The last couple of decades have seen our society contract a cancer that is spreading fast. This cancer threatens to destroy the social and family structure of our society. It is a form of cancer that chemotherapy cannot control or cure. It effects subsequent generations and gets worse if not treated. The cancer has been spreading in the western hemisphere long before we even knew it existed. Today we can witness what it has done to the social and family structure of the West, where children grow up without a father or a mother. Where children are born in an environment where they do not know who their parents are.
Fortunately, we know the cause of this cancer. It starts as a result of premarital relationships between the opposite genders. Like most cancers, it initially produces no symptoms but over time and sometimes generations later, it shows itself and by that time it is extremely hard to get rid of the disease. Having relationships with the opposite sex outside the fold of marriage, or in other words having a girlfriend or a boyfriend relationship, is the start of the degeneration of the
social and family structure of a society. Initially such a “friendship” may seem harmless and not many people will find anything wrong with it. However, if we look at what this has done to the fabric of western society then there is hardly any doubt that this is a social cancer that has dire consequences.
Not long ago the West had social and family values similar to the East. A time when “Christians” were actually Christians and when marriage was regarded as a sacred institution, a covenant that was guarded and respected. Today that same institution is being considered outdated and unnecessary. What has resulted in this age- old practice, which has all the blessings of a prosperous and strong society, being considered redundant? For a society consists of families and families are formed by marriage. Hence marriage is the basic unit of a society and a civilization. Anything that threatens the institution of marriage is a threat to the social structure of that society. The Girlfriend-Boyfriend cancer is a threat to the institution of marriage and therefore a threat to society.
How can just having a girlfriend or a boyfriend be a threat to marriage? Such a relationship in and of itself is not a threat to marriage. However, what such relationships result into and the effect they have on the society as a whole, is disastrous. One cancerous cell within the body is, in and of itself, harmless. But this cell divides and eventually forms a cancerous tumor, which is life threatening. What we need to understand is that man by his very nature is tiresome. We get bored easily and we like to push boundaries and try out something new. However, man does not quite know when to stop and sometimes goes too far and finds himself in a situation that is hard to reverse. Premarital relationships start with an innocent friendship and can result in a society where marriage is replaced by “domestic partnership” and (in extreme cases) where the definition of marriage changes to include the union between two people of the same sex. This transition does not take place within two, ten or twenty years; it takes generations, but it starts with something as “innocent” as a “friendship”. Today the West is facing social problems, as a result of its lax attitude towards premarital relationships, which it is finding hard to resolve.
For once the cancer grows and spreads, all you can do is watch it destroy the body.
It is common, in the West, for a man and a woman to be living together without being married. To them, marriage does not have any significance. They probably want to be free to leave each other when they wish, just like the days when they could easily switch between girlfriends and boyfriends. When you are living with your girlfriend / boyfriend and are doing everything that a married couple does, why be bound by a “marriage-contract”?
Here we are focusing on what effects this cancer has on the society as a whole, particularly the institution of marriage. What effect this disease has on the youth (STD’s, teenage pregnancies and subsequent abortions etc.) is an essay for another day.
This article is not an attack on my brothers and sisters who are involved in such relationships. Rather, it is an attempt to make them, and all of us realize that such people are part of a trend that
can prove to be dangerous for our society. They are the cancerous cells that, individually are harmless, but together form a deadly tumor. I would not like to be in a Pakistan where our children have friends whose parents are not married or have friends who do not know who their father is. Or where our sisters and daughters are tried and tested by “boyfriends” before they get married. If this cancer persists and if we follow in the footsteps of the West, then I assure you that this is a reality not far away.
By Muhammad Ahmad Khan
(2011)
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