Sunday, June 18, 2000		Article

Picking a partner

IN recent months I have attended two marriage ceremonies — one of my niece and the other of the son of my friend. My niece is a scientist and the boy she has married is also a scientist. My friend’s son is a doctor, and the girl he has chosen as his life-partner, of course, also a doctor. A scientist marrying a scientist and a doctor a doctor - well, aren’t such marriages where two of a profession come together nowadays becoming quite common? In fact, eyebrows are raised if a doctor does not marry a doctor and a scientist marries, say, a dancer or a painter.

Do such marriages prove more successful than the ones where the spouses belong to different professions? Perhaps, it is not an easy question to answer, for there are so many other things, apart from a common profession, on which the success or failure of a marriage depends. Temperament of the two partners, their upbringing, their general outlook on life, their tastes and hobbies, and their financial status—all these play an important role in making or marring their marriage.

However, on the face of it, it seems to be the most sensible thing that two people pursuing the same vocation are united in wedlock. Understandably, commonality of interest is more important than just scalding passion in a marriage. Then, the benefits of such marriages are quite obvious.

For instance, when a couple belonging to, say, the medical profession tires of love, it can always talk about the latest developments in the treatment of various diseases. I have known one such couple. Interestingly, when they talk about professional matters, they get so immersed in it that for a while they forget not only the nagging cares of domesticity, but also that they are husband and wife.

Similarly, law, architecture, engineering, computers, et al can form topics of discussion among couples belonging to these professions.

And if love grows cold, which often happens in life, their common profession will keep them together, until love warms up again. In fact, one would say that people who mean to marry should first make sure that there is something more than love between them. The following lines of a old English song express it pithily.

‘Will the love you’re so rich in,

Light the fire in the kitchen?’

Love is a beautiful thing, no doubt. But so is icecream. However, the question is: shall anybody with a level head regard it as an adequate provision for a long and adventurous journey called life? Obviously, for a marriage to last a lifetime, something more than love is needed by the partners.