In the remote villages of this Himalayan valley, polyandry, the practice of multiple men marrying one wife, was for centuries a practical solution to a set of geographic, economic and meteorological problems.People here survived off small farms hewed from the mountainsides at an altitude of 11,000 feet, and dividing property among several sons would leave each with too little land to feed a family. A harsh mountain winter ends the short planting season abruptly. The margin between starvation and survival is slender.

“We used to work and eat,” Ms. Devi said, her face etched by decades of blistering winters, her fingers thick from summers of tilling the soil. “There was no time for anything else. When three brothers share one lady, they all come back to one house. They share everything.”

…

“If you marry a different woman, then there are more chances of family disputes,” Mr. Bhagsen said. “Family property is divided, and problems arise.”

Was this precisely the reality of Draupadi and the five Pandavas? Was her loyalty to five husbands key to them sticking by each other (“paanchon mili to ban gaye mutthi” -Lagaan)?

The article continues to say that the practice of polyandry is now outdated:

“That system had utility for a time,” Mr. Bhagsen said. “But in the present context it has outlived its usefulness. The world has changed.”

Do you agree? Maybe the larger question is, and remains, do we marry for some emotion called love, or for more practical considerations? And if it is the latter, which I am inclined to think (because love can presumably sustain itself without marriage, whereas we look for a lifestyle – a practical consideration – when choosing to marry), then could polygamy/polyandry have some degree of usefulness that we are just not willing to admit?

And what about the moral question of having more than one “jeevansaathi”? What restricts us from having multiple soulmates, or life partners? What makes us uncomfortable about being in a nonexclusive relationship? I would hazard a guess to say it has something to do with having some sort of absolute power and control over another being.  But maybe it is about absolute and equal trust and loyalty, which we cynically believe cannot occur between more than two people. What do you think?

Related posts:

1. Conversion and Polygamy My uncle sent me this simultaneously amusing and disturbing article...
2. Alcohol in Hinduism It can be noted that almost all of the religions...
3. Gender and Misperceptions I was procrastinating and I happened to see this article...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Go Not To The Temple

(A poem by Rabindranath Tagore)

Go not to the temple to put flowers upon the feet of God
First fill your own house with the Fragrance of love…

Go not to the temple to light candles before the altar of God,
First remove the darkness of sin from your heart…

Go not to the temple to bow down your head in prayer,
First learn to bow in humility before your fellowmen…

Go not to the temple to pray on bended knees,
First bend down to lift someone who is down-trodden. ..

Go not to the temple to ask for forgiveness for your sins,
First forgive from your heart those who have sinned against you.

Related posts:

1. A mother’s heart… Since today is Mother’s Day, I thought I’d share a...
2. On Prayer In the early years of the 16th century, a great...
3. Inspiration for a tough time Finals start tomorrow — and as such, I figured that...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

1. A deity

2. A person

3. A goal or inanimate object

Today, I want to bring up a similar question:

Hinduism is a religion with many different viewpoints — and consequently, many divisions and categories. In my experience, the division between dvaita (dualism, or the worship of a personal God that is separate from us) and advaita (non-dualism, or the worship of an impersonal God that is all-pervading, and part of us as well as everything around us) is a major one. I realize that one discussion may not suffice, but it is an important point to bring up:

How do you choose to think of God? Are dualism and non-dualism irreconcilable? And if so, does Hinduism, as a unified religion, actually even exist?

Related posts:

1. Question of the Week: What is one of your objects of devotion? This week, we will think about your objects of devotion,...
2. Not too recent, but always relevant “Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless...
3. A Post-Valentine’s Day Thought In light of the fact that Valentine’s Day was yesterday,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Harmony among the major faiths has become an essential ingredient of peaceful coexistence in our world. From this perspective, mutual understanding among these traditions is not merely the business of religious believers — it matters for the welfare of humanity as a whole.”

—http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25gyatso.html?src=me&ref=general

Related posts:

1. Thinking of Freedom, Religiously Perhaps April is the month of freedom. It certainly...
2. Christianity borrowed from Hinduism? There is an interesting article on About.com on the similarities...
3. Question of the Week: Why tolerate intolerance? As Saketh discussed in a previous post, religious intolerance is...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I wanted to write a quick note about a couple of different things.  First, on happiness: I think that happiness and spirituality are largely interconnected.  Put simply, your relationship with God affects your outlook on life, and a generally positive outlook can be all that happiness means.  If there’s anything (relevant to this blogpost) that I’ve learned so far this summer, it’s that we are quite in control of our lives and our outlooks.   For some people, casting off the “the grass is always greener on the other side” comes naturally – for others, it takes work.  Either way, I personally think that appreciating the circumstances God has placed me in and believing that I have a future, a fate, a destiny – that “everything happens for a reason” – significantly improves my own outlook on life and in effect, my overall happiness and well-being. I think this is a useful thing to keep in mind as the school year approaches, where “making lemonade out of lemons” isn’t always the easiest thing to do.

Another thing I’ve come to believe is that God not only comes to different people in different ways, but seems to even reside or resonate within different people in different ways.  I’m thinking of some good friends who are extremely religious, and of others who are barely so, at all.   I’m starting to think that God works for everyone in such a way that reciprocates how they allow Him to enter their lives.  This borders on the abstract and non-sensical, but think of a time in your life when your spirituality was at a much different place than what it  is now (if it has ever changed at all):  chances are, when your approach to God was different, the way you approached every-day things in your life was different as well.

These insights are coming alongside a flurry of cleaning and organization,  a day of introspection and a newfound commitment to self-improvement.  I’m somewhat of a procrastinator and stress-ball – and call me weak-minded  - but for me, changing these habits seems like a much less daunting task when I think of the support I can sustain from spirituality.

Finally, I’ll end on a nice Swami Vivekananda quote I ran across the other day: “Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin – to say that you are weak, or others are weak.”

Related posts:

1. Stress and Exams During reading period and exam weeks, we often find ourselves...
2. Religion versus Spirituality Karl Marx, the famous 19th-century economist, philosopher, and revolutionary, once...
3. How to be a happy student Philosophy and spirituality are most valuable to us when they...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.