Can I Divorce if My Marriage is Incompatible?

If someone does not like their wife, they feel that they and their spouse are incompatible, is that a legitimate grounds for divorce? In this connection kindly note the following excerpt from a Srimad Bhagavatam lecture that Srila Prabhupada gave in Los Angeles on 22 September 1972:

'So I think I have spoken about my own life. You know that I was a married man. So after being married, I did not like my wife. (laughter) Somehow or other, I did not like. I must say she is very faithful, very everything... Everyone praised. But I did not like, somehow or other. So I was preparing for next marriage. Next marriage. Because in India, at that time it was allowed, a man can marry more than one wife. Now the law is there. So my father, he was a saintly person. So he called me one day and said, 'My dear boy, you are trying to marry again. I request you don't do that. You do not like your wife. That is a great fortune for you.' (laughter) So I gave up that idea of marrying. Yes. So now I am realizing my father's blessing, yes, that if I would have been too much attached to my wife, then I could not have come to this position. That's a fact. So by ethical point of view, from spiritual point of view, to become too much attached to wife is an impediment for spiritual advancement."

When Srila Prabhupada was a young man in India divorce was not the system if one did not like his wife. One would simply marry another wife and keep the first one as a maidservant. Nowadays people resort to divorce instead. But either course of action is not proper. One should accept whatever arrangement Krishna has made for one's life and happily engage in His loving service. This is the only real solution for all problems.

Srila Prabhupada Conducts Marriage Ceremony for Three Grihastha Couples May 6, 1969 in Boston, USA

Dvarakanath Prabhu's Happy Family

Answers According to the Vedic Wisdom

Question: Arranged Marriage or Love Marriage?

Which is better: an arranged marriage or a love marriage?

Anonymous

Answer: Arranged Marriage. Here's Why:

Our original nature and actual identity is that we are all the eternal servants of God, residents of His spiritual world. We are here now in the material world because we foolishly wanted to enjoy separately from God instead of serving Him. Since love cannot be forced, God allowed us to come to this material world where everybody can forget about God and is trying to enjoy separately from Him. Since this is an artificial position, eventually after many lifetimes everyone here will sooner or laster come to their senses and realize what a big mistake they made by coming here in their foolish attempt to try to enjoy separately from God. They will thus voluntarily want to return to their original natural position of serving God in the spiritual world. What binds us to stay here in this artificial situation more than anything else is sex attraction, which is based on our false identification with our material bodies. Factually we are not these bodies. We are instead eternal spiritual beings who are simply residing temporarily in the prison of these male and female bodies. Since marriage is necessary for the proper propagation of the species and to satisfy a psychological need which most of us have, it is better for marriages to be arranged than to be based on sex attraction, which we falsely call love. Arranged marriages put us in a better position for regaining our original identities in the spiritual world as soon as possible. Personally, I am the happy participant in an arranged marriage that has been flourishing now for 35 years. I recommend arranged marriages based on serving God for everyone who wants to get married. Divorce and domestic violence will disappear, and the world will become filled up with saintly children born of god-centered marriages, who will turn this planet into an inconceivably sublime paradise.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari