Posted on: 22 Jul 2022
Shri Satti Reddy asked:- Swami, Every man thinks that he should marry the most beautiful girl. What do you think about this aspect?
Swami Replied:- Marriage shall take place when there is a match between the male and the female in all aspects. Similarly, a debate also shall take place between two scholars having perfect matching Scriptural knowledge (Vivāhaśca vivādaśca, samayoreve śobhate). Regarding the topic of marriage, the match shall be in every aspect. This means that if the man is rich, he can aspire for a rich female and this is a match in wealth. Similarly, if the man is educated, he can aspire for an educated female and this is a match in education. Similarly, if the man is beautiful, he can aspire for a beautiful female and this is a match in beauty. Like this, the match should be in every aspect. Suppose, a rich man, who is not beautiful, aspires for a beautiful female, this is not called as a match. Matching cannot be done between two different aspects.
As such, internal beauty, which is the character of good qualities, is more important than external beauty. Married life will be very happy if there is a match in internal beauty. Internal beauty is permanent and stays lifelong. Not only lifelong, it continues forever in the future births also. If the man is not beautiful and marries a beautiful female based on his strong richness, elders say that such a wife will become an enemy to the man (Bhāryā rūpavatī śatruḥ…). The reason is, in such a case, there is every possibility of her loose character bringing tensions to the husband by which the married life becomes hell. In telugu, there is a saying (Illu irakaṭaṃ āli markaṭam), which means that the house shall be small and the wife shall be a monkey. The idea behind this is explained by the elders like this:- If the house is small, it will be easy to clean it frequently in a day and if the wife is not good looking, she will maintain perfect character and the married life will be a heaven. This saying can be digested in the angle of the concept that the external beauty is temporary whereas the internal beauty is permanent and hence, a wise man gives importance to the internal beauty. If internal beauty matches, even Spiritual life is very much strengthened and encouraged because the wife also participates in the Spiritual efforts of the man leading the man to be successful in his Spiritual life. It is generally said that a woman in the form of wife is always behind the success of a man.
The actual sense of dating before marriage is to study the important internal beauty of qualities of each other and not to have the physical relationship related to temporary external beauty and temporary lust. Goddess Parvati is very beautiful externally and loved the most beautiful (externally and internally) Lord Shiva and tried to attract God Shiva towards her marvellous external beauty with the help of the flower arrows of Cupid (Kaama deva). Even though the external beauty is matching, God Shiva did not proceed to give consent to the marriage. God Shiva wanted to test the match of internal beauty of qualities also. Therefore, God Shiva burnt Cupid with His third eye and disappeared indicating that external beauty and its related lust are not important. Later on, Goddess Parvati did severe penance and burnt her lust related to external beauty and was leftover with internal beauty of qualities that is related to her pure love for Lord Shiva. Temporary external beauty is always related to temporary lust and eternal internal beauty is always related to eternal love. God Shiva came in disguise and tested Parvati for her pure love to Him. He found a match in internal beauty as well and only then, proceeded for marriage with her. Even Gopikas, who are reborn sages doing severe penance for God (like Parvati), selected God Krishna as their real husband based on the love or devotion to God and not based on the external beauty of Krishna related to hormonal provoked lust. Temporary lust shall follow the eternal love and the eternal love will not follow the temporary lust.