notion of marriage achieve the balance between the conventional, socially binding, conception and one that can embrace modernity? Or have we lost the notion of marriage to the celebrity gossip columns? Let me know of your opinions.
(The writer is pursuing studies on Culture and Religion from Edinburgh University, UK)
