Family Life, Face Book Status causing separation

The Indian society of yore was different – lot was placed on family ties – there were arranged marriages – people getting married at young age – mostly to unknown people, not having seen them even a day before the day of marriage, yet got married, led family life, had children and lived happily thereafter…………………. Or at least lived together, till they were separated by death !

Comparatively, people of modern age have choices, can explore, think, talk, discuss before marriage – check of various aspects of compatibility and yet we get to hear too many instances of people not happy, couples separating, unhappy family life and more.  A  generation ago, women were less likely to file for divorce even  in an unhappy or abusive marriage. Most were financially dependent on their spouse and feared the social stigma of divorce.  Today women are more likely to have careers of their own, are less financially dependent on their spouse and no longer fear the social stigma of divorce. 

The % of couples seeking divorce has been going up – in a Society where still entering Court is looked upon as not so good and where there could be a sizable number living alone, having separated but not formalized in a Court of law.  There sure would be reasons for incompatibility, the extreme step of not able to live together as a family – finding the other partner so intolerable – only those undergo such tribulation would know and it is better not to give any advice from outside, without knowing the real problem and there is no reason why an outsider should know the issue also.  Some primary reason for seeking divorce throwing in the towel to conclude the irreconcilable differences could be ‘seeking relief from a bad marriage’, escaping domestic abuse, sensing fraud, financial misappropriation or criminal acts of the spouse, adultery,  intolerable cruelty, neglect, drug addiction, alcoholism and more.

Today, there is news of a young software engineer ending her life by popping sleeping pills at a ritzy hotel.  The woman was only 25, was a Senior Analyst in a BPO, was living with her mother in a flat after having separated from her husband an year ago.   Reportedly, she had left home on Wednesday and did not return causing anxious moments for her mother.  Later it was revealed that she  had checked into the five star hotel and was found dead on bed.  Police  reportedly  found a suicide note in which she said that none was responsible for her death.  She was quoted to pleasant, smiling person by her neighbours and in Office was quoted to be good but was suffering with post-divorce psychological problems and convulsions – sad; nothing into her personal life, but sad that a 25 year old ended her life  concluding that she has seen it all !

There is a contention that it is not even physical assault but more of neglect that shows the door of parting.   All partings are sad ! though some could be inevitable.   Here is a very strange cause – of an  Indian woman reportedly filing for divorce after her husband failed to change his relationship status to married on social network site Facebook.  Daily Mail quoting Deccan Chrnoicle reports that the  28-year-old approached the family court seeking divorce saying that she can not trust him after her failed to announce their marriage on the website.  It reportedly was that of a Telugu couple, who had an arranged marriage a couple of months earlier and filing the case in the jurisdiction of an Aurangabad court where the women is stated to live.   According to the newspaper, her husband  told the court that he had forgotten to update his status, but the judge has given the two parties six months to undergo counselling.  The poor husband was willing to change the status right now or even de-activate his account, however, the woman was not keen to continue with the marriage as the mistrust had already grown beyond manageable proportions.   Earlier in Foreign countries, there have been FB related divorce petitions with spouse finding flirty messages, photos of their partner at a party they did not know about or with someone they should not have been with.

To my friends not having a FB account (really some one ?) - Facebook is a social networking service and website created by Mark Zuckerberg,  launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook Inc.   You need to have an active e-mail account and Users  must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile.  You need to be above 13 for having FB account, though there could be millions of users lesser than the age, faking personal details. 

Millions are addicted and spend hours together on FB updating their status, posting messages, responding to friends, commenting on photos and news, liking what others post and ‘frequently checking’ for responses to their posts. 

FB is not alone……….. there are hosts of social networking sites.  Social networking site Pinterest has already raised $100million from a group of investors in a deal that reportedly values the three-year-old U.S. company at $1.5 billion. The investors, headed by Japanese online retailing giant Rakuten Inc, means the value of the company has shot up at a staggering rate, following a valuation at the end of last year which pegged the company at $200m.  Pinterest is an online scrapbook where users can 'pin' images and follow images by other people.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.