Is God of the Old Testament in the Bible cruel and bloodthirsty?

Is God as depicted in the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible, which deals with the history of Israel, a cruel and blood thirsty God? Is He different from the kind and merciful God projected by Jesus Christ in the New Testament, whom he called Father? Why is there so much of war and bloodshed in the Old Testament? Is this the reflection of cosmological or spiritual warfare or just a happening on the earth? In what way is Christianity different from Islam, which is said to have bred terrorism? Many of these questions are raised by the skeptics and believing Christians wonder where the truth is.

I thought I will take up these issues one by one in the next few blogs and try and answer these and many other related questions and try to clarify doubts. My non-Christian friends may wonder why they should go through these, for it does not concern them. I would suggest to them to read these just out of curiosity to know what the Bible is dealing with and definitely it is not wrong to know these things even if one is not a Christian. After all knowledge widens your horizon and it is good to know what another person’s scripture talks about. For, even though I am a Christian, I have gone through Bhagavad-Gita and Upanishads, the Hindu Scriptures. It adds generally to your knowledge and understanding. Hence I would encourage my non-Christian friends also to read these accounts and benefit from it.

Taking up the first issue, whether God of the Old Testament is a cruel and blood thirsty God, this premise itself has been framed by the skeptics and atheists, based mainly on the commands of God to Israelite to exterminate the old inhabitants of the Promised Land, Canaan. God, who ordered the wiping out of these inhabitants, including the children and sometimes the animals, is seen as an ethnic cleanser, racially biased and genocidal God. I will deal with only this issue in this blog, just for the sake of convenience and to avoid the blog becoming too long.

When God promised Abraham that He will bless Abraham’s descendants and give them the land of Canaan to inherit, He also foretold him that his descendants will be strangers and slaves in another land and that they will return after 400 hundred years and occupy the Canaanite land, belonging to the Amorites and many other nations. Genesis 15:13-21. God specifically mentioned that ‘in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Genesis 15:16. Amorites, the local inhabitants, God in His foreknowledge knew, will grow in depravity and in sin much more; still they were given 400 years to repent of their evil ways and return to God. Since they did not, judgment of God came on them and their land was taken away from them and given to the Israelite.

What were the sins of the inhabitants of the land Canaan in general and that of the Amorites in particular? Canaanites worshiped Astarte or Ashtoreth; also Moloch; children were given ‘fire baptism,’ in that they were passed between the arms of the brass statue of Moloch, heated red hot from inside, in an act of dedication and the children were burnt to death. These gods were given children in sacrifice, a horrible cult, which God of the Old Testament said He detested it. Israelite are warned not to follow these abominations, for if they do the land will vomit them also. Strict sexual laws were given to Israel, to avoid incest, homosexuality and bestiality.

God commanded them,

“Do not defile yourself with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you.” Leviticus 18:24

“lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you.”  Leviticus 18:28

God called these the ‘abominable customs,’ which the Israelite must avoid, for the Lord their God was holy and expected them to be holy too.

“You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God am holy.” Leviticus 19:2

The skeptics forget this that the God who commanded the Israelite to exterminate the older inhabitants of the land Canaan, did so because of the abominations they practiced and in spite of the time given to repent of their ways they continued in such abominations and the land vomited them out. It was a judgment from God. God is merciful in that He gives people time to repent and turn from their sinful ways. If they do not do that, then they have to face judgment from God. God’s wrath is to be feared, though His mercies are never ending.

The Canaanites also indulged in fertility cult; temple prostitutes, both male and female were dedicated to the perverted needs of their gods and goddesses in their temples. Men and women were pressed into prostitution in the service of these gods. It is similar to what one has witnessed in our own land, a few decades earlier, in some places in practice even now, the Devadasi system, where women were dedicated to the Hindu temples and literally used sexually to gratify the desires of the temple priests or poojaries; similar is the Yellamma Temple in Karnataka, where young girls get dedicated to the goddess and then pressed into prostitution and later end up in the red light area in Mumbai. One finds inseparable connection between idolatry and licentiousness in olden times in Egypt, Canaan and until recently in our own country. These were abominations to God and He warned the Israelite not to indulge in such activities. God is pure and holy and expects His people also to be holy and separated from such depraved practices. No wonder He commands His people, Israel to completely wipe out the people of Canaan.

God warns the Israelite to guard them against incest, bestiality, witchcraft, omens and sorcery, all of which were practiced by the Canaanites.

He commands,

“When you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.

There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,

Or one who conjures spells, or a medium or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.” Deuteronomy 18:9-11

Witchcraft or sorcery or being a medium, all make use of the evil spirits to perform; these are not the good angelic spirits, but the fallen angels, who rebelled against God and got shunted out of heaven. Dabbling with such demonic spirits will lead to heavy toll and curse and end finally in eternal separation from God, the agony of which will be unbearable.

