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Compatibility: The litmus test of a good marriage?
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Since the last two or three decades much has been made of compatibility in marriage. We hear of how important it is for couples to be compatible-sexually and in their personality traits-and how a marriage is surely headed for the rocks if the husband and wife are low on compatibility.
Psychologists say
A number of psychologists and marriage counselors advocate these views. But what of those couples who go through arranged marriages with virtually no consideration for compatibility? Thanks to our Indian tradition, innumerable marriages are solemnized with the boy and the girl having said 'yes' solely on the basis of photographs or a single meeting. Is any thought given to matching the two for compatibility? They start living as husband and wife without so much as knowing each other's views, leave alone checking out whether they are compatible, sexually or otherwise. If the compatibility requirement is valid then we should be seeing thousands upon thousands of unhappy or broken marriages in the country.
Urban approval... dating gets a thumbs-up
On the other hand, in large metropolitan cities, the last two decades have witnessed an increasing number of love marriages. Love meaning as opposed to arranged where a boy and girl actually date, and get to know each other before they decide to marry. Two important functions of dating are: the boy and girl find out whether they love each other and whether they are compatible for marriage. Shouldn't we therefore expect a greater level of compatibility among couples who have known each other for at least six months before they chose to tie the knot? However, even with love marriages the divorce rate is high and leads us to the question whether compatibility is a much-hyped requirement and should other considerations be given more importance: similar backgrounds, educational qualifications, similar goals and enthusiasm etc...
Perhaps, the "other considerations" result in more compatibility than simply love marriages. Thus, it would be fair to say couples do not or cannot judge their degree of compatibility going solely by love. In most cases they end up marrying each other with little or no thought to whether their marriage will actually work.
Break-up vs make-up in the west
In the West, where love marriages have been the norm, the divorce rate is alarmingly high. You would think that individuals would check for the compatibility factor before they ventured into marriage since they are well aware of it. And yet, divorce rates soar. So, is it time to put the compatibility requirement to rest? Perhaps so, because while compatibility in marriage makes logical and psychological sense there are other factors, equally or more important, for the marriage to work. Compatibility, we may say, is a necessary but not a sufficient ingredient for the marriage to work.
When people talk of compatibility in marriage they are often referring to sexual compatibility. So let us examine the validity of sexual compatibility as the litmus test of a successful marriage. In this regard, it is expected that the husband and wife should be similar, if not identical, in their sexual appetites. It would be disastrous if one of them wanted sex every day while the other desired it about once a week or less; or, it would be great if the two enjoyed sex to the same depth, and / or obtained gratification or reached climax around the same time; above all, it would be wonderful if the two of them knew how to give pleasure, knew what sexual responses to make, and knew how to appropriately receive sexual responses. In the absence of these kinds of similarity-read compatibility-in the couple, their 'sex life' would be a source of immense frustration, spilling over into other areas of marriage and causing the eventual rift.
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