Jaipur-based consultant paediatrician Vivek Sharma reviews a book by Gwalior-based gynaecologist Archana Tiwari
WITH A strong social message of entering into the institution of marriage with proper preparation and planning as much as while choosing a career or buying a car, Gwalior-based gynaecologist and premarital counsellor Archana Tiwari has come out with the book ‘How to Choose a Suitable Life Partner’.
Based on real life experiences and facts the book will help the youth in selecting the right kind of life partner who will simply fit into their compatibility parameter. Being a gynaecologist, the author has put forward a very new concept of medical horoscope matching and premarital medical check up of both the prospective partners.
With people becoming more career-oriented, casual and self-centred, marriage is gradually losing its status of a dignified institution. The sanctity attached to this institution is fading away. In metropolitan cities, the picture is even more disheartening. Divorce rates are skyrocketing. The book gives a well organized, step by step assessment of the prospective partner and it helps one pick a perfect life mate based on one’s physical, intellectual, social, spiritual, genetic and medical compatibilities. It explains all the pre-marriage considerations, motives, maintaining relationships that should be kept in mind while choosing one’s mate.
The highlight of the book – touched for the first time in any book for the youth – is premarital health check up and medical counselling. Talking right from the suitable age of marriage with the problems associated with early and late marriages, chronic long term diseases and their financial load on the family, the concept of medical insurance for such diseases, addiction problems in the partners and their role in causing a turmoil in the lives of the partners post marriage, diagnosing the sexually transmitted diseases like HIV, hepatitis, blood groups of the partners, detection of mental problems in them, assessing the genetic compatibility in the partners to avoid tragedies like thalassemia, Haemophilia discouraging the bad traditions of genital mutilation and virginity testing and knowing about the vaccinations one should take before getting married.
The author rightly points, “Our law should aim at making and maintaining marriages and discourage breaking marriages by the weapon of divorce.”
The concept is new but there are certain hindrances to its application. Lack of education and poverty will result in making premarital relationship and medical counselling unpopular in the country. A mandatory premarital medical test encroaches on the individual’s autonomy if it is forced by law. Citizens have lot of alternatives for such laws and can easily procure medical certificates by fraudulent means. In spite of all these hurdles the issue of premarital medical check-up should be conducted and made a necessary part of all marriages.
It is easy to criticize the premarital medical examination on grounds of human rights, control, oppression, and eugenics. An ethical question arises that the most important fundamental human right is to marry and reproduce, and the premarital medical examination undermines that right. The counsellors should not impose their views on clients.
The counsellor’s role is to provide facts on the disease or the genetic information in plain, comprehensible language (the rule of autonomy). The counsellor should also consider clients’ social habits and religion before giving advice.
To save marriages they should implement genetic health law which covers the premarital counselling too, to enforce eugenics. Proper health certificate and a marriage license should be issued to cover the issue of genetic fitness. Protecting health of the future mother and children would upgrade the population quality and bring added happiness to the families.
If a test result proves positive for any genetic disorder or HIV in any of the prospective partners, does any law have the power to prevent them from legally marrying? No, it would be an encroachment on the autonomy and the human rights of the individual. It would be completely unethical.
The book says that no health certificate is for the purpose of refusing a marriage license and debarring someone from getting married. There are 1,001 solutions for every health problem. This should be done only with the intention of legally binding both parties to inform their mates of their health status before they get married. Generally speaking, there is no medical reason that should disqualify people from marriage; even if they are HIV/AIDS carriers.
Cousin couples or consanguineous marriages should also be scrutinized for genetic diseases.
As many youngsters getting married are not taking the married life seriously, divorce rates are on a rise. Iran has recently taken up the concept of premarital counselling. Taiwan, Turkey, Egypt, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Brazil, some Arab countries and China all have the practice of premarital medical examination. The public is made to understand that it is essential for good quality of progeny.
Overall the book is objective and thorough, the author being an authority on the subject and has a new message for the awareness of the society. Besides a few minor editing errors, the book has the power to provoke and raise crucial questions in the minds of the readers. In these times when the family fabric of the society is getting tethered due to unhappy families and divorces, I recommend this book as a must read for all youth.
(How to Choose a Suitable Life Partner; Genre: Non-fiction; Author: Archana Tiwari; Publishers: Mahavir, New Delhi)