Self-Restraint in Marriage – Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

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Self-Restraint in Marriage – Mahatma Gandhi

 

The same correspondent from the Patidar Ashram, Surat, who put a question to Shri Narahari Parikh, has also asked the following: It is deplorable that the correspondent seems to take it for granted that the main thing in marriage is the satisfaction of the sexual urge. Rightly speaking, the true purpose of marriage should be and is intimate friendship and companionship between man and woman. There is in it no room for sexual satisfaction. That marriage is no marriage which takes place for the satisfaction of the sex desire. That satisfaction is a denial of true friendship. I know of English marriages undertaken for the sake of companionship and mutual service. If a reference to my own married life is not considered irrelevant, I may say that my wife and I tasted the real bliss of married life when we renounced sexual contact and that in the heyday of youth. It was then that our companionship blossomed and both of us were enabled to render real service to India and humanity in general.

I have written about this in my Experiments with Truth. Indeed this self-denial was born out of our great desire for service. Of course, innumerable marriages take place in the natural course of events and such will continue. The physical side of married life is given pre-eminence in these. Innumerable persons eat in order to satisfy the palate but such indulgence does not therefore become one’s duty. Very few eat to live but they are the ones who really know the law of eating. Similarly, those only really marry who marry in order to experience the purity and sanctity of the marriage tie and thereby realize the divinity within. The correspondent does not seem to be conversant with the full details of the Tendulkar-Indumati marriage. The vow of sexual restraint was an outcome of mature deliberation. The text was written in Hindustani. The papers put in their own English translations of it. The original provided for sexual intercourse if the wife desired progeny. This much is certain that both desired to observe restraint even after marriage. The union was for promotion of joint service.

They had known each other for many years. Shri Indumati’s parents gave their consent to this marriage after much testing. Then jail life prolonged the agony. Both parties as well as their elders were keen that the ceremony should take place in Sevagram Ashram, where Shri Indumati had lived for some time and derived solace. I am unaware of their whereabouts today. I have no reason to suspect hypocrisy in the transaction. But even if it is discovered, it would not prove that the vow of brahmacharya in married life is at fault. The fault lies in hypocrisy. An English poet has well said, “Hypocrisy is an ode to virtue.” Wherever there are true coins, counterfeit ones will also be found. Where there is virtue there will be hypocrisy, i. e., vice masquerading as virtue. How tragic and surprising that a virtuous action should be sought to be stopped because of the fear of hypocrisy!

 

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Harijan, 7-7-1946