Self marriage as a means to self actualisation

Self marriage as a means to self actualisation

A young Gujarati woman has created a storm in a cyberspace teacup thanks to the wedding she plans for herself, which is singular, in more ways than one, in that she is marrying herself. Self-marriage – or sologamy, or autogamy, as it is called – is new to India, but it reportedly has a growing following in western society.

While the bride-cum-groom’s parents have raised no objections to their daughter’s unusual matrimonial plans, the social media chatterati has waxed vocal on the issue, both for and against. A BJP leader has said that she should not be allowed to perform her nuptials in a temple as such marriages are against Hinduism and, if permitted, would “reduce the population of Hindus”. On the other side of the political spectrum, a Congress stalwart has also expressed disapproval of such examples of ‘wokeness’ – game-changing social attitudes – as ‘insanity’ which the country must guard itself against.

While a number of netizens have supported the young woman’s mono-marriage, which others have decried as a no-no marriage, she has blithely gone ahead with her wedding plans, also booking a honeymoon for herself in Goa. Disclaiming criticism that she is merely being a sensationalist to attract media attention, the woman has said that she is seeking fulfilment of herself as an individual without reference to any external relationship.

Some might dismiss such views as being the height of egotism, or even solipsism, the belief that only one’s own self is real and all else is illusion. However, the bride-to-be could find endorsement of her motivation in the writings of the American development psychologist Abraham Maslow who, in a path-breaking academic paper in 1943, outlined five stages of an individual’s mental and spiritual evolution, with each stage having to be successfully accomplished before graduating to the next.

The first of the five stages is ensuring one’s survival through the provision of physical necessities like food, shelter, and security. The next stage involves the satisfaction of emotional needs through forming bonds of affection and kinship with family and friends. The following step is the attaining of self-esteem, by winning the respect of others through one’s professional achievements and social standing. The fourth stage is the exploration of the realms of the mind through philosophical questioning and debate. At the acme, the final stage of Maslowian pyramid, is what he called ‘self-actualisation’, which is not narcissistic adulation of oneself but a transcendence of all want and desire, a completion of one’s journey to oneself, the arrival at the destination of life’s travel.

In a way, Maslow’s stages of ascent are not very different from the four Ashramas of Hinduism: that of the Brahmacharya, or student; the Grihastha, or householder; the Vanaprastha, or hermit; and the final Sanyasa, or ascetic with no earthly attachments.

In that it is a communion with oneself, a comm-union, a turning inwards of the consciousness to marry itself, the act of meditation can also be a form of autogamy, a spiritual discipline widely practised by people who subscribe to all faiths, and by people who subscribe to none. So even as there are those who would censure marrying oneself for being unholy practice, others might describe it as wholly matrimony.