God wanted the earlier inhabitants of the Promised Land to be completely wiped off, not because of wanton cruelty or capricious blood thirstiness. He was protecting His people from copying these abominable customs from the surviving members of these nations and hence commanded that they be utterly put to sword. Two major commands God gave Israel were that they should not intermingle with these nations by marriage and that they must keep themselves separate from such people, even in their diet.

“Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son.

“For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods;” Deuteronomy 7:3,4.

Again in Deuteronomy 20:17, 18,

“but you shall utterly destroy them: …

Lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God.”

That is the main reason why God wanted the Israelite to utterly destroy the Canaanites. God was trying to shape Israel as a holy nation, with no such horrible practices, so that they can be a model and example for the other countries and nations to see, admire and follow, realizing the desire of the true Lord God of this universe. “Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy,” is the strain that runs through the Old Testament.  

Is our Universe infinite?

The concept of a fine-tuned universe is the back bone for the theists arguing for a Designer, who created such a finely tuned Universe, so that life can be formed and sustained. Atheists argue that such a fine-tuned universe could have come about in a random manner, where in one planet like ours, earth, out of hundreds thousands of such planets, spinning around a star, the sun, among billions of stars, in the Milky Way galaxy, out of millions of such galaxies, could have just happened to have such a finely calibrated constants, capable of sustaining life, as a result of random shuffling. It is purely an accident or a chance that it happened to happen. Atheists are willing to even speculate about a Multiverse, because they assume that the probabilities of throwing up a well tuned universe with a sun and a planet capable of bearing life are much more in a Multiverse. Of course they are not able to produce any evidence for any such a Multiverse. It is only a conjecture.

Be that as it may, is it possible to say that the Universe has always been existing? That the Universe has no beginning and no end and is eternal? This in fact is the argument of the atheists, saying the Universe is as eternal and infinite as God. There is no need for a God, who is infinite, the “First and the Last, the Beginning and the End,” “who was, who is and who is to be.” The Universe itself is infinite and has always existed.

Is this hypothesis plausible? The majority of the physicists in today’s world have agreed on the Big Bang theory, which means there was a beginning point of Big Bang, when the Universe came into existence and started to expand. Thereafter time and space began, and matter came into being. Anything that has a beginning will have to have an end. If so it is definitely not an infinite Universe!

Secondly it has been established that our Universe is slowly running out of usable energy. Our own sun is slowly burning out and will soon be a cold star, with no warmth to offer. This is the Second law of Thermodynamics. If the Universe has existed forever, then according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it would have run out of steam by now! The same concept will apply to Multiverse too, even if such a plurality of Universe is there.

Thirdly, if the Universe had a beginning, then there must have been a cause that made it to exist for some purpose. Thus the Universe has a cause. As the Universe could not cause itself, it has to be caused by a Cause, which is beyond space, time and matter. Such a Cause has to be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused, and unimaginable powerful. That is what we call God, whom our atheists friends have problem accepting. We have no such problems, we love to affirm in the presence of a loving and caring God, Almighty, who created the heavens and the earth and all that is therein by His might.

Bible acknowledges this in Psalm 19:1, wherein King David says,

         “The heavens declare the glory of God;

         And the firmament shows His handiwork.”

In Jeremiah 10:12, the prophet avers,

       “He made the earth by His power,

        He has established the world by His wisdom,

       And has stretched out the heavens at His discretion.”

Again in Isaiah 40:22 & 23, the prophet Isaiah writes,

       “Have you not known?

        Have you not heard?

        Has it not been told you from the beginning?

        Have you not understood from the foundation of the earth?”

       “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,

        And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,

       Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,

       And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.”

Isaiah writes further, in 40:26,

       “Lift up your eyes on high,

        And see who has created these things,

       Who brings out their hosts (stars) by number,

       He calls them all by name,

       By the greatness of His might

       And the strength of His power;

       Not one is missing.”

He is the everlasting God, the Lord of this Universe, who created everything for His glory, including human beings, the crowning glory of His creation on earth. Unfortunately some of us refuse to believe in God, even when truth is staring right at our face. We can only empathize with them and pray to God to give them the wisdom to know and love the Lord our Creator and Savior, the Lord Almighty.

        

It was a Universe and now a Multiverse!

It is amazing the way physicists speculate! We all know that we live in a universe containing within it millions of galaxies and billions of stars and know not how many planets revolving around the stars. This in itself is mind-boggling. Now some of the physicists have come up with the idea of multiverse, that is, many-verse or many universes. It is a very interesting concept alright. It is even more interesting to come to know that such a multiverse concept has been propounded mainly as an argument to prove that there is no God and that all these have come about by chance alone.

