Majority of Indians still follow arranged marriage system, which might seem impractical to the western world. Spending time in India, I was able to learn that this way of marriage is the most preferred choice in Indian families. Indian families give a lot of importance to family relationship and protection. As marriage is considered one of the most important steps in life, as an act of family love it is carefully thought out and planned. Living in India for almost five months I learned about advantages and disadvantages of this practice. Even though I can say that I still do not agree with the idea of arranged marriages, meeting people and hearing their life stories enabled me to understand the reason for this practice.
One of the main goals of arranged marriages is to ensure the separation between upper and lower casts in the society. It was important to keep the wealth within the family and the upper cast was strongly encouraged to make arrangements within their cast. Also, arranged marriages are often seen as a way to promote class system and are the best way to take dowry. Dowry system is very old and its purpose is to provide for the woman in case something unfortunate happens with husband such as divorce or death. Therefore, it all started as an honorable way to protect the bride and give her security. Sadly, today dowry system turns into bride-price system, where a good dowry size ensures a good match for a girl and her family.
Closely related to arranged marriages are child marriages. In the past it was a common practice for parents to arrange marriage for their children during their childhood. This was a way to ensure that children will marry a person from the same cast and same economic status. It was also a way to prevent their children to fall in love or search for someone else, as from their early age they knew whom to marry. Those who would find their own mates would be threaten by parents, so the easiest way would be to accept the family choice in order not to invite shame for the family. Today child marriages are abolished by the law, but parents still do have a huge influence.
Nowadays, once marriage is arranged two people are allowed to meet and get to know each other before the wedding day. However, it is important to notice that in India marriage is not only between a bride and groom, but rather between their families. This is because Indians mainly live in joint families and wives come to live with husbands’ family. By marriage woman enters into bondage, and her freedom is often limited.
Comments
The system in India is usually spelled 'caste'.
Do you think arranged marriages can be successful?