On Relationships and the Institute of Marriage
Before we delve into what this essay is about, we must highlight what it is NOT about. To begin with, this essay does not seek to criticise any individual’s or group’s personal beliefs, nor does it seek to provide objective answers. Attempting to do so would only waste the words of the writer and the time of the readers as seeking objective answers to subjective beliefs can only lead one to walk in circles. This essay aims to question the nature of relationships, love and the legitimacy of marriage and in that process to deconstruct and analyse a social phenomenon so normalised and assimilated into the global culture that it stands today as one of the waving banners of a happy and successful life. The motivation behind this essay lies precisely in the fact that there is a growing population of people who would question the validity of the last four words of the previous sentence. The last few decades have seen a drastic shift in global attitudes towards ideas of love, marriage and relationships in general. This new wave of perception could be attributed to the postmodernist movement of the late 20th century but to leave it at that would be like walking to the edge of the rabbit hole and not peeking down. In a more abstract sense, the objectives of this essay are to ignite the spark of curiosity, to encourage dissidence in the form of rationalising the validity of ideas and most importantly to encourage the rejection of dogma by allowing one’s mind to step outside its comfort zone and peer down the metaphorical rabbit hole.
To be rigorous in our analysis, we must define all the terms we shall use throughout this essay as and when they appear, no matter how trivial they may seem. Let’s begin by defining a relationship. The dictionary defines a relationship as “The way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected”. We could proceed with such a definition however, such a definition is all but too broad to be used in a meaningful analysis. For instance, such a definition does not differentiate between relationships between people and between possessions. The relationship highlighted in the phrase “My bag” is therefore no different from that highlighted in “My friend”. We can expand on this definition by defining a relationship to be “a mutually consequential and symbolic connection between two or more parties”. Such a definition of a relationship is closer to our intuitive understanding of human relationships. With such a definition in mind, the question that arises is, can we categorise all the seemingly innumerable relationships that we as human beings possess? Before we attempt to do that, it is important to note that we cannot ignore the veil of subjectivity surrounding the very definition of relationships. Therefore in order to proceed, we need to anchor ourselves to a fixed reference frame. A thought in that direction leads one to realise that while an understanding of relationships on a collective scale may be nearly impossible, we can simplify the situation by defining all relationships with respect to the self. While this may seem obvious, it is important to recognise the power of such a mode of analysis. Doing so helps us ignore redundant relationships without sacrificing on the "relationship" itself. To elucidate this, one only needs to pick any of his/her relationships with someone. For example let’s say Mary is John’s teacher. To Mary, John is a student whereas to John, Mary is his teacher. While the two are complementary, without any frame of reference they create the impression of there being two relationships between two people, thereby increasing the complexity of the system. By defining the relationship with respect to the self, the redundancy and complexity is reduced. If John were reading this, then within his reference frame there is just one relationship between Mary and him - of her being his teacher, and the same holds for Mary. Thus both of them need not be concerned about the complementarity of the relationship; Mary need not take into account John’s frame of reference when considering her relationship with him. Thus this realisation serves to highlight the seemingly trivial and obvious way in which we innately define our relationships. The complexity involved in attempting to convey such an obvious phenomenon brings to light the limits of our tools of communication when it comes to explaining subjective and innate processes.
With the definition of a relationship in one hand and an understanding that all relationships must henceforth be seen from one’s own frame of reference (in contrast to an absolute sense), we may begin to dig deeper to understand the nature of the relationships we possess and attempt to categorise them. All the relationships that we possess, can broadly be classified into four major categories - The ego or the relationship with the self, professional relationships, familial relationships and personified relationships. These four categories can be loosely imagined to form a pyramid structure, their positions on the pyramid being defined on the basis of intimacy (with respect to the self). It is worth noting that intimacy here, is not synonymous with importance. The reason for sorting these relationships on the basis of intimacy is that intimacy being an innate human trait transcends cross cultural differences and provides a more objective basis for the sorting of relationships in the form to be described. Another important point to note is that it is not the contents of the relationships that are being discussed here but it is their essence which is of importance. The contents of the relationship are beyond the reach of our analytic understanding as their nature varies from relationship to relationship, placing it well beyond the scope of our analysis.