The argument for and against God has been waged in the West for quite some centuries now. In India, fortunately or unfortunately, we do not doubt the presence of an Almighty God, whether a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or a Buddhist or a Jain. May be that is one advantage of being a poorer country. Here because of the deprivation and wants and needs in life, people depend on a God, who could miraculously provide for them, send rains on time, crop to grow and ripen on time and to be harvested and marketed well. At every stage everyone depends on God and His providence. In the economically richer countries, may be, there is no need for God, because man’s efforts have made everything available to him and there are really no wants, excepting to accumulate more and more wealth and materialistic objects. Atheism seems to thrive under such conditions. It becomes the job of the theists or the apologetic to prove that there is a God, who created this world and all the things that are in the world or the universe, as we see today.

One of the main arguments of the theists is the fine tuning that one observes in our universe. According to them, the fundamental constants of the galaxies, stars, planets, atoms and sub-atoms and particles in our universe are so finely tuned that even a hair breath of alteration in these constants will make life impossible on earth and the universe as we see it today. For example, if gravitational constant is varied 1 in 10 raised to the power of 60 parts, the universe, galaxies, stars and planets will not exist. The universe will either expand very fast or collapse within itself and we will not be there to speculating about its existence!

The expansion rate of the universe is known in cosmological constant and if this changes its values by 1 part in 10, raised to the power of 120 parts, it will make the universe to expand very fast and no stars will be formed and consequently no life could have been formed. Again mass and energy seem to have been evenly distributed and fine tuned to 1 part in 10 raised to the power of 10, raised to the power of 123. If this is altered even a bit, there is no possibility of life being developed and sustained on earth.

Such delicate balancing shows that there is a very narrow range available for permitting life on earth in this universe. These points are agreed to both by the atheist and theist physicists, but lead them to very different conclusions. For theists it points to a Designer, God, Almighty, who has designed the earth and calibrated the Universe to such a fine degree, to make possible the life He created on earth. It is not a matter of chance or blind force, but definitely an intelligent Designer who had orchestrated the whole thing.

The atheists come with a different explanation. To them this fine-tuned universe and the earth, have come about purely by chance. According to them, it is possible that in the millions and billions of the stars, it just happened that one planet orbiting around one star, our sun, happened to have all the necessities required to support life and life evolved. When others point out that such probabilities are remote, then they come out with even a grander scheme of things, calling it as multiverse, or many universes. Their hypothesis is that there must be a universe generator, from which many universes keep popping out. In that process of bubbling of many universes, somewhere, sometime it has happened that a finely tuned universe like us which is able to support a life system, popped up. Like a pack of cards, if one keeps dealing the cards enough time, eventually every hand will turn up. It is a probability that in a multiverse, a planet like earth could have come about purely as a chance.

This is almost like one lie leading to the other and finally one day the lie is detected to the dismay of the liar, for no further explanations could be given! To explain one universe, they speak about many universes or multiverse, and one leads to the other, that finally they are not able to explain anything satisfactorily. And there is no evidence as of today even to such a hypothesis. It is just a guess work. Moreover if many such universes were to be generated, where is the generator? Who made that? Who is operating that? It cannot be a blind force! Even if cards are being dealt with, someone must be shuffling the cards and if so, who is it? Isn’t that ‘someone’ called God?

Moreover we do not observe randomness and chaos in the universe. It is orderly, subject to specific scientifically verifiable constants and measures and laws of physics. Such a meticulously planned universe with a design definitely requires a Designer.

A multiverse! Hmm, sounds very far-fetched!    

So what can Parents do about it?

In the last 3-4 blogs I have been dealing with the problems the newly formed middle class in India is facing and how it is affecting the family, especially the lives of the young adults and their marriage. In all the churning and melting that is occurring in the process of people moving from poverty into lower middle class and middle-middle class and upper middle class, the baggage they carry from their place of origin remains. Upward social mobility is happening, but the mind and the outlook still remain narrow and traditional. The progress they make is mainly economical advancement. It is a clash of values that they encounter at various levels of development. In the process every one suffers, the parents, the young adults and their children. The mind-set has to change, if they are to really reap the benefits of economic and social advancement and lead a reasonably happy and satisfied life.

The background of the behavior of the parents sticking on to their adult children even after they marry is mainly because of economic reasons. When you invest some money in the bank, you get interest on the principle. So when parents invest all their earnings on their children to give them education to better their prospects, the expectation is that the children will pay back by looking after the parents when they are old. Parents also want to have control over their earning children so that their interests are safeguarded. This leads to interference, resentment from the spouse of their children and in many cases, eventual break-up in the marriage of the young adults.

