A RITE TYPE OF LOVE

Weekend June 24, 2006

Frances Ong Hock Lin

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.

The writer is an educator  and mother of six.