Getting back to the kinds of relationships mentioned previously, if we place them in our pyramid structure, the base would be occupied by professional relationships which encapsulates all the relationships we possess and create (even on a daily basis) between other members of our immediate surroundings or in our close society. These relationships make up the majority of all our human relationships. Because of the sheer abundance of these kinds of relationships it is difficult to imagine all of them belonging to the same category and this is where the pyramid structure comes in handy. As one goes up the pyramid the level of intimacy between the relationships increases. This gradient of intimacy applies even within the categories themselves. Starting with professional relationships, the lowest levels (in the pyramid) of these relationships include the relationships which exist for the duration of a transaction between individuals such as that between a person and a shopkeeper or the postman who delivers a letter to a person or even the stranger on the bus with whom one may engage in a conversation with for the duration of the journey. Such transaction based relationships, more often than not, have incredibly short lifespans. Going higher, one may begin to find professional relationships with increasing personal impact on one’s life. These may include, relationships between one and their teachers or bosses, colleagues and even a large portion of digital friendships. The relative positions of these relationships on the professional relationship tier of the pyramid are arranged based on subjective experiences with certain common traits. It is at this level that friendships begin to appear. Acquaintances may be considered to fall under transaction based relationships unless and until they begin to develop into friendships, at which point they appear at this higher level of professional relationships. The upper limits of professional relationships are occupied by those that have the highest impact on one’s life (within the set of professional relationships) and in general include relationships such as those of best friends, or one’s favourite teacher and so on. It may be striking to some that relationships such as friendships have been categorised into professional relationships which so far seem to be in contrast to a personal relationship and it is at this point that it would be useful to note that the professional relationships were defined as relationships created by society and by our social interactions. They do not stand in contrast to personal relationships and in fact host a large number of relationships that can by all means be considered “personal”. It is important not to think of professional relationships here as mutually exclusive from personal relationships; they simply are defined by our social interactions and exchanges. This leads us onto the next category of relationships which lies above the realm of professional relationships, namely, familial relationships. Based on human intuition, one may define familial relationships as “all those human relationships that are created at the time of birth, are inflexible or permanent and create a sense of possession between the parties involved”. These include the relationships attached to the labels of father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, grandmother etc. The creation of these relationships lies outside the realm of simple social interaction and require a direct connection between various members in a familial relationship. One may argue against the placement of familial relationships over professional relationships (based on increasing intimacy), by providing examples of cases in which a person may be closer to their teacher or their best friend than say, their parents. While that certainly holds true for a number of cases, it is important to remind ourselves here that we are analysing the nature of relationships as a whole and not their contents. The reason, familial relationships find themselves above professional relationships in the pyramid model is due to the fact that the closest of professional relationships can only emulate a familial relationship but can never in an objective sense become one, thereby demarcating the two kinds of relationships.
The third category of relationships i.e, personified relationships, is an interesting one as it challenges the purity in the structure of the pyramid model. Personified relationships are as the name suggests personified or are given human characteristics. These relationships may or may not truly exist for both parties complementarily or in a meaningful way, but are assumed to be so by the self. Such relationships include a relationship between a person and his pet dog or to the plants he/she may nurture in their garden. They also include the relationship one may have with an ideological entity such as that between a person and his/her native country or their homes or even the rivers and mountains that they may associate themselves with and so on. Such connections fit well with our definition of a relationship as they are mutually consequential and symbolic in nature. They both exert an influence on one another in a consequential manner. Such kinds of relationships find themselves hybridising between the intimacy levels of familial relationships as the creation of personified relationships prerequisites strong human emotions and bonds to be associated with the personified object or entity (for instance many if not all consider their pet dog as a part of their family - creating a sense of possession within the self) while at the same time carrying the dynamic nature of professional relationships. One may purchase a new house for example or adopt a dog, implying that these relationships can be created at will unlike familial relationships which are independent of human will and are created automatically at the time of birth. Thus personified relationships do not entirely lie at the same tier as familial relationships or professional relationships but occupy an intermediate level while flowing into both.