It is also the hang-over of the traditional joint family system in India, where under the roof provided by a land owing or earning patriarch, all the children, mainly the boys with their wives lived. Girls leave to their in-law’s homes after marriage. All the earnings are pooled and considered common and the father supervised the finances, while the mother supervised the daughters-in-law and the kitchen generally. This is the control that the parents have lost today, when the children started to live separately and on their own. Still the pulls of the joint family system is so strong that it takes other forms, of parents living, earlier with their eldest son or any other son and now it is extended to living with earning daughters as well, which was once considered a taboo. In so living the parents still want to control, not only their children, but also their earnings and their spouses. It is rarely there are parent, who live with their children and not interfere with their lives. If one is lucky enough to have such parents, go ahead and happily live with them. There is no rule barring that.

Mostly, adult children are sort of caught in the web, web of love, obligation and of course emotional black mail of their parents. At that age of 28-32 or more, they find it so difficult to get out of this mesh entangling them. It is not to say that there are not children, who discard their old parents like dirty clothes and refuse to look after them or leave them in Anatha Ashrams (charity homes) or Old Age Homes and not even bother to visit them thereafter. There are such young adults also.

So what can be done? Is there a way where parents in their old age can be assured of being looked after, without having to live with their married children? How do they ensure their economic security, apart from their children? How can earning children ensure that their parents do not suffer neglect in their old age and at the same time not having to have them in their homes, disrupting their family lives? This is a mind boggling question, but needs to be addressed as India is changing rapidly economically and socially. Old values have to change and give place to new ones.

For the rich, who can afford, having reached the upper middle class and beyond, this may not pose a big problem. The adult children can set up a separate establishment for their parents, and if necessary, pay for the rent and the monthly cost of the establishment. Even today many widows and single women, who can afford, stay on their own, may be even at their own cost and in their own houses and manage by keeping servants, one to cook, one to do the top work, a driver, a gardener and so on. They might even have a full time person at home as a companion or help, male or female as the case may be. This is admirable. Others can follow it, if money permits. The parents can live in a close by flat or in a street close by, so that there is mutual help and assistance too in a healthy manner.

There is nothing wrong in living alone. Any number of women in Indian villages does it every day from ages back. In our villages women usually outlive husbands and refuse even to come to their children’ homes in cities, but voluntarily stay in villages, alone, in their small huts or houses. They are happy in their familiar surroundings and manage to cook and eat and have neighborly relationships with the surrounding families. This is no exception to rural India, but even in urban areas, many old people of both the sexes, alone or as married couples, live in like manner. Children go and visit them once a year or so if in villages, and once a week or month in the cities. This is a beautiful arrangement, which we could explore and follow.

Fortunately these days there are Retirement Homes for the elderly coming up in major cities, where medical care, food and all the needed services are provided for a neat sum. One could buy such flats or lease them and pay only the monthly establishment charges. People who can afford it must go for it. They have recreational facilities, libraries and people of almost the same age group and parents can spend their time happily. Children can come and visit them with grand children every now and then and keep their morale high. In case the parents do not have the money to afford such homes, the earning adult children can either pool or singly invest the money and meet the monthly charges too. The flat will come back to them only after the demise of the parents.

What happens when neither the parents nor the adult children have that type of money to afford a separate establishment for the parents? What if they have to keep the parents at home only? In such cases, when parents have to stay with their married children, the adult children will have to strictly draw the line up to which parents can go and not go beyond. It is difficult to teach the older parents not to interfere, but the young adult children need to absorb these matters and be firm in laying such rules at home and enforcing them. At no cost should the parents be allowed to talk ill of the spouse or talk them down. After marriage, all said and done, the partner to whom one is married becomes more important than the parents. They need to ‘cleave to each other’ in biblical terms.  

A special word to the parents: Do not put all your eggs in one basket. Instead of betting so much on their children’s future and depending on them for their old age, parents need to start putting some amount separately for their own future, even if it is a small sum. In due course it will grow up and be of use to buy a retirement home or health insurance or to afford servants and live on their own, without depending heavily on the children.

Lastly, parents need to develop their God-given talents, from early years on, so that when they are old and have to spend time in a Retirement Home, they are not staying there with eyes glued to the gate anticipating the visit from their children. Something to do usefully, especially for the women, other than cooking and looking after their brood, so that they are not at a loss, when children grow up and leave home or establish their own homes. To keep themselves busy and involved, for even in old age, people can be active and useful to society.

A word to the children: when parents are put in a Retirement Home, it doesn’t mean that the responsibility of the children is over. It starts only thereafter, but in a different way. Weekly visits and sharing of goodies and keeping up the loving relationship are very important. One needs to love and honor one’s parents. For the Christians it is one of the Ten Commandments. It reads,

“Honor your father and mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”  Ex.20:12

Honoring your parents doesn’t mean you have to be under their control even after you are a married individual with a family of your own. Everything has its own season in life.  

