Love marriages around the world are simple:
Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy.
They get married.
In India, there are a few more steps:
Boy loves Girl. Girl loves Boy.
Girl's family has to love boy. Boy's family has to love
girl.
Girl's Family has to love Boy's Family. Boy's family has to
love girl's
family.
And after all this if there is any LOVE remaining between
girl and boy.
They get married.
-
Chetan
Bhagat's 'Two States'
This has been happening for quite some time. Wake up in the
morning, log on to your facebook and you see one more notification of someone
getting engaged, someone getting married. And obviously so, this is the
marriage season on in India, and I belong to this group or this age, where
people do generally get married. So, it is nothing but obvious that my friends
are all getting hooked.
Interacting with many of recently married, or soon to be
married couples, gives me one good insight. Get an arranged marriage, and it is
fine. Dare a Love, and there are lots of things to be arranged. The biggest of
them all, convincing parents
More the differences, more time consuming it is.
1. Different caste?
The most common problem. Everyone, right from your mom and
dad, mama,mami,mausi, mausaji also all other relatives whom you hardly know who
just meet during weddings, the kaam wali bai, also wants to know why are you
getting married to someone outside your caste. All of sudden you become the centre
of universe for your relatives , relatives I feel are like ants J when they see a sugar
cube they gather in thousands ,torturing you parents asking questions about
when you are marrying your kid .
2. Different language?
Again a big obstacle, and a very common one! Come on now,
India has about a 1000 languages ( 18 official languages approved by
constitution of India), and liberalization has allowed us to travel across the
country. It is obvious that a Rajput girl would fall in love with a Punjabi guy,
or a rajasthani girl being married to Marathi guy! But well, parents on either
side would sure be dead against it. Why? Dude, you want your father to be able
to at least communicate to your father in law! Living in both Rajasthan, and
Maharashtra, the difference in life style could not get starker. They could
have been two completely different countries all together. Iraq and America
would have more similarities, in every walk of life!
How do you convince you parents? Show them the beauty of
multi cultural interaction learning new things ,food habits,cultures,languages
all these brings newness and new means happy.
3. Different religion?
The whole sky falls on you ! WHY? Why? And after many more doubts
on proper downloads of sanskar, the mother still asks WHY? Why on earth you, a
marathi boy, who does not eat anything apart from chicken and mutton at home want
to get married to a vegetarian girl? WHY?
These questions from your mothers are hard to answer , I don’t
feel eating habits has anything to do with marriage ?
Remember Veer-Jaara, convince your parents that you are
doing all this in for the betterment of the Indian society, and to ensure
cross-cultural exposure to your kids! Or maybe, you can just tell them, it is
necessary like MBA students has a necessary international exposure!
Beware, they might just slam you back with Sonia Gandhi’s
example, and try showing you logic that only if Rajiv Gandhi had married a
hindu girl, the country would have been a lot better now! No Italian dope to
the dying BJP!( yeah, and who know, No Bofors case for the CBI. No Q)
4. Ego clashes?
Mohabbatein! If you remember seeing the SRK romantic movie
of early 2000’s, you would realize that there is no solid reason for the father
Amitabh bacchhan to reject SRK’s candidature. (This is what marriages have
become, one more job opening!). It was just his ego, which he could not let go!
I wonder, why are most of the parents against the overall
concept of a love marriage? I know of a friend, who loved a girl from his same
caste, and everything. If he would have applied for an arranged marriage, a
good possibility that his parents could have selected the same girl! But they
were against this alliance? Surprising!
It is more to do with the inherent right that parent seem to
be losing than anything else. At the birth of a child itself, the parent takes
this ordeal of selecting a bride for their son, as their innate right. Now when
you, the son, gets a girl on your own, your are stealing them of this right,
and they do not want that.
No parent would accept this, but this seems to be the
inherent truth!
Again, here, persistence is the only way guys!
Culturally and socially, we have been a nation with a
close-knit family structure where parents play a large hand – and till much
later in their children’s adult lives – in decision-making. From the subjects
children choose in school, to the college they go to, who their friends are, to
living arrangements, marriage and even when naming grandchildren, parents are/
have been an integral part of our decisions. Often when children – now adults –
take decisions without consulting their parents, it is taken as an ‘insult’ or
a sign of disregard.
“You don’t care for what we think,” is a line many an Indian
parent will use when they find their adult-children taking independent
decisions. This is not to say that parents are (necessarily) wrong. If parents
see their 19-year-old daughter wanting to marry a jobless boy from her college,
they have all rights – and ARE right – in stating what they think of the alliance
and perhaps not extending their support. Love is not only blind but also
regretful too in some situations. Having parental guidance is of utmost
importance in certain scenarios.
However, it might not be such an open-and-shut case all the
time… Like when it’s a question of inter-caste marriages. We have had parents
killing their children? – because they married outside their caste. A number of
criteria make a good, stable, happy marriage. Perhaps belonging to the same
religion, community, caste or faith adds to a marriage. But does NOT belonging
to the same religion, community, caste or faith take away from a marriage? Or
reduce the chances of a happy marriage?
What if everything is suitable between two people and they
belong to different castes? WHY should parents oppose such an alliance? What
makes more sense: Parents forcing their children to marry within their caste
where the children will be unhappy or parents supporting it when their children
do make an earnest choice that will make them happy?
While a number of men
and women would take the traditional route, read: by settling down with an
arranged match, there would also be those who are `brave` enough to defy the
age-old norms and choose their own partner. Well, this ceaseless, pointless and
bothersome debate of `Love marriage vs arranged marriage` has been done to
death in India where the custom of arranged marriage was once considered an
unchangeable norm come what may.
The trend of arranged marriages began ages ago, when child
marriages in India were rampant and children were married off by ignorant
parents. And yes, the new bride would especially be drilled with the words
`compromise and adjust` in her head by the patriarchal society when problems
owing to compatibility arose in the consortium. Even when the concept of child
marriages was disregarded by the new judicial laws, the idea of arranged
marriages was too good to be let off by the Indians. That is why we have
families who make it obligatory for their child to tie the holy knot with
whoever they pick to suit the clan`s taste.
In our `purist` society, the approach of love marriage or
better say marriage by one`s choice still remains an anathema, thanks to the
feudal mindset of those who fail to change with the changing times. Proposals
of love marriage are met with raised eyebrows, endless curses, and every
attempt is made to thwart the possibility of a union solemnized without
acceptance of the elders of the respective families.
However, there are families who are accepting the new trend
showing a ray of hope to change India`s future for the better. Parents perhaps
understand that things don`t work by shoving their choice down the throat of
their children but rather by giving the latter freedom to choose their soul
mate – either all by themselves or from the given choices.
I won`t go further into the territory of making arguments in
support of love marriages and I am not even against arranged matches. Arranged
marriages work for many people as same cultural/social/economic backgrounds
help people adjust more easily in the new fit to a large extent. But I would
like to urge my country`s men and women to abide by their heart in the matters
of heart. Whichever way you choose to marry, it is important to nourish the
relationship with mutual love, respect and understanding because time tests
both types of marriages. And if divorce and separation on petty issues keep
breaking matrimonial ties, then soon the future generation would lose faith in
this institution called marriage.
