Family values constitute core of our social system. It is a well-known truth. The home schooling remains imprinted on our minds from cradle to grave. Most of us are bound by these values and follow them like scriptures because that is important for the harmonious growth of our society or whatever we do. This institution is under assault.
Society rests on the values of trust. And marriage forms an important bond and an institution that helps spread the societal values of high quality. This is common to all religions. In Hinduism, it is trusted that the “matches are fixed by divinity.” This is not a dogma, even if it is, it is a way forward in fostering a healthy relationship between man and wife who are ordained to run a family. This concept doesn’t mean enslaving each other. It is to trust each other. Trust begets trust. There, however, is a saying among Hindus that once the couple enters into a wedlock, it is destined to last for seven births – a rough translation of mantras that priests speak at the time accomplishments of the wedding.
In Islam, family unit is one of the most important institutions. There are definite and divine guidelines about the role of the husband, wife, mother, father and children toward their parents. Maintaining purity in the relationship of husband and wife is ordained during all sorts of crises. That leads to the healthy society.
Islam is very clear about the institution of marriage and its sanctity. In fact, it gives equal rights to men and women to choose heir life partners with the consent of the parents. That’s why, the marriage is solemnized after the consent of the man and woman in presence of respectable social figures and the families of the bride and the bridegroom.
Western society is breaking up, family values are caught in headwinds because the commitment to the family and loyalty to the spouse have come out of the mutual trust. There may be many justifications for the western lifestyle in which the multiple relationships are justified in the garb of liberty and the respect for the individual way of living. That is producing horrible stories of disintegration of families. This is causing frustration and depression, and no amount of technology and scientific accomplishments have been able to mitigate the suffering of the people all across the world.
One may not agree with the political and ideological motivations of Syed Ali Shah Geelani who is seen as a father figure of secessionism but some of his observations about the Supreme Court judgments are thought provoking. And, he is not alone in his thinking that these judgments have inflicted a damage on the moral values and social fabric. There can be no argument against what he says about the family lives in this part of the world. Liberty is not a license for adultery, and the issue of the homosexuality that he has also touched as an unnatural phenomenon also deserves serious attention.
He is right in expressing his concern over the judgments and observing that this is an onslaught on the social and family fabric. “Judicial decisions about homosexuality earlier and adultery now, threaten the very existence of the society.”
These words deserve not only deserve attention but also call for introspection that “legalizing the same sex marriage is on open war against nature and the human race ceases to exist if such immoral, unnatural and unethical laws are implemented. Indian culture is already at the verge of destruction where every nine minutes a woman is raped or sexually harassed. Now laws like this further tarnish these cultural and family ethos.”
It would have been better had the Supreme Court taken a firm decision on the rising incidence of rapes in the country. More than nine months have passed and there is no verdict on Rasana rape and murder victim. And what happened in Uri recently is equally horrific, and there are reports appearing about the girls being raped in schools, colleges and commuter vehicles. These are the issues that need judicial intervention.
Geelani is 100 per cent right in saying, ” the basic and fundamental pillars of a healthy and moral society are a well cultured and morally sensitive family ties—but these basics are bulldozed in the name of equality and modernity.
He said that physical relationship between a man and women, without the confines and contours of marriage, are legalized, it opens the doors for prostitutions, sexual anarchy and destruction and when it goes unabated, every trace of sanity and humanity is lost—giving rise to numberless beasts and social vultures that always ambush to target their prey.”
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