India is changing, changing fast. Relationships within family and marriage are all being fluid and in turmoil. We need to change the traditions and adjust to the times, at the same time, not giving up basic values like honoring parents. The change may have to be in how we do honor them. No one must go unloved and uncared for, children or adults. Whatever we do has repercussions in the lives of our next generation, children/grand children. They will suffer, if we do not take care of our behavior now.

People could say, we are trying to ape the Western civilization, which is seen in the growing divorce rates, children neglecting their parents and upcoming Retirement Homes, unheard of in the earlier India. But when we want to ape the West for development and prosperity and higher standard of living and empowerment of women, can we avoid the other side effects? Can we live in our tradition bound villages in 21^st century? Even if we want to, is it possible or is it desirable? When our lives are changing, new challenges come and we need to face them. When we are prepared, we can break the fall, otherwise, the fall will break us.

All said and done, Christ offers us the assurance as written in Romans 8:28,

“And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, ...”

It is reassuring to know that though we might make a mess of our lives, God in his mercy will being something good of it all, if we trust in Him. Let our hopes lie in that assurance.

Divorce, is it the ultimate?

Last 2-3 blogs I have been building up from the development of the middle class in India, and how people belonging to the lower middle class invest in children and climb through the ladder to the higher status, but also ruin the marriage life of their children in their selfishness to control and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Not all parents would be like this, but many are. It is almost as if all these so called parental love and sacrifice are finally only economics, based on money.

In this blog I want to analyze and see why in India many marriages end in divorce; what could be the reasons and what can be done to rectify the situation.

Even though divorce rate is growing up at an alarming rate in India, it is still very low compared to the Western or developed countries. As against 500 divorces per 1000 marriages in America, it is only 13 per 1000 in India. However it is growing by leaps and bounds in the metropolitan cities in India, especially among young people working in Information Technology (IT) sector.

Various reasons are attributed for this breakage in marriages in India. As it is most of the marriages in India are still organized through parental arrangements. Such ‘arranged marriages’ constitute almost 75 % of all marriages in India even now. ‘Love marriages,’ where the boy and the girl meet and fall in love and marry is growing now, mainly in the IT sector. Even these love marriages break up in the first 2 or 3 years. 

In India, whether it is the arranged or love marriage, the bride and the groom, marry not just each other, but also their respective families. This is the carryover of the traditions and strong ties exist between the parents and the adult children even after they marry.

In any marriage, the union of two different individuals will need a lot of adjustments and challenges. When you marry into a family, the challenges are more and varied. It becomes all the more difficult, when the parents of the boy lives with the new family or the newly married couple live with the parents of the boy. This was the routine in most of the families earlier and the daughter-in-law used to suffer under the iron control of the mother-in-law and the traditions. It is usually the mother wanting to control the earning member, her son, and manipulating it under the term love and sacrifice of a mother. In any case these situations are changing fast in the urban areas, especially in the IT sector, where the parents of the girls have started to live with the earning daughter, in her house. Now the husband is at the receiving end. It becomes more difficult, because the daughters being more emotional and attached to their parents will fight to keep up her responsibility of looking after her parents, even to the detriment of her marriage.

Sadly, it never occurs to the parents in India that they need to leave their married children, son or the daughter, to lead their own lives, away from the parents, independently, starting their own individual family units. Tradition has such a great hold on them that either the parents cling to their children or the children, even after marriage, cling to them. Any married man or woman, who loves his/her parents or siblings more than the spouse, is heading for trouble.

Bible says in Genesis 2:24,

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

The earlier translations mention ‘cling to’ or ‘cleave unto’ in the place of ‘be joined to.’ Such an intimacy will never form, when they live with their parents and are willing to sacrifice their lives for the lives of their parents. Joint family system places such a high price on individual happiness and freedom. Though this tradition of joint family is breaking, it still drags its foot, as the parents cling to their children, not able to ‘let go off’ them, due to various reasons.

The growing financial independence of the girls and the consequent empowerment of the women add to the problem, creating marital discord. Girls are laying down their own rules in marriages now, including looking after her parents. Mostly it shows in the gender equation that she demands. The age old arrangement that men go to work, while women stayed at home and cooked for the family has gone for a toss. The working woman, demands rightly so, that the husband shares the house hold chores, just as she is sharing the burden of earning the bread for the family. When young husbands insist that the wife work outside, earn money and bring it home, as it helps them to have better standard of life, but also work at home in the kitchen and when the baby comes take care of the baby, then it becomes too much for the woman to bear such a burden. Though there has been some change in the attitudes of young men in the country, still traditional view prevails and many marriages end in trouble because of this.

