A marriage is union of two people and their families after an agreement with witnesses. Marriage can been performed either through court or the traditional way. It can be love marriage or arranged marriage. It is said that marriage is a very holy relation between two souls. There are two sides of the coin regarding marriage- a good side and a bad side of marriage. The series of incidents that happen before engagement and after marriage categories marriage as happier than the average marriages and not so happier than the normally a marriage is. It starts with the beginning of a wedding as the period between engagement and the wedding, with a feeling of happiness for the two persons before they are married but all this is also attached with a dark side of it, Dowry. Yes, you heard me right, dowry. Amidst the precious feelings of happiness and love between the two souls who will be married soon, there lies the dreaded fear and worrisome heart of the father of the bride to pay off the huge amount of the dowry that the groom's family demands in order to get them married at all. A warning is attached to it if the dowry is not paid then the wedding will not happen. It is a good fact to know that now-a-days, recently, a few people have stopped taking dowry from the bride's family but the fact still remains the same that majority of the people are still practicing the custom of the dowry.
During the fixation of the weddings, the elderly people take the liberty of setting the destiny of the young lives and decide who they will marry but there are a few examples of couples, who are selecting their spouses with their family and their own consent. The old age dilemma which the couples face is the judgmental approach of their elder family members against love marriages still persists. If at all by chance, they accept it but not with hundred percent acceptance from the heart like it is expected by the couple to be. I know several wedded couples who were married the traditional way(arranged marriage) but they are not compatible and happy with their married life. I am stating the level of the happiness and unhappiness of couples, acknowledging the fact, that normally, all the couples are not happy in some point of their married life. I am referring to the percentage of unhappiness that is more than fifty percent which is the usually experienced unhappiness.
Apart from this, couples face several problems in their married life, for example, domestic violence, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, financial exploitation, no right to take decisions related to real estate and stock market for women and dependency of wives on their husbands more than it normally should be. The good aspects of the wedlock are that we get a life partner to share our moments with, along with our own family, children, a lovely house and a committed relationship. We get a person we can love and receive love, at the same time, fight with them whenever we feel something is not right. Marriage takes an ugly side when there is high level of male dominance and abusive behavior in the relationship. As I am concluding, I wanted to say that I am neither with nor against the practice of marriage that everyone does. I have written the assessment I performed with keeping in mind, the observations and facts that I have gathered regarding several aspects of marriage. The crucial and the necessary elements of any relationship is trust, faith, love, commitment, feelings to care for, mutual respect, acceptance for the way the person is with the strengths and weaknesses of him or her, proper communication, the right methods of controlling the temper and monitoring the words that we speak while arguing and spending quality time together.