Posted on Thursday, January 20, 2011 | By Gautam | In civilization , happiness , life , morality , relationships
Statutory warning: Stop judging. This post has more to do with polygamous thoughts than absolute polygamy.
Polygamy. It's a dirty word (I'll continue at the expense of being booed as a Mahesh Bhatt clone). Or so you believe because the social construct around you has programmed your thoughts in a certain way. Here I am, claiming polygamy, something deeply detrimental to the moral-social fabric, as the truth. It is an antithesis to the very institution of marriage which is more of a system to prevent family wealth to squander away. Or in some, err most parts of India, an instrument of amassing wealth. Yes, dowry. But that is not the bone of contention here. Man is a polygamous animal. Our 'thoughts' wander all so routinely. No? Maybe you're a reincarnation of some yogi or you need to see a doctor.
As much as we hate to accept it, polygamy creeps in our daily lives. Traveling in a bus, I can't but appreciate how a certain lady carries herself. Oh! I should've talked to that cute boy, a female's tweet proclaims on Twitter. A lil' bit of flirting is harmless, isn't it? And why or rather where do we gather the courage to indulge something as ungodly as that? We're alone. It is our zen of solitude. And our thoughts wander. To the unholy, unacceptable evil. Cocooned in our monotonous 9 to 5 lives, maybe we do look forward to that bus ride, that air travel or what have you. Platforms like Twitter have given masses a medium to vent out or confess, as the case may be. It lets you be anonymous yet true. And I see more and more rants, confessing. In our secret lives, we all want to be Barney Stinson or as the older generation would have said, Hugh Hefner.
How or why is beyond my comprehension. We just do. A rather pathetic example witnessed is of a certain moral broker of how certain birds like penguins stay true to only one partner for their entire life. Lest we should forget, we're talking about an animal, a brain which hasn't evolved. Most of the activities that animals indulge in are either out of their sheer instinct or they're wired in a certain manner. Have you ever witnessed any animal procreating beyond its mating season? No. Humans, on the other hand with their highly evolved brains and a false sense of morality mate all year long. And that is why you see so many of them around you eating away resources at will. The parallel drawn is flawed. The underlying logic beneath this example would put a Systems Theory professor to shame.
Pick up any lifestyle magazine, TOI or whatever you read, a self professed relationship guru will be doling out suggestions to save marriages / relationships. Most of them will suggest couples to indulge in role plays and pornography. Such voyeuristic pleasures. If it was for your monogamous behavior, traffic to pornographic sites would be minuscule instead of a Goliathesqque 80% of the total traffic. Avenues like Facebook has married / in a relationship partner stalking. If you need to imagine someone else while procreating, are you really monogamous? The fact that we accept it as counseling to save marriages is a step in making polygamous thoughts legal in our moral fabric. Men are openly polygamous. Ask any woman from Delhi about her plight to cover herself from lecherous looks and you'll be opening Pandora's box. This is not to suggest that women are absolutely monogamous. All these years of my existence have taught me otherwise.
Morality isn't absolute. It evolves with time. It is influenced by many factors. But most of it is rooted deeply in either Victorian era or is defined by the clergy or the moral police of that region. But morality is flexible. It is subjective. It varies from person to person. So should be the construct of monogamy.
Christopher Nolan's Joker indulged in a social experiment. And he did expose the frailties of a morally strong yet weak people. We indulge in such experiments daily. And we keep the results to ourselves only to look forward to another such result. As far as morality goes, I like to baptize with the following adage, "Make a stew out of your morality and have it".
Polygamy. It's a dirty word (I'll continue at the expense of being booed as a Mahesh Bhatt clone). Or so you believe because the social construct around you has programmed your thoughts in a certain way. Here I am, claiming polygamy, something deeply detrimental to the moral-social fabric, as the truth. It is an antithesis to the very institution of marriage which is more of a system to prevent family wealth to squander away. Or in some, err most parts of India, an instrument of amassing wealth. Yes, dowry. But that is not the bone of contention here. Man is a polygamous animal. Our 'thoughts' wander all so routinely. No? Maybe you're a reincarnation of some yogi or you need to see a doctor.
As much as we hate to accept it, polygamy creeps in our daily lives. Traveling in a bus, I can't but appreciate how a certain lady carries herself. Oh! I should've talked to that cute boy, a female's tweet proclaims on Twitter. A lil' bit of flirting is harmless, isn't it? And why or rather where do we gather the courage to indulge something as ungodly as that? We're alone. It is our zen of solitude. And our thoughts wander. To the unholy, unacceptable evil. Cocooned in our monotonous 9 to 5 lives, maybe we do look forward to that bus ride, that air travel or what have you. Platforms like Twitter have given masses a medium to vent out or confess, as the case may be. It lets you be anonymous yet true. And I see more and more rants, confessing. In our secret lives, we all want to be Barney Stinson or as the older generation would have said, Hugh Hefner.
How or why is beyond my comprehension. We just do. A rather pathetic example witnessed is of a certain moral broker of how certain birds like penguins stay true to only one partner for their entire life. Lest we should forget, we're talking about an animal, a brain which hasn't evolved. Most of the activities that animals indulge in are either out of their sheer instinct or they're wired in a certain manner. Have you ever witnessed any animal procreating beyond its mating season? No. Humans, on the other hand with their highly evolved brains and a false sense of morality mate all year long. And that is why you see so many of them around you eating away resources at will. The parallel drawn is flawed. The underlying logic beneath this example would put a Systems Theory professor to shame.
Pick up any lifestyle magazine, TOI or whatever you read, a self professed relationship guru will be doling out suggestions to save marriages / relationships. Most of them will suggest couples to indulge in role plays and pornography. Such voyeuristic pleasures. If it was for your monogamous behavior, traffic to pornographic sites would be minuscule instead of a Goliathesqque 80% of the total traffic. Avenues like Facebook has married / in a relationship partner stalking. If you need to imagine someone else while procreating, are you really monogamous? The fact that we accept it as counseling to save marriages is a step in making polygamous thoughts legal in our moral fabric. Men are openly polygamous. Ask any woman from Delhi about her plight to cover herself from lecherous looks and you'll be opening Pandora's box. This is not to suggest that women are absolutely monogamous. All these years of my existence have taught me otherwise.
Morality isn't absolute. It evolves with time. It is influenced by many factors. But most of it is rooted deeply in either Victorian era or is defined by the clergy or the moral police of that region. But morality is flexible. It is subjective. It varies from person to person. So should be the construct of monogamy.
Christopher Nolan's Joker indulged in a social experiment. And he did expose the frailties of a morally strong yet weak people. We indulge in such experiments daily. And we keep the results to ourselves only to look forward to another such result. As far as morality goes, I like to baptize with the following adage, "Make a stew out of your morality and have it".