Lastly, at the very top, one finds the last and final category of relationships which is the ego or the relationship of the self. Such a relationship sits at the very apex and is strictly demarcated from the others as it is unique in its existence. It consists of a single relationship - the relationship of one with one’s self. Such a relationship requires the existence of simply one external body. While this may seem to violate our definition of a relationship, further thought in this direction reveals that the self may be viewed as multiple virtual parties confined within a single body. This can be illustrated through several examples. For simplicity and impact let us consider a generalised case such as that of decision making. Every decision making thought process is a consequence of a conscious or subconscious inner dialogue between multiple parties in the mind. Here the definition of a party may be extended to involve various opinions or “voices” as they are more commonly known within our minds. Perhaps it is easier to think of this inner dialogue as one between two or more states of the mind. In most cases, these states are not evenly voiced or distributed which allows us to come to conclusions and make decisions. Thus there must exist at any given moment a dominant and a suppressed state of mind, clashing for dominance over physical action. These connections are but a small example of a vast nexus of interconnected connections that go on to formulate the relationship of the self. Interestingly, the ego can never be experienced by anyone but the self. The corollary being that there is no way to completely verify the existence of an ego within anyone else.
Thus, we have created a model that attempts to encapsulate all human relationships. It is interesting to note that apart from the ego all other levels of the pyramid model do not have strictly demarcated lines and there exist relationships that can be viewed as conterminous possibilities, blurring the lines between the different tiers. Personified relationships as mentioned before can flow into professional and familial relationships but is there a kind of relationship that is exclusive to personified relationship and is conterminous to both familial and professional relationships? The answer is yes. It is the institute of marriage or more generally romantic relationships that blur the lines between the two kinds of relationships (familial and professional), increasing the overall complexity of the system. Unlike other familial relationships, the relationship between two entities in a marriage or in love is not determined at birth but creates a strong sense of possession that leads the parties to attribute it to a familial relationship. At the same time, these relationships are based on social interactions between the involved parties and lack the assured permanence of familial relationships. Thus one can find a conflict of identity when it comes to categorising marriage and romantic love. The tremendous sense of possession that comes with love and ultimately with marriage has had the effect of not only involving the two parties in a familial relationship but also the familial relationships of the parties themselves are woven together to form similar familial relationships which have no basis of belonging within that category. It is this paradoxical nature and conflict of identity lying at the heart of the idea of marriage that has now under a postmodern wave of the past few decades, led to an increasingly growing scrutiny of the notion of marriage. Marriage has always been seen as the stamp of eternal love assuring the couple that they were now entwined in eternal conjugation. While the first cracks in this idea may have appeared in the late roman empire with the legal introduction of the concept of divorce, it was only in the 20th century that the notion of marriage and divorce began to be challenged. With the growing platforms of social media, online love and the global dating culture the challenge has only grown stronger today. Is longevity in a relationship a true symbol of mutual satisfaction and happiness? If a marriage can be dissolved through divorce, why marry at all? These questions are by no means frivolous or trivial but have a deep impact on a rapidly evolving society. This can be seen in the creation and rise of live-in relationships where both parties are in a familial relationship with no legally recognised connections between them. Live-in relationships or even the dating culture however, do almost nothing to help categorise romantic relationships into one of the categories of our model; the consequence being that a growing population of people are beginning to rethink socially indoctrinated ideas of love and are struggling to put a label on their relationships with their romantic partners.
The path appears to fork into two at this point of time. One path leading to an acceptance of conventional definitions of love and marriage with participants not questioning the legitimacy of their relationship or the nature of it, while the other path with a growing number of pedestrians is the one filled with questions about the nature of marriage and of love but with few or no answers, leading its pedestrians to either distance themselves from entering romantic relationships or to backtrack and take the other path out of frustration in dealing with complex existential questions with no answers and only greater confusion and disarray. Therefore, it is in the spirit of initiating thought in this matter that the problem of understanding the nature of relationships and the pyramid model as a tool to do so have been laid forth. The questioning and understanding of one’s self and of one’s bonds which are integral to him/her is the only way to find one’s place in the world and his/ her subjective experience of life.