Page 31 - MTYOI - Eng

A Message to the Youth of India 9

dreams of a husband who will love and care for her, but
such romantic dreams too often become nightmares.
The husband may be a drunkard, may harass his wife’s
family for dowry, may cruelly beat her, or worse. At
the wedding everyone is exuberant and optimistic, but
there is no certainty about what the future will bring,
for modern-day family life is all too often not “home
sweet home.”

Family used to mean uncles, aunts, cousins,
widows, and in-laws living together. But the demands
of city life, combined with the selfishness of consumer
society, have caused the demise of the joint family.
Now family is ham do hamäre do: “We are two and
ours are two.” Whereas the joint family functioned
on cooperation between many members, with juniors
trained to respect elders and to maintain them in old
age, the new spirit is: “Care for as few as possible. Throw
out your parents and have only one or two children.”
Family values have drastically declined, as evidenced
by the increasing rate of divorce. For thousands of
years, divorce simply did not exist amongst Hindus, but
nowadays it is rapidly becoming like the West: a little
squabble and spouses are ready to finish the whole
thing.
The moral position of Indian women has
significantly degraded. In orthodox Indian culture,
virtuous women were revered as sacred—protected
and adored for their chastity and motherly sacrifice.
Men were trained to see all women except their wife