A RITE TYPE OF LOVE

MY husband and I have been married for 18 years as of last Saturday.

I remember that when we were preparing for the wedding, there were many rites and rituals we chose not to follow. Of course, there were a few that we did, to please our parents, such as the wedding dinner and the church ceremony.

But we did not go to the studio to have our wedding portraits taken; neither did I have make-up done a by professional. My wedding gown was hand-sewn by my students and I arranged a simple bunch of yellow lilies tied with a pink ribbon.

For our honeymoon, we backpacked all the way to Bangkok on a shoe-string budget.

Over the years, I have observed that many of my friends have followed many rites and rituals with regard to weddings, the birth of a child, or funerals.

As a family begins to form, family routines usually form, such as going to church on Sunday or going overseas for holidays during June or December.

Sometimes these rituals cost an arm and a leg. But have we ever stopped to think why we spend so much money on them?

While it is important to follow them in order to establish and reaffirm our cultural roots, these rites do not guarantee that the relationships between the participants are functioning or even healthy.

A great wedding does not automatically imply or even assure a great marriage. Yet each year, more brides focus on being a great bride for that one day, instead of being a faithful wife for life.

One of my friends does not have a functional marriage with his wife anymore, yet he dutifully follows the rites and rituals for celebrating the birth of his two daughters.

In the 1940s, Abraham Maslow the psychologist postulated that the most basic of human needs are those of safety and physiological well-being. The next level is the social need. People need to form relationships, to give and receive love, to feel a link with others and to feel a sense of belonging.

If these social needs are met, people can thrive at their optimal level and live life to their full potential.

So what happens when you no longer have a functional relationship between husband and wife, parent and child, or brother and sister?

Many will choose to hide behind these rituals and rites to avoid confronting the truth that they need to work on the relationship. Observing these gives one a false sense of achievement.

It is so much easier to give hongbaos and presents to someone you do not like, than to ask for forgiveness from each other.

Similarly, it is easier to take the wedding photograph than to iron out the nascent problems with your future spouse.

Routines, rites and rituals can never replace the relationships we have with each other. It takes a lot of hard work, to work on a relationship. It requires us to listen to each other and suspend judgment and bias. It demands that we forget ourselves and focus on the other.

Instead of just wanting to have and to hold, we have to learn to give and to serve.


This article first appeared in TODAY on 24th June 2006