WHEN TWO BECOMES ONE

The bride and the bridegroom are on the threshold of a refreshingly new relationship that will be lasting a lifetime. This will be something new - something different - something of a totally new dimension that neither of them has experienced before. Something of such great magnitude that it is unfathomable. While the enormity of the situation should not daunt the newly-weds, they should both realise that they are stepping into a new phase of life - a phase of togetherness - a fusion of two distinct souls into one entity.

This is the time that each should understand that the other is also going through a stage of flux in life heralding major changes, to each in his or her own individual way. The bride is going to be uprooted from a familiar and comfortably reassuring environment of family and friends and thrust into a totally new and alien milieu where her husband will seem like the only lifeline that she has. The bridegroom, on his part, will start to realise that his carefree days are over and that the repercussions of whatever he does (or does not do) will affect not just him but will have a bearing on his wife's future, too. His duties and responsibilities have increased and he will have to face up to these new challenges in life. He is now living for two people.

If one is not comfortable with any other relationship in life - be it familial or friendly, one can pace it to one's convenience, even to the extent of distancing oneself totally away from it. But the husband-wife relationship is one of a kind in the sense that domestic harmony and peace of mind will be possible only if both the spouses are happy. The husband should take care to ensure that the wife feels comfortable in what is going to become her home too, hereafter, and let her also have her say in matters that concern both of them. The wife, on her part, should respect the wishes of her husband and wherever the preferred options are divergent, the couple should be able to look at the situation in totality and decide on the best option. In the best interests of domestic harmony, there should be absolutely no place for individual egos or hang-ups - chips on shoulders, as it were.

And, recent times have added a new dimension to this relationship: working wives. The days of yore when the male was the sole provider and the female, the homemaker, are no longer relevant. Both these roles have become interchangeable. What used to be exclusive preserves have now overflowed into each other. The fragmented nuclear family has blurred the division of responsibilities out of sheer necessity. The grandmothers of yesteryear were around to take care of the cooking and the supervision of the servants while the other jobs in the joint family had the rest of the womenfolk handling it according to their hierarchy or capacities. Nowadays, both the spouses have to share all these between themselves, or suffer the consequences. When the wife has become a breadwinner too, the other half should have no compunctions in becoming a 'house-husband', when need arises. After all, when the wife is donning half the role of a provider, there can be nothing effeminate or demeaning in the husband sharing the hitherto exclusively wifely function of a homemaker.

Enough time and opportunity should be granted to each to try and understand the other. The Carpenters, in one of their songs, summed it up succinctly: "Let's take a lifetime to say 'I knew you well'". Unlike most other relationships this is certainly one that should last a lifetime. And harmoniously.