A man and woman shall become One !

I have had opportunities to observe the courtship practices of birds during my walk, as it takes place in the open in the lap of nature, often in the privacy of thickly covered foliage. The Parakeets, Magpie Robins, Orioles, Pigeons and Sparrows are the ones that I noticed in this transition of relationships. 

When I started my walking exercises following surgery two months back, I noticed birds in groups or as single. The parakeets were in groups of five to ten. Now I watch them mostly in pairs. Between being in a group and in pairs, there was a phase, when the male  parakeet would use the bird song to entice the female one. When a pair was formed, attempts by any other male bird will be resisted by the pair that is formed. At least for this mating season, they would remain together. I have noticed two nesting places of the parakeets on a hollow in the trunk of trees.

As against this, the Magpie Robins used to stay in isolated areas alone. Now, I see them in pairs staying together, flying together and singing reciprocally. They too would become romantic shortly and find their nesting places. I have not seen any single Magpie Robin during the last week, all of them have become pairs, at least six,  in different places. They have a preference for the same territory that, it is a delight to watch the same pair in the same place on most of the days.

Birds find their own mates. Humans too do the same; in the western culture after a period of dating and unfortunately in many instances, after living in. This is invading the culture in India too in the urban settings.

The other way of coming together in a relationship is through being ‘arranged’ into a relationship by parents or well wishers or professional web based ‘match makers’.

In either case, the lesson I pick up from the birds is that they surrender to the instinct to become a family of male and female birds. Humans now seem to depart from this. The same gender live-in relationships have got formalised legally in some parts of the world. This tendency is on the rise and the civil society seems to give consent to this, on the basis of a notion that some are created to be so. I feel it is  a distorted view of life, brought into being as an extension of the ‘hippie culture’ of rebellion to anything that is formal, traditional and value based.

We are people of two genders. The sameness is stereotypical and differences are complementary to make life wholesome.

Watch and learn from  the birds- they still follow the created order. For humans, the created order is  ‘a man and woman shall become one’!


M.C.Mathew(text and photo)