Differences in financial status of the couples also create problems. As long as the man earns better than the female, all goes well; once the woman earns more than the man and enjoys a better standing in the society, the man’s ego is not able to take it. He suffers from inferiority complex and this ruffles feathers at home.  

Incompatibility is another reason for increasing divorces. When the couple hail from families with marked difference in social status, it becomes difficult for them to adjust to each other. The person from a better social status might look down on the other person and it creates lot of adjustment problems.

Some rush into marriage, because they are afraid they are getting older or because of parental pressures and then reap the consequences of such rash decisions.

When there is one or two of such reasons, it is difficult for a marriage to survive, but when many such factors combine, then the marriage is doomed to failure.

So what can be done about this? Do we just leave it as fait accompli, something to be accepted as the result of advancement and development? Or could something be done to save the marriages?

First thing to realize is, when God created the institution of marriage, He created it for the union of one man and one woman for life. They are ‘to cleave unto each other,’ and start a new family, which is the basic unit of society. It is for love, emotional security, companionship, sex and progeny. God hates divorce, says Malachi 2:16, as much as He hates violence. A man is to love his wife as if she is his own body and be willing to lay his life down for her, just as Jesus Christ laid his life for his followers. Ephesians 5:25. The wife is to love and respect her husband and submit to him. Ephesians 5:22.

What happens when this ideal situation does not prevail? When the husband turns abusive, physically and verbally and emotionally? Does the wife endure it in good faith? What is she to do when the husband is an alcoholic and abuses her physically and does not provide for the home? How do we face adultery within a marriage?

In all such cases, I would say, divorce is not to be rushed into. One must try counseling from the elders in the church, if one belongs to a church, or go to the marriage counselors of the secular world. One has to work at marriage to make it successful. So give it a try by trying to put some sense into the mind of the man or the woman, as the case may be. Going to court for frivolous issues seeking divorce is definitely not the right thing to do. One need to exhaust all remedial sources before one really gives up on marriage.

Jesus Christ had accepted divorce only in cases of sexual immorality, in Matthew 19:8. Still he forgave the woman caught in the very act of adultery. It is possible for the wronged party to forgive the spouse, who had erred and the marriage relationship can be restored. However, persistent abuse of any kind is not to be put up with and the final remedy is only separation, divorce.

In cases of parental interference, it is better if the parents could live separately, within close quarters, so that the young adults can keep a watch on them. They need to be extended monetary support, if required. In case the couple is not earning enough, and cannot afford to give the parents a separate household, then while they parents live with them, strict lines must be drawn beyond which their influence and interference will not cross. The man or the woman must support and stand for his or her spouse in case of any ill-treatment or ridicule or abuse from their respective parents. In no case parents should be allowed to come in between the couple.

Most of all, in the beginning itself, it is wiser to spend lot of time in selection of the bride or the bride groom. Careful selection, done prayerfully, will definitely lead to the selection of a good partner for life. Once married, it is utmost important to work at it to make it a success. Not only the couple benefits from such a union, but also the children of such union, get to grow in an atmosphere of love and care and turn to be emotionally secure adults, when they start their own families.

God bless marriages and make them strong and stable. 

Is it all Economics alone?

In my previous blogs I have been trying to analyze the formation of middle class in India and the repercussions such social movement in society have for family relationship. I am still continuing the same line, trying to fathom the complex human feelings and motives behind love. Is the love of parents for their children, revolve mainly around financial security under the garb of sacrificial love? Is this a rule in the lower middle classes and the ones who have just reached the upper middle classes by dint of hard work and merit? Do they have to pay such a heavy price in acknowledging the love and sacrifices meted out by parents? Is this a rule or exceptions to rule? Is it all money and pure economics that rules the roost or is there real love involved?

In Indian tradition it is the son who is preferred, mainly because of Hindu religious sentiments, which flow from Upanishads. Brhadaranyaka Upanishad in chapter 1, section 5, and verse 16 (1.5.16) mentions that,

“There are three worlds – the world of men, the world of manes and the world of gods. This world of men is attainable only through a son, not by anything else such as rites; the world of the manes through rites; and the world of the gods through meditation.”

According to the following verse 17, when the father thinks he is going to die, he can transfer any duties omitted by him to his son; the son releases him from all that omission. Therefore he is called a son. The son will now carry on the obligations of the father in this world. The root meaning of ‘Putra’ is, one who saves by fulfilling the omissions. Yaska, who wrote the Sanskrit dictionary called Nirupta says that son is the one who saves the father from going to the hell called ‘pum,’ by performing the required rituals, which a son alone can perform and hence a son is called ‘putra.’ This is how son preference arose in Hinduism and soon pervaded the every other community in the whole country.

