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Two for Joy
What are the
reasons for the growing incidence of divorce in the city?
DIVYA KUMAR
They say marriages are made in heaven, but they're not lasting long
in our little corner of the earth these days. Divorce rates are
climbing steadily in the city, with more and more couples - mostly
young, educated professionals - going to court within a few years or
even months of marriage.
"There were about 2,000 divorces in Chennai, last year," says Uma
Ramanathan, high court lawyer. "But we've crossed the 2,600 mark by
July this year. And this is just in the three courts in the city."
 Let's
put it this way - there's been a 200 per cent increase in the number
of divorces in Chennai. And the bulk is between professionals in
their late twenties or early thirties, say counsellors and marital
therapists in the city.
"I've had couples come to me for counselling after as little as a
month of marriage," says counselling consultant Saras Bhaskar. "And
most of them have been together for less than six years."
Many are beginning to refer to it as an IT or ITES syndrome because
in several of these cases, both husband and wife work in the
software or BPO industry. "These couples have irregular sleeping and
eating habits, high levels of stress, and hardly get to spend any
quality time with each other," say Dr. Nappinai Seran, psychologist
and marriage therapist at the Family Court psychological counselling
centre. "We're seeing a rise in infertility and more and more cases
where marriages aren't being consummated at all."
But the rise in the number of divorces can't be attributed entirely
to IT careers, says Uma. "I think it's an indicator of a larger
societal change," she says. "Increasingly, people believe they
should live life on their own terms."
This is especially true of young women, says Saras, who were
traditionally expected to be accommodating to the needs of their
husbands and adjust to the family they marry into. "Young
professional women are financially independent and more empowered,
and men, who still cling to the past, need to learn how to handle
them," she says. That doesn't mean the fault is all the man's. "Some
of these women become unwilling to settle for less than perfection,
searching for some ideal or fantasy man rather than working with
what they've got," says Saras.
Lack of tolerance
The result is a lack of tolerance on both sides, leading to
divorce on the most frivolous grounds. "I've seen couples divorcing
because she feels he doesn't dress smartly enough or because he
feels she spends too much," says Dr. Nappinai. "These are not
reasons to end a marriage; they're reasons to sit down and talk to
each other."
Families can play a pivotal role in all of this - sometimes a bit
too much of a role, in the Indian context. "Often, the boy and girl
aren't allowed to discuss issues or make their own decisions," says
Saras. "Families on both sides get involved and a lot of mudslinging
follows."
There's also a disturbing trend of some women and their families
abusing laws such as the dowry or domestic violence laws that have
been put in place to protect them, according to Uma. "Once it
becomes a criminal case and the husband's whole family is dragged to
court over some minor domestic dispute, it becomes very hard to save
the marriage," she says.
So what next? One implication of this steady rise in divorces in the
city is a corresponding rise in the number of single-parent
families, bringing a whole new set of challenges along with it.
"Parenting today, even in a two-parent family, is a tough job," says
Shaila Rao, who conducts workshops for single parents in the city.
"Bringing up a well-balanced child without another parent to share
the responsibility is difficult."
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of sympathy in society for a
divorced single parent, she says: "The attitude tends to be 'you
made the mess, you clean it up.' But these parents are often very
young themselves, and need all the support they can get." That's why
her workshops try and help them come to terms with their emotional
state after the upheaval of divorce.
This is a process that's crucial for anyone going through a divorce,
says Dr. Nappinai, so they can understand what went wrong and give
themselves time to heal. "Too often, they rush into a second
marriage to prove to themselves or their former spouse that they
aren't to blame for the ending of their marriage," she says. And
having married again, they tend to hold on for dear life to that
relationship even if it's failing, according to Uma. "They'll do
anything to avoid the stigma of being 'twice-divorced'," she says.
There was a time not so long ago when the word 'divorce' was taboo
and ending even abusive or unhappy marriages was difficult in the
city. Now, it appears we may be poised to swing in the opposite
direction. But as the saying goes, perhaps the pendulum has to swing
to the other extreme before we can find a balance.
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High stress jobs and irregular timings