Friday, August 24, 2012

The Great Indian Wedding


Thanks to Sony, I got a reason for blogging. See more about Sony's LoveYaArranged on facebook here : www.facebook.com/LoveYaArrange

The great Indian wedding saga begins when you reach the so called 'marriageable age'. The marriageable age varies from community to community - there are Indian women who get married at as early as 16 years, and as late as 40 years. And yes, in India, you are expected to spend a lifetime with the guy who has been chosen for you by your parents and relatives. While choosing the prospective bridegroom, the questions the parents ask are : "How rich is the bridegroom? How much is his annual income? Is he white (read fair)? Does he drink (read consume alcohol)? and hundreds of other questions that involves his social status, family background and beauty, but unfortunately none about his personality or tastes. On an average, it takes only around 2 months for a wedding to happen after choosing the bridegroom, and the prospective couples are not allowed to interact much with each other during that period. Yes, you are getting married to a stranger chosen by your parents. And you are going to spend the rest of your life with this guy.

You might think that an Indian arranged marriage might most surely lead to a divorce because one is getting married to an absolute stranger, but that is not the case. Women, fearing the consequences of being a divorcee, often suffer the marital discords silently. If you are a woman and your parents have not gifted you enough of money and goods (called dowry) at the time of wedding, you'll probably be beaten up or burnt to death by your husband and his relatives.

The solution to this problem could be a love marriage where you choose the guy you want to marry, fall in love with each other, and live the rest of the life with him. Indian societies are well-known for its hatred to love marriage. If you had a love marriage, you'll probably be ousted from the family and shunned by the society. If you come from a conservative family, you and your husband would probably be killed by your own brothers or other male blood relations for causing 'shame' to the family by marrying on own choice.

Dear Indian women, be sure that you do not get killed in the process of getting married or after it.

3 comments:

  1. true,most of the indian families are conservative when it comes to marriage and we talk about modernisation and co-education.
    nice post
    keep it up

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  2. Short sweet and devastatingly true for many especially in rural and semi urban that count for 70% of India! Newspaper headlines only tip of an iceberg. Often liberal fathers feel are jealous of this luv-sub because they have their marriage done in the arranged mode by their parents. They are vocal about others' love marriage, even enjoy a love serail or movie but when it comes to own decision, they fall back on family tradition ... that they think is the safety valve !

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  3. Arrange marriage or love marriage ... both can survive with equal love and passion and of course with the occasional dose of tu-tu main-main ...

    ReplyDelete