Premartial sex is a bless or a curse -An Analysis through contemporary film

             

The term “culture” which  originally meant “The cultivation of the soul or mind”. India’s one billion people have descended from a variety of races. The oldest ones are the Negroid aboriginals called the Adivasis or First settlers. Then there are the Dravidians, The Aryans, the Mongols, The Semites and innumerable inter-mixtures of one with the other.

            The great Epic, THE MAHABHARATHA and the sacred text, the BHAGAVATH GEETHA  teaches the Indians that survival can only be in terms of quality of life. It provides a framework of values to make the Indian culture well- groomed. Swami Vivekananda (1863- 1902) laid stress on physical development as a prerequisite for spiritual development, which in turn leads to the development of the culture of the country. For the past 1000 years various foreign invasions like that of the Huns, the Kushanas, The Arabs, The Muslims, TheDutch, The French and the British took place. So the Indians were exposed to cultures that were totally alien to them. Several attempts were made by the Indian rulers like the Pallavas, the Chalukyas, the Palas, the Rashtrakutas, the Cholas, and the Vijayanagar Emperors to give the Indians an administration, which was in consonance with the cultural heritage of the country.

              Now a days the culture is distorted by some of the films. For that case I choose some Tamil movies how they portray culture in distorted manner and give another aspect of cultural style of the people . Premarital sex is not our culture .It is a foreign culture. But now a days most of the movies having this type of culture and finally they convey premarital sex is not at all bad. They say“it is one of the pleasure and it is a tool of marriage. I have chosen three movies for that. They are “VALLAVAN”, “SIVA MANASULA SAKTHI”, and “VARANAM AYIRAM”. These three movies directly portray sexual intercourse is a tool of marriage.

          Premarital sex is sexual activity between two people who are not married legally. Usually, both parties are unmarried. This might be objected to on religious or moral grounds, while individual views within a given society can vary greatly. Cultural acceptance between premarital sex varies cultures and time periods. In law, sex outside of marriage may be called “FORNICATION”. There still exist regarding fornication in some places, which may or may not be enforced depending on the current prevailing societal views in the jurisdiction. The term premarital sex implies an origin where the word referred to sex prior to marriage. Premarital sex is growing as one of the culture in India.

         In the film VALLAVAN,Vallavan is a happy-go-lucky college student with set of friends. One day he sees Swepna (heroine). He immediately falls in love with her.Finally he knows she is his teacher who’s three years older than Vallavan. But he wants her. So he uses some tricks and finally she accepts .The pair gets intimate and endup having hot sex. Vallavan is losing his mind because he is having hot sex with Swepna and he tells some dialogues “Through sex we show our true love”. These sorts of scenes and dialogues make youngster to do this and he proves having sexual intercourse before marriage is not bad. And then his ladylove is three years older than Vallavan. Normally girl must younger than the boy. But most of the films talk about it in casual manner. This attitude of the directors affects some young mind.“Willing suspension of disbelief”-S.T.Coleridge. But no one can understand that is not real whatever shows in films.

       Next film is “SIVA MANASULA SAKTHI”. In this film the main protagonist SIVA (Jiiva) and SAKTHI (Anuya)meet on a train from Coimbatore and strike up a friendship. Finally both fall in love and both decide to marry. But he “refuses” to marry her. Disappointed, Sakthi returns to home, and sees that Siva organized a surprise birthday party for her. Two of them make love that night. Because of some reasons she runs away from him. Some months later, Sakthi faints and is revealed to be pregnant(as a result of sleeping with siva). When both their families learn this, and they humorously surround siva and beat him up and finally he “got the girl” because of the premarital sex. In normal life, If the parents come to know about their daughter is pregnant before marriage, they will scold her and beat her. In extreme level some families kill the girl, because of their status. But in this film, the comic parents never scold them. They beat only the boy who is cause for his daughter’s pregnancy and finally it ends with happy. Some of the innocent young lovers see the film and get some unwanted courage and practice that and create a scene like that. But real life situation is entirely different from the film. Parents never accept it and the young lover having guilty feeling and decide to commit suicide. Likewise now-a-days most of the suicide cases occurred.

   The next film VARANAM AYIRAM, the actor SURYA falls in love with his sister’s friend.  At first he refuses her, after six years he accepts her love and he makes love with her and they got married. The directors directly show through the both films premarital sex leads as a tool of marriage. It is possible only for the film not for the real life. In other case in our culture women never practice smoking and drinking. But most of the coming movies like ADHIPAGAVAN, RAJARANI and NANBAN showing female gender are smoking in a public place and drinking in a bar equal to men. These are the things affect our traditional culture. Because now-a-days most of the films having the style of western culture.

       One pamphlet talks about the western culture. A pamphlet created by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service(NHS) illustrates what western society generally thinks of sexual activity out of wedlock. The booklet, fittingly titled PLEASURE, attempts to foster frank discussions, between adults and teens about sex, and the enjoyment it can bring. The publication was an effort in the UK –where teenage pregnancies are rampant-to meet young people “where they are” and talk openly about sex. Educators hope to arm teens with enough information to dispel the mystery of sex so they can “decide when they are ready” to lose their virginity. Accordingly, it glibly espouses the benefits of sex through feel good slogans. “One of the things young people say a lot is that the sex education they get is virtually meaningless. It’s too biological and doesn’t relate to how they are feeling”, said a professor of health psychology in a statement published by the NHS centre for HIV and sexual health in Sheffield, England. He wrote the introduction to pleasure and advice on its content.

         Essentially, educators have concluded they are no longer able to stop children for having sex. The best they can hope to do is teach them about it. We are sexual creatures with innate sex drive, the thinking goes. This is natural, so why not? . This  pamphlet convey this message. It shows western culture. This culture reflects in films also. Religious group have taken offense with what the NHS pamphlet promotes and argues that is approach goes too far. In general , church of professing Christianity encourage young people not to be intimate before marriage(in biblical terms, fornication)because it promotes promiscuity, can lead to emotional scarring, may result in unwanted pregnancies and most important, tarnishes the sanctity of marriage.

          Quoting biblical passages that command to “not commit adultery” and “flee fornication” these groups say “no” sex before marriage. Sexually transmitted diseases have reached an unprecedented level. “An antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhoea-now considered a superbug has some analysts saying that the bacteria’s effect could match those of AIDS-CNBC reported. This might be a  lot worse than AIDS in the short run because the bacteria is more aggressive and will affect more people quickly said Alan Christianson, a doctor of naturopathic medicine. The negative effects of premarital sex do not stop with couples. Even the “safest” sex can result in unintended pregnancies-birth control works only most of the time. This can lead to the tragic decision to end the unborn child’s life through abortion, something a woman will carry for the rest of her life.

         If the couple decides to go ahead with the pregnancy, children of unmarried people having physical and mental problems. According to research group child trends, “children born to women who having these problems the children have been found to have lower birth weight, poorer mental and physical health and more behavioural problems than do children  who births were intended. Men and Women who are products of broken home often have children out of wedlock as well, which leads to a vicious, multigenerational cycle of unhappiness. These are the major problem of premarital sex. But these are the problems never shown in films. They show only the happiness note not the other face of life. Because of these problems now-a-days we can face unwanted incidents like Delhi rape case and other cases. So I would like to say films portray culture in a distorted manner and it teaches various culture , likewise it shows premarital sex is a good  one and  it encourages western culture indirectly and goes beyond our traditional path.

Bold Analysis by SANGAVI, Tamilnadu