If a devotee girl has to marry a nondevotee boy, what can she do to protect her devotion?

Transcript

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If a devotee is to marry a non-devotee, what can be done? Well, actually I’ve seen that certainly it’s important if you are devotees to have a partner who has similar values. But devotees are also of very different natures.
And there’s no necessarily guarantee that just a match with a devotee is going to work. Because spiritually we may have similar values, but sometimes psychophysically we may be very different. And that’s why it’s generally preferred that if a devotee marries a devotee, there are many other factors also to be considered.
Somehow because of some other factors, devotee girl marries a non-devotee boy. I have seen that things work in many different ways. Generally it becomes very difficult if the boy is a part of a joint family, which is very traditional, not necessarily in a spiritual sense, but traditional simply in a, you could say, patriarchal sense.
So in that case the in-laws have a lot of expectations, do this, don’t do this. And that’s when the personal spirituality of the girl becomes more difficult. But generally this generation, people have grown up in such a way that even in marriage the partners give each other their space.
So if in many cases I’ve seen that there’s a devotee boy, non-devotee girl, or a devotee girl, non-devotee boy, whichever way, if they marry they are able to go on reasonably well if they are staying separate from their family. So because they both will come to some mutual agreement, because both are educated, both have lived in life, and both have basically to survive and succeed in today’s competitive world, people have to be a little assertive. And they will bring that assertiveness into their marriage also, which is not a bad thing.
Generally if the husband and the wife are left to make the decision themselves, in today’s generation I’ve not seen even the husbands having a very patriarchal attitude where they expect the wife to necessarily submit to them in everything. It doesn’t work like that. So as long as she is balanced herself, she sees that whatever family expectations are there, whatever her husband expects her to do in terms of the family responsibilities, if she’s taking care of that, I feel that giving space is not that difficult.
There’s no guarantee of course, but in general if it’s a boy and a girl together, they give each other space. That’s what I’ve seen. It’s both understanding.
This is your personal life. So generally when we practice bhakti also, we can do it in three different ways. Now naturally if she’s going to practice bhakti, she will need some time for chanting, some time to come to the temple.
It’s ideal if the husband and wife come together. But if she goes with him to some functions, and he comes with him for some functions, and she comes to the temple sometimes alone, that’s also okay. It’s not a big deal.
Many times if the wife is practicing bhakti, the husband also starts practicing bhakti. On many occasions it’s rare that the husband and wife normally start practicing bhakti together. Many times if I’ve seen the girl is practicing bhakti before, over a period of time the husband starts.
It’s not bad. This is a good thing. Especially if the husband sees it as a part of something which will also help him to become a part of a bigger community.
Because people come to spirituality not just for spirituality. They come to spirituality also for culture, for social circle, for various things. So since everything is almost settled now, there’s no need to have too much negativity about it.
Just go ahead positively, and Krishna will take care. And I’ll say that generally spirituality we can talk about or share in three different ways. I like to play with words, so I call this as prescriptive, descriptive and normative.
Prescriptive means this is what you should do, this is what you should not do. Normative is this is right and this is wrong. Descriptive is this is what I do and this is why I do it.
So if we present spirituality in a prescriptive or normative way, people get alienated. Who are you to tell me what is right or wrong? On what basis? This is what I do and this is why I do it. I can understand where you are coming from.
It will give you space. So if she also learns to, she doesn’t necessarily have to demand or pressure her husband that you should become a devotee. If he wants he may, but if she understands this is why I do this, you explain it nicely to him, it will give you space.
So I don’t think that will be in itself a major issue. And sometimes it also happens that maybe immediately after marriage, for some time it may be that spirituality may become a little lower priority. Because it’s a new phase in life they’re going through.
But generally I’ve seen that especially after a couple has children, then again they become much more responsible. Because then they start feeling we have to pass on our culture, they have to give good impressions. And even families which are not very spiritual or pious, they often at that time, they have conceived a child, that time they start becoming more conscious about the culture and the responsibility.
That also helps them to become more spiritual.