It must be noted that the son takes over the liabilities of the father and any unfulfilled duties and undertakes to fulfill them. Son performing the funeral rituals will also free the father from the agony of going to hell. Strong reasons to prefer a son. Soon, it developed into sons taking care of his parents in old age and the property being passed on only to the son, because he is the one who will take care of the parents in their old age. A good and decent arrangement, I would say. When there is no property and only loans to be repaid, that also unfortunately revolves on the head of the son only. The daughter is seen as someone who will go to another family and is of no use to the parental family and consequently was not given much importance. Girls are also a burden, because they have to be given a dowry to be married, which again is the responsibility of the parents. For the rich and the resourceful this is not a problem, but for the middle class this becomes a major problem. As property is given only to the sons, daughters are given in lieu of property, dowry consisting of jewels and cash and materials at the time of marriage. Even if a property is given to the daughter the prime property is reserved for the sons. Of course, in case the father is not alive or not able to provide dowry, it becomes the duty of the grown up sons to sacrificially solemnize the marriage of their sisters, by incurring debts even. Very complicated indeed! On the top of it, even today in India, a boy cannot marry until his sisters are disposed off, by way of marriage, of course!

No wonder girls are not preferred in India. There is a phenomenon called as “the Missing Daughter” of India, due to female infanticide. The sex ration in India is around 927 females of every 1000 males, highly skewed against women. All these show very strongly the importance of money in family relationships. A son is preferred, because he is the old age insurance to parents and also, he will take over the liabilities of the father. Hence he is given priority in the family and he inherits the family property, if any. Girls are not wanted, because they are seen as costly, on whom money has to be spent, with no return in sight. Is this all not economics? Where is pure love or the sacrificial love in all this? The same mother, who is a goddess to her son, turns to be a demon to her daughter, and could easily kill her own daughter or destroy the self-confidence of her daughter and cripple her emotionally for life.

The incomprehensible thing is the same mothers and fathers, who felt so sad when the birth of a girl is announced in the family, are the ones loving their daughters so much these days, sometimes more than their sons even, because the daughters are earning good salaries and are more affectionate and loving in looking after their parents in old age. The cycle has turned a full circle! Again, is it money or love that rules these relationships? I wonder.

I also shouldn’t forget to mention the sons, who discard their parents and leave their widowed mothers in Vrindhavan, at the temple of Lord Krishna, who have to earn two ‘chappatties’ a day by singing ‘bajans’ the whole day. This is also not correct. When parents are old and infirm, and poor, with no financial help, it is the bounden duty of the children, both boys and girls to look after them. Similarly, when parents bring children into this world, it is their bounden duty to look after, love and cherish, educate and bring them up in a manner they can face the world as young adults. To bring them up to fulfill their selfish needs or requirements is a blot on parental-ship itself. Love has to be selfless to be called divine love and there has to be equity even in love. You cannot love one child more than the other within the same family. The emotional scars of such treatments remain for a life time.

As the boys and girls grow up, get educated and become employed, they better remember these truths and shape their lives accordingly. Parents need also to realize their duty and fulfill these without disparity and discrimination. And they must desist from interfering in the family lives of their children for their own selfish requirements. An individual born in this world has every right to equal treatment from birth onward. After all God created man and woman as equals, both in His image.

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27

Then why are human beings creating such unequal treatments from birth onward, and within the family, which is supposed to nourish and cherish the children, whatever their sex may be? Should money or economics be a part of love within a family? Points worthy of pondering and for taking necessary remedial measures.    

Interference from parents pushes couples towards divorce?

In the race to catch up with the rich and the affluent, parents in modern India sacrifice a lot to see that their children reach a better standard of living than what they had. They toil, go without luxuries and comforts for themselves, are thrifty and invest everything in the education of their children, these days both boys and girls. Of course most parents expect their children, once established in a good or better job than themselves, to turn and support them, not only in their old age, but also in their dreams to have a better housing or a better standard of living. This is where the problem starts.

When parents do not demand such ‘repayments’ from their children, but who are just happy to see their children doing well in life, and stay where they are with a good measure of satisfaction and contentment, the children themselves turn around and help them. In many cases where the children of rickshaw pullers and servant maids and coolie-workers have entered Information Technology workforce, or even IAS (Indian Administrative Service) or IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), adore their parents and see to that they are really taken care of. Many of such children, once they get a decent job, want to buy a two-wheeler or a car or build a house for their parents. With their first salary they usually honor their parents. Many support their younger siblings by educating them or marrying them off. That is good indeed.

