Dear Shri Sangom, greetings!
First and foremost, It is not my position that Tambrams must adopt the mores of the west. It is not my position that Tambram parents
must consider icm. My position is, based on the science I have read, if a Tambram girl falls for a NB boy, it is because of some biological forces acting in her brain that has some similarities to the reward structure that results in addictive behavior.
Further, culturally and socially, the zeitgeist among Tambrams has moved from its ultra-conservative past. So, considering all this, a Tambram girl's love for an NB boy, if it happens, need not be opposed on the grounds of caste alone, it need not be a cause to condemn the girl or condemn the way her parents brought her up.
.... If, as you say, romantic love is on par with drug, gambling, etc., and if romantic love has to be encouraged at all costs,does it not follow that parents should also encourage their children if they get a taste for drugs, gambling and other such
No sir, it does not follow. Similar reward response does not mean identical in all respects. Further, not all addictions are destructive. BTW, I am sure I never said romantic love has to be necessarily encouraged, let alone at all costs. Romantic love just happens. How parents deal with it must be determined on a case by case basis. In this, caste need not be given any importance.
addictions because these are also as sacrosanct as romantic love caused by the holy dopamines and nothing to do with a person's rational thinking faculty? Contrarily, if you feel that the parents can and should sit in judgment and dissuade their children from addictions, what prevents the same rule from being applied to romantic love?
There are many forces that are at play. Parental guidance is an important success factor in fulfilling the prime imperative of survival and procreation. The cultural memes passed down to us are standing in the way of accepting icm because that itself could be a threat to the prime imperative. But, this meme is undergoing mutations and in the present day, the meme that accepts icm will get naturally selected and survive to the next generation. After a critical mass is reached, the mutated meme will have the power to make icm the norm to the extent it may not even be called icm. At that time, people reading history would wonder what the fuss was all about.
In other words, all I am saying is, for right now, parents facing love and possible icm in their family, need not fret about it. Consideration of caste purity need not be given importance.
I am not very convinced about the "gene preservation" scenario you describe. Does nature guarantee that the parents (who marry out of romantic love) live longer than than those who marry out of arrangements?
I am not an evolutionary biologist, and neither am I good at presenting complicated concepts in a convincing way. My understanding is based on two books I read few years ago and a ton of web posts, blogs, and articles. These two books are, (i) The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and (ii) How Mind Works by Stephen Pinker. Please look at my comments in this context.
My considered opinion on the matter of love is, it is a helpful biological condition for survival and procreation. Love can be present or absent, at one time or another, in either types of marriage, one that is arranged by parents, or the ones arranged by the mates themselves.
IMO, love is not social conditioning, formal marriage is. Before humans invented marriage, it was love that made couples to stay together and raise the off springs -- in some societies this may even be a group of men and women procreating and rearing. Those who were loving were able to succeed in the prime imperative and that is the reason the feeling of love has survived.
There are species that express only reproductive love, they mate and go about their own ways. Some even abandon their off springs to fend for themselves. There are also species that are normally docile, but will fiercely defend their off springs putting their own lives on the line. These are different kinds of love and they are found in our species as well.
For whatever reason, my speculation is male domination, marriage was introduced as a social contract between a man and a woman to stay together and care for the off springs. The social norm against divorce is so intense that love other than the carnal one has become unnecessary for rearing success.
But, the biological forces shaped over hundreds of millions of years cannot be undone by social conditioning of a mere 5000 years. Love, between a man and a woman, a man and a man or woman and a woman, between a mother and child, between parent and children, love for fellow-humans, they all arise from our genes. It is biological.
Marriage is social conditioning that is trying to make all love except the carnal one redundant. I see loveless marriages all around. Libido wanes with age and there is love no more because the social conditioning says to the couple that you two need to stay together no matter what. So we see so many loveless marriages.
If what you say is correct, how do you explain break-up of marriages after long courtship, which are becoming quite common, and how do we explain the SKSs to which Shri Iyyarooran referred to?
If I am allowed to speculate, this itself is perhaps an indication of love being biological and marriage is social conditioning to manage that urge. Forced marriage to breakup love may be at the root of such horrendous criminal acts as SKS.
.. But then the mindset that your ways and notions are the best and most civilized way of living, and an attitude of "civilizing" the heathens surviving here, only reveals a missionary type of zeal to convert the people here also to your ways so that there need not be an inferiority in your minds of having swerved from the better ways which the people here try to follow. Such overzealous preaching will only be counterproductive IMO and the net result will be alienating even the moderates who may have been mid-way.
Ouch, this hurts...
In this topic of icm I have only advocated understanding and support for the girl, no more. Who am I to "civilize" anybody. Neither am I qualified to evaluate what is civilized and what is not. Preaching is counterproductive, I agree, and if I am guilty of it I was not aware of it, and I tender my unconditional apology. For my edification and future avoidance please point this out to me.
.... even our people abroad are not completely egalitarian in the sense that they will happily consent and support if their son or daughter or grandchild starts loving a girl or boy from Osama Bin Laden's immediate relatives who are there in the US.
I am not sure what you mean by egalitarian in this context, but by this if you mean we need to be tolerant of diversity, yes. But if you mean individuals must treat everyone equally, then I disagree, there is no obligation for individuals to be that. They get to like or dislike people based on their own value judgments. My position is, caste does not belong in the formula that we subconsciously use in arriving at such judgments. If a parent thinks a child has made a wrong choice then it is imperative on the parent's part to guide the child. Forcing the child is the worst way to do that, east or west, civilized or uncivilized.
In the olden days women valued their devotion to their husband (pAtivratyam) as a great thing; now, if physical attraction, genetic survival strategies and brain chemicals are going to decide matters, where is the guarantee that a more attractive man/woman will not be able to break the marriage? Does the brain science which is cited by our friends categorically prove that such attractions are not possible? Genes will survive and get propagated in any case.
Devotion to husband is social conditioning devised for the benefit of men. I hope I have stated my position as clearly as I can earlier in this post.
From what I have read and understood, the ultimate prize in the game of life is not mating alone, but survival and procreation of the next generation as well. Fidelity to partners is of value for this. pAtivratyam is a way of demanding this fidelity from women without having to work for it by showing love to our partners.
A wife after a few years of marriage may feel physical attraction towards a younger and virile Adonis, but there are parts of her own gene that will also work, behind the scenes so to speak, and make her overcome this urge, as giving in to such urges may be the wrong strategy for the prime imperative. Some may succumb to this temptation, and that is just the way it is even in strict prudish societies. Who can guarantee such things do not happen among Tambram women?
Best regards!
