The relationship that people are most likely to squander is probably not marriage, but the bond with their sibling. A large number of people appear to have useless relations with their siblings. In many cases, they hate each other. In fact, for many people, their arch-enemy is the sibling. It is true that when a person dies of unnatural causes, the spouse is a natural suspect; but so is the sibling. This is especially so in affluent families that have more resources to share than miseries to bind the flock.
Yet, modern couples who are still in the shock of new parenthood go through further agony to have a second child quickly as a way of producing a captive companion for the older one. For a few years of convenient play dates, have they produced a lifelong wound?
Siblings do greatly enhance the life of a child, but chances are that in just a few years they will drift apart or might even be harmful. Some pleasantness may endure if they live apart and their visits are rationed; but if they are housemates, they may find reasons to hate each other. I think siblings are like spouses, but without the conciliatory sex and children to keep them together.
This is an immense waste of a very important bond with a person who is unique and cannot be duplicated. I am aware that not all siblings get estranged. I even know some adults who can vacation with their siblings. I knew a 98-year-old woman who for years used to speak almost every day to her nonagenarian sister on the telephone, chiefly to complain about her children; both of them so deaf that they had to put the other on speaker mode and talk aloud, somehow unaware that their households could hear every unkind word. I myself am a huge beneficiary of having a sibling, a sister who was just over a year older than me, who saved me in many ways when we are growing up. As kids, when we watched Tamil films in which a sibling fought another over mere wealth, we were at first perplexed by the unconvincing plot. Later, when we learnt that this was a way of the world, we pledged that we will never become such siblings. We were true to our oaths, chiefly because our parents ensured that they would never pass on any wealth to us. I guess adversities minus parental wealth brings siblings closer.
Our relationship, though, is not the norm. I have seen how other siblings evolved. When they were children, they were thick and their lives were filled with each other. In their 20s, they would grow aware of their luck. I used to know a brother and sister who would slow dance together.
Okay, maybe that was weird. But generally siblings do grow fonder of each other as they hit their 20s. Somewhere along the way, many of them part ways in acrimony. I had a friend whose elder brother was her hero in her teens, but when I met her recently, she was disappointed in him. I do not take seriously the disappointment of wives in husbands, but when women lose respect or love for their brothers, I wonder what happened. I realize that the disenchantments of women with their brothers appear to be common. Brothers, it seems, palm off all their responsibilities towards their parents onto their sisters and get immersed in their new families. Or they blow up their parents’ savings on doomed startups or, strangely, on their own opulent weddings. Of course, there are also sisters who have never got along for no worthy reason beyond simple envies masquerading as deep psychoanalyses of the other’s character.
Business families are the mascots of sibling discord. The most potent danger to a family business is not debt, but the fragility of sibling bonds. That sort of end even appears inevitable. Businesses that are run by siblings do recognize this fact and try to take measures. For instance, a gold-loan business in Kerala run by three brothers has a tacit understanding that the eldest brother would be a benign dictator because democracy is inefficient. They do have disputes, but also a system of resolving them, which is one of the tightly guarded secrets of the family.
It is surprising that there are marriage counsellors but no specialized sibling counsellors. I am not an admirer of counselling. It is mostly nonsense, but I can still see the point in making people talk about what they usually never tell others. A strange thing about marriage counselling is that it is sought after a problem begins. Maybe counselling would have some use when it comes to the central players before they begin to hate each other. Catholics practise something of this sort but in a hilarious way. The marriage counselling is done before marriage, but by a priest who has never married and does not know anything about conjugal relations, at least officially.
I have a startup idea, on which I also claim my copyright. Imagine a network of siblings who counsel others siblings when they are still children, and also at other stages of life. Most siblings, when they are children, are people in love. They never say it to their siblings but they are in love. When people in love hear what is coming at them in the future, they may believe such things happen only to other people. But eventually when they do face what was prophesied, they would realize something important—that what they are enduring is not unique to them, it is human nature. This can help them forgive more easily.
This is an age that defames marriage, at least among heterosexuals. But the extent of acrimony between siblings should make us view marriages with greater respect.
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The mystery of why siblings are often useless or worse
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05.11.2023
The relationship that people are most likely to squander is probably not marriage, but the bond with their sibling. A large number of people appear to have useless relations with their siblings. In many cases, they hate each other. In fact, for many people, their arch-enemy is the sibling. It is true that when a person dies of unnatural causes, the spouse is a natural suspect; but so is the sibling. This is especially so in affluent families that have more resources to share than miseries to bind the flock.
Yet, modern couples who are still in the shock of new parenthood go through further agony to have a second child quickly as a way of producing a captive companion for the older one. For a few years of convenient play dates, have they produced a lifelong wound?
Siblings do greatly enhance the life of a child, but chances are that in just a few years they will drift apart or might even be harmful. Some pleasantness may endure if they live apart and their visits are rationed; but if they are housemates, they may find reasons to hate each other. I think siblings are like spouses, but without the conciliatory sex and children to keep them together.
This is an immense waste of a very important bond with a person who is unique and cannot be duplicated. I am aware that not all siblings get estranged. I even know some adults who can vacation with their siblings. I knew a........
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