Arranged Marriages make Darwin turn in his grave!

This afternoon I was reading “The Theories of Darwin and their relation to Philosophy, Religion and Morality”. To be honest, this is my first serious attempt at understanding Darwin’s theories more deeply. It is indeed exciting to explore the theories of descent, evolution and selection. There is so much logical reasoning that drives this study. I have not yet formed an opinion on the validity of his arguments, but I certainly know that arranged marriages do not go down too well with the theory of selection.

Arranged marriage is an ancient tradition in India and still account for 90% of unions here. In most cases, the match for the boy and girl is decided by the parents on either side. A lot of parameters influence these decisions, one of which is the economic and social background of the families. With so many criteria to match, the characteristics of the boy and the girl end up being pushed down the measuring scale to quite an extent until in some cases, the boy and the girl do not matter at all.  Religion, Caste, Financial strength and Astrological charts over shadow what the bride and groom to be really want.

Natural selection allows mating among individuals in a species in a way that the characteristics most desirable to survival are passed ahead. In my head, these characteristics can be categorized as Physical, Emotional, Intellectual and Spiritual. Ideally, we would want to see a union of individuals who are strong in at least one of the four areas. The more the better. While families measure each others collective strengths before setting up a marriage, they do not focus completely on the individual strengths of the boy and girl involved in the union. This gives rise to matches where mating selection is not being based on selection of the fittest, and the result can be off-springs that do not possess any significant prowess in either Physical, Emotional, Intellectual or Spiritual domains.  We may not be passing the best characteristics to the next generation.

When a union is based on love, I trust the boy and girl to select their match based on strengths in at least one of the above mentioned four categories. You may love someone for how physically strong they are, or how emotionally balanced they are, or how intellectually or spiritually gifted they are or all of the above. Such unions have a better chance of passing desirable traits to the next inhabitants of Earth. Hence, I am in favor of love marriages over arranged. I do not comment on their influence on the success of the marriage, but I feel they have a better chance of sustaining human evolution.

P.S: I have just come from a 26 hour train journey that has rattled every bone in my body. It may have also had an impact on my thinking and the above post must be read with that in mind. The image above is that of my kindle on my “Super Pants” 🙂

Also, I do not suggest that arranged marriages “always” produce undesirable outputs. I am only suggesting that their probability to do so is higher.

As always, comments are welcomed.

Change the World.One Circle at a time!

Fix Your Radius. Draw Your Circle. Own It!

In his book “How Many Friends Does One Person Need“, Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, presents a concept of concentric circles to explain how we position our friends around us. These Social Networking circles are similar to the ones we now find on Google+, only that they are not limited to the virtual world. In real life too, we have clearly defined emotional boundaries that define the strength of the emotional bond we share with people in each of the circles. The closer the circle to the center, the stronger the bond.

Now let’s try to extend this proposition to construct a model that will direct our efforts to bring about change in this world.

Along lines similar to social networking circles, every person possesses a range of influence which too can be divided into concentric circles, our level of influence decreasing as we move away from the center. Here, influence refers to the ability to impact thoughts or actions or both of a third person.

The Circles of Influence, have two primary factors governing their strengths; Emotions and Distance. The stronger the emotional bond with a person, the more the probability of having an impact. The more the proximity, the higher the probability of effecting a change. I use the term “probability” because Emotional and Geographical proximity only increase the reach of your message, the conversion of your message into the desired result depends on factors beyond your control.

Many of us have, at some point in our lives expressed the desire to change the world. And a majority of us failed. Why? Our failure was not because the change we wanted to bring about was beyond our capabilities, but it was because we wanted to effect that change over an expanse that was a million times bigger than our Circle of Influence. We wanted  to change the world!

So if you wish to contribute to the well being of this world or just have people conform to your thoughts start from the center and move outwards. There are two ways of going about it. One, draw out your Circles of Emotional Influence and decide which concentric circle you will focus your energies on to bring a change. Till which level of Emotional bonding is the probability of you affecting a change high enough to justify your efforts. Fix your radius!

Second, draw out your Circle of Geographic Influence and decide which concentric circle you will focus your energies to bring about a change. Till which level of geographical proximity is the probability of you affecting a change high enough to justify your efforts. This could be your neighborhood, it could be your village, it could be a couple hundred meters from where you live, it could be a mile from where you live, or it could only be your home. Again, fix your radius!

Fix your radius. Define your territory and make that territory the best in the world. Let that territory mean the world to you. Let no wrong or injustice be ever done to anyone in that world. Let equality reign supreme in that circle and let wisdom and virtue constitute its essence. If every individual fixes a radius and defines his or her circle, changing the world will no longer be a dream.

Change the World.One Circle at a time!