Recently I got across an interesting article about couples relations in Georgia, about it's conservative traditions, fairy tales and bitter reality. Thought about cases I know myself and recalled about 11 examples of my friends marriages, 7 of which ended up with a divorce and a child with broken family hardly reaching 1.6 year of age. Other four are successful so far, and I do hope it will continue that way. The average age of partners in these cases was about 19- 20 for girls and 21-22 for boys. The reasons of these kinds of early and unsuccessful marriages are different, some of them can be facts of unexpected pregnancy, that can partially be explained by lack of information about sex and contraception, as there is a some kind of taboo on sexual topic in Georgia, and youngsters that do have sex, don't pay proper attention to it. Other reason of abortive marriage can be love, which I would more call a passion (the one that fades away soon), when young people think they love each other and are ready to live the rest of their lives together, but as it turns out a bit later, they are completely different people that can't stand each other.
Why does this happen?
As I have mentioned in the earlier post, Georgia is an Orthodox country, where religion plays a huge role. As a part of Georgian Orthodox faith along with a Georgia's conservative belief, a woman can't have sex before marriage or as now it is called there is a virginity "institute" here. Tbilisi-based Caucasus Research Resource Centers survey showed that 77% of respondents think it is unacceptable for a woman to have sex before marriage. But this is changing as new modern and more open generation is on it's way. Meanwhile boys are encouraged to practice sex as soon as they reach puberty.The fairy tale part in this issues is how young people see a successful marriage, a handsome Georgian knight on white horse, beautiful children, belief in God and careless future, but this fairy tale mostly works different, instead they face a bitter reality which is not that easy and beautiful. According to this "institute" the only "legal" way for a girl to have sex is marriage, and sometimes unfortunately this marriage occurs not to be that careless and wonderful as it seemed to be for partners while dating and this young family falls apart leaving their little kids, that were born as a result of mentioned above "legal" sex, without a proper parental care. The divorce rate in Georgia according to National Statistics Office of Georgia in 2008 was 3 189 registered case while in 2000 it was only 1854 (different couples with different backgrounds, age and marriage duration are included in this data).
As the most accent in this issue is made on women, I wanted to separate them into three types, one - those who don't care about conservative traditions openly having sexual relations with their partners even before marriage, two - those who play by the rules of virginity "institute" willingly and do like it that way, waiting for the one and hopefully only , and three - those who play the game but cheat!
What can be cheating in this kind of game?!
Have you ever heard about virginity restoration? Hymenoplasty is what cheaters refer to when they decide to play the role of innocent girl in order to get married and have their own fairy tale, as being a virgin before marriage is important. One of this kind of places for plastic surgery for example can be the clinic of Iva Kuzanov that was opened in 2004, at first the surgery was not offered as there was no demand for it, however after he mentioned the possibility on television talk show more and more women requested hymen restoration, now he performs five to seven such operations per month.
I would say that traditions are important, as tradition is part of national identity that comes for ages. But sometimes this traditions can be playing a negative role as it sometimes interferes with simple principles of nature. Why not sexual relations be a private decision. Why not either playing the game by its rules or just not playing it at all! Anyway I hope our youth will think several times before making a very important step like creating a family because as a result children are suffering the most.
