East or West

 Today on Twitter I saw few deriding west and all that . I don’t agree that everything in west is bad and here everything is all hunky dory in families. Good and bad people are everywhere.. and certain ways of doing things are different.

Good things which I like about western culture..

Individuality is encouraged, one is given lot of choices in everything. And independence is cultivated. And it is taught from the very beginning the concept of give and take, like if someone is kind to you, you also return it in some way and in very small small things.

children leave home early and make their own life, so they don’t feel obligation to look after parents but in general most of them care and do.

What I don’t want us to emulate is 

They give too much freedom to adolescents and too much exposure to sex, teenage pregnancies are biggest problem in any society. I feel that one should do only when one can take the consequences.otherwise whole life goes for a toss and a dysfunctional generation is born.

Secondly marriages shouldn’t be taken lightly, never marry in haste and repent at leisure. And divorce shouldn’t be a first option if you have kids ,multiple marriages and kids from that bring so many negative influences. I would advise not to marry unless you have patience to compromise.or don’t have children in multiple marriages.

In India basically our culture is good and very selfless but it has its own problem. Because however we may adulate parents, they are not very fair and impartial. Of course they look after children selfless ly in childhood( though not all parents do even that) they take their pound of flesh with their grown up children.Our society  puts lot of pressure on children to take care of their parents financially, emotionally and physically and here I differ, I feel it’s a two way street, where parents should also get down from their high chair and be nice to their son family and they also have equal responsibility to make others happy.

I see many parents who want to run everything their own way , if they are living together. They must take retirement from active participation in everything.

SHTISEL

 This is an Israeli series on Netflix, it was recommended by my dear friend Amrita. Initially I didn’t like it much but then it grows on you. It has 2 seasons of 12 episode each. It’s the story of ultra orthodox people who have their own ways of living. Like hair style, dress.. (all married women wear a sort of cap to cover their hairs),their own education and laws.

Instead of whole story , I would like to point out what I liked and disliked in any character.

Shulem shtisel is a widower and teacher who becomes principal later there. He enjoys food, so whenever any widow shares it with him, he is more than happy but doesn’t want to commit in relationship and in the end when he commits to one Menukha , she is very dominating and the way he cancels it , I liked it. He is looking forward fir his son to find a mate.His is such a normal character, a man who looks for company , but still reminisces about his dead wife, cares for his children  to the extent that interferes in their life to their chagrin. He is conservative and rigid in his attitude.

Akiva shtisel.. son of shulem.. initially he comes across a little bumbling person who is drifting here and there. He is an artist, goes to a meeting arranged to find a bride,and just because that girl cries he says yes, but later tells the truth. Then falls in love with a widowed mother of a child, persues here relentlessly, gets engaged but his father puts an end to this when he comes to know that that lady is presently not interested in marriage. In the last he meets his cousin Libbi and finds love,her father puts conditions and he accepts everything, even putting a stop to his passion painting. He redeems his character when towards the end he realised that one should be loved the way one is and Libbi also realised the manipulation’s of his father.Michael Aloni has played the part of Akiva very well,very lovable.

Then there is Giti daughter If shulem married to Lippe Weiss, who leaves her for another woman but later regrets and comes back. She initially wants him to come back but later resents.Their daughter Ruchami goes and gets married to a poor studious boy who is initially rejected by her family but later accepted.

One thing I find different is that these people are ok with having so many children like Giti has 6. And marrying at any age is considered normal for both man and woman.. They have computers but watching TV is considered bad.

The Top Ten Myths of Marriage

==============================

1. Marriage benefits men much more than women.

Contrary to earlier and widely publicized reports, recent
research finds men and women to benefit about equally from
marriage, although in different ways. Both men and women live
longer, happier, healthier and wealthier lives when they are
married. Husbands typically gain greater health benefits while
wives gain greater financial advantages.


2. Having children typically brings a married couple closer
together and increases marital happiness.

Many studies have shown that the arrival of the first baby
commonly has the effect of pushing the mother and father farther
apart, and bringing stress to the marriage. However, couples
with children have a slightly lower rate of divorce than
childless couples.


3. The keys to long-term marital success are good luck and
romantic love.

Rather than luck and love, the most common reasons couples give
for their long-term marital success are commitment and
companionship. They define their marriage as a creation that has
taken hard work, dedication and commitment (to each other and to
the institution of marriage). The happiest couples are friends
who share lives and are compatible in interests and values.


4. The more educated a woman becomes, the lower are her chances
of getting married.

A recent study based on marriage rates in the mid-1990s
concluded that today's women college graduates are more likely
to marry than their non-college peers, despite their older age
at first marriage. This is a change from the past, when women
with more education were less likely to marry.


5. Couples who live together before marriage, and are thus able
to test how well suited they are for each other, have more
satisfying and longer-lasting marriages than couples who do not.

Many studies have found that those who live together before
marriage have less satisfying marriages and a considerably
higher chance of eventually breaking up. One reason is that
people who cohabit may be more skittish of commitment and more
likely to call it quits when problems arise. But in addition,
the very act of living together may lead to attitudes that make
happy marriages more difficult. The findings of one recent
study, for example, suggest "there may be less motivation for
cohabiting partners to develop their conflict resolution and
support skills." (One important exception: cohabiting couples
who are already planning to marry each other in the near future
have just as good a chance at staying together as couples who
don't live together before marriage).


6. People can't be expected to stay in a marriage for a lifetime
as they did in the past because we live so much longer today.

Unless our comparison goes back a hundred years, there is no
basis for this belief. The enormous increase in longevity is due
mainly to a steep reduction in infant mortality. And while
adults today can expect to live a little longer than their
grandparents, they also marry at a later age. The life span of a
typical, divorce-free marriage, therefore, has not changed much
in the past fifty years. Also, many couples call it quits long
before they get to a significant anniversary: half of all
divorces take place by the seventh year of a marriage.


7. Marrying puts a woman at greater risk of domestic violence
than if she remains single.

Contrary to the proposition that for men "a marriage license is
a hitting license," a large body of research shows that being
unmarried-and especially living with a man outside of marriage-
is associated with a considerably higher risk of domestic
violence for women. One reason for this finding is that married
women may significantly underreport domestic violence. Further,
women are less likely to marry and more likely to divorce a man
who is violent. Yet it is probably also the case that married
men are less likely to commit domestic violence because they are
more invested in their wives' wellbeing, and more integrated
into the extended family and community. These social forces seem
to help check men's violent behavior.


8. Married people have less satisfying sex lives, and less sex,
than single people.

According to a large-scale national study, married people have
both more and better sex than do their unmarried counterparts.
Not only do they have sex more often but they enjoy it more,
both physically and emotionally.


9. Cohabitation is just like marriage, but without "the piece of
paper."

Cohabitation typically does not bring the benefits-in physical
health, wealth, and emotional wellbeing-that marriage does. In
terms of these benefits cohabitants in the United States more
closely resemble singles than married couples. This is due, in
part, to the fact that cohabitants tend not to be as committed
as married couples, and they are more oriented toward their own
personal autonomy and less to the wellbeing of their partner.


10. Because of the high divorce rate, which weeds out the
unhappy marriages, people who stay married have happier
marriages than people did in the past when everyone stuck it
out, no matter how bad the marriage.

According to what people have reported in several large national
surveys, the general level of happiness in marriages has not
increased and probably has declined slightly. Some studies have
found in recent marriages, compared to those of twenty or thirty
years ago, significantly more work-related stress, more marital
conflict and less marital interaction.10


~From the National(US)Marriage Project's Ten Things to Know Series~
http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/tenthingsseries.html