The trouble arises when the parents demand riches or better standard of living for themselves, because they have educated and given that better life for their children, whether boy or girl. They demand it as their due for having invested in the future of their children. Especially in a country like India, which in spite of being the ninth in the list of countries in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has a very low per capita income of only $5,760 per annum, standing 124^th rank among 185 countries. The social security net from government side is almost nil, whereas in the developed Western countries like USA, UK, Europe, Canada and some Eastern countries like Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, social security is so good that people are taken care almost from cradle to the grave. In the absence of government institutions and assistance in old age or in sudden sicknesses or calamities, it is natural for parents to look to their children for support.

The family system is so built in India that elders are to be respected and family is to be given priority, even more than the individual freedom or happiness, and a mother is looked up as god and almost worshiped, especially because of the many sacrifices she makes for her children. Mother’s sacrifices are even more towards the boys, because, in the traditional Indian society, it is demeaning to live under the support of daughters, but the sons have the responsibility for taking care of the parents. It is the right of the parents to demand such a care from the boys. From early childhood this discrimination starts and girls are neglected and boys are given all the privileges, better food, medical care, schooling and lots of love. Girl children are being abandoned even today, because parents have to give dowry to get them married and look after the first or all the deliveries of children and so on. Female foeticide is very common even today in India, especially in the rural areas. If they are not killed in infancy, then they are killed or burnt to death by husband’s mother and sisters, demanding higher dowry. Of course a lot has changed these days and many girls are educated equally and employed in good positions. This opens up another problem.

Once the children, boys or girls reach marriageable age, the tussle becomes more open. For the boys it is the eternal struggle between a demanding mother whom he worships, and the crying wife who has come into his life only recently, that too through an arranged marriage. Whom will he please, mother or the wife? Great dilemma for the boy! Usually mother wins hand down. Problems in marriage start, with mother and father interfering in the married life of the boys. Earlier, the young wives, were brought up in a traditional manner, whether they were working or not, and obeyed the mother-in-law, and put up with great misery and ill-treatment. Today’s girls just walk out and marriages break. Many cases I know personally, where boys in good positions staying alone after the break in the marriage, looking after their parent, sacrificing in their turn for the welfare of the parents. Many remarry and the saga continues. Only with the death of the parents relief comes to the poor daughter-in-law and the son himself.  A new life of love and understanding between the husband and wife starts only after that!

Girls being educated and in good jobs earning good money, has exposed girls also to similar manipulations. Parents are no longer shy of taking shelter in daughter’s houses, married or not. Many girls remain single and take care of their parents. Most marry, and then starts the interference in the married life by parents, and very soon the husband throws the towel or just the marriage breaks. These days’ boys are open to wives looking after their parents and do hospital duties for the father-in law or the mother-in-law, as the case may be.

There is nothing wrong in boys or girls looking after their parents. It is their duty to do so. But the parents are so selfish, they want the love or the earnings or the comforts provided by their earning children, they interfere and make a mess of their children’s lives. The love with which they bind their sons or daughters, become an iron cage for these newly married couples. They are not able to break away from the love of their mothers or fathers. They are not able to stand up for their wives or husbands as the case may be. They suffer, not knowing why and the parents tighten the noose around the children, knowing full well what they are doing, but being blinded by their own needs, and to the need of a happy family life of their children. They project their rights on the boy or the girl, because they had invested in their education or job. It is a pity, which can well be avoided.

Once two adults, man and woman, marry, through arranged or love marriage, they form a unit and start a new family together. They must be left alone to learn to be adults, understand and start to love their partners and to take up the responsibilities of taking care of their children. When both are working, it is a great help if parents or the parent-in-laws are present to look after the children. But this comes with a great price. Frequent quarrels and admonitions and tears do not auger well for the small children. They carry such emotional baggage resulting from such scenes well into their adult hood and suffer great damages. Love and understanding takes time to develop. Before it could develop, parents interfere and love has no chance of developing between the two.

In Bible it is written,

“Therefore a man (or woman) shall leave his (her) father and mother and be joined to his wife (her husband), and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24. Jesus Christ endorsed this principle in Matthew 19:4 and added

“Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Let them live and learn the nuances of living in this world. Take off your hands, parents and relatives. Let them learn by making mistakes, doesn’t matter, they will learn. Extend support and advice if asked for, otherwise just keep off. There has been too much of suffering in the world because of this. Parents must learn that children’s’ lives are not mortgaged to them; they have a future of their own. Children, stand for your rights, but at the same time support you parents in their needs. Neglecting parents to suffer in penury, while children are relaxing in luxury is not correct. Neither is right to let parents interfere in the affairs of your life. It belongs to you and your wife or husband as the case may be. Protect it jealously and safeguard it lest vested interests break it. Both the parties, parents and young adults have a lot to learn. Selfishness alone should not decide the matters. Love and goodness and large bigheartedness are all required.