In India, there’s a lot of pressure to get married (not for me, just in general). In a culture where there’s little sense of personal space, people are often probing about your marital status. Of course, my curiosity about arranged marriages has led me to ask some probing questions myself, like how does it work and why do people do it? The topic seems to be on the tip of everybody’s tongue.
Take the woman I shared a rickshaw ride with after our salsa dance class (I switched to salsa after I mastered Bollywood). After a few pedals of the bike, she was already unraveling details about her upcoming nuptials with an Indian-American salsa dancer from California – an arranged marriage. Unfortunately, the Cali salsa king had backed out. Now, she was taking salsa lessons with the hope of winning him back. Before the ride was over, she was inviting me to visit her family in Kolkata.
Other friends I know go the dating route to find their perfect mate. But when their relationships don’t lead to marriage, moms usually offer to intervene to find a bride or groom, or they might simply seek the blessing of a Hindu pujari, or priest, hoping the gods of matrimony will help the process along. For a woman and her family, it can also be a costly proposition. In some parts of India, a family is expected to give the husband-to-be a tidy sum of gold for marrying their daughter (as well as other goodies like a car, AC, washing machine etc, not to forget hard cash). Some young people are rebelling against all this. But still a huge number of times people are in love with someone but are forced to marry according to their parent’s wishes.
I’ve heard a number of arranged marriage stories. In a bar, one guy in his early thirties explained how it works. When men reach their mid-twenties, it is the ideal time to start putting out signals through a matchmaker that they’re looking for a bride. There is actually a marriage dossier which includes family details and birth charts commonly referred to as a janampatri, which is circulated. The matchmaker could be someone close to the family or more distant like a neighbor. For men, the marriage dossier contains more information about their ability to be a good provider, their work history and annual income. Women emphasize their more ‘homely’ attributes, namely cooking and caring for the home. ‘If a woman is more docile, not one to create waves, that’s a plus,” my bar buddy shockingly revealed. In addition to the matchmaker, there are even matrimonial adverts in the newspapers (all brides, it seems, must be tall, slim and beautiful).
From the whole dossier, the first item to be sent is the photo. In the case of my friend, he liked his potential wife’s large brown eyes. Once the couple is ready, a big meeting is arranged between the families like negotiations for a merger and acquisition. For my friend, only at the end did the families give him and his future wife 10 minutes to be alone. That’s when you can really ask questions, like: Are you in love with someone else? He just asked her simply: do you want to go ahead with the marriage? She said yes.
Why do people do it? From what I understand, there is a strong feeling of duty for young people to start a family. There’s also peer pressure, societal pressure, and the fear of being alone. Plus there are a lot of boxes to check: same caste, social status, religion. Rather than using Tinder or Match.com, or hey, just finding a person to gaze up at the stars with, they cut to the chase through an arranged marriage. And in India, marriage is really for life – the divorce rate is in the single digits. Does my buddy want his son to do the same? I think he realizes that norms are changing quickly in India. I asked him when did he fall in love with his wife. He said that one does not expect you to be in love when you get married. After a rocky start, he says they’ve found a “good way” together.
I kind of like the approach of my friend and yoga guru, Nambi. His daughter came to him and said she and her boyfriend wanted to marry and Nambi and his wife – with the groom pre-selected – started the pseudo-arranged marriage process. We all need a good love story to tell.
And speaking of love stories, the woman from Kolkata got quite good at salsa and is back on with her fiance. My trip to meet her family was quietly cancelled.
Rap Meister Rick on Tour 