A Study of Arranged Marriage

All of the blog entries so far have been based on my own experience in India and talking to people I know who are more familiar with arranged marriages. The information presented here comes from a book review.

There are a few commonly held myths which are dispelled by this article. First, arranged marriage does not always mean that the bride and groom meet for the first time on their wedding day. Sometimes parents or relatives will introduce a couple who will then go out on a few dates in order to get to know each other with the prospects of marriage on their minds. Second, forced arranged marriages do happen, but not on a normal basis.

Reva Seth wrote this book because of her interest in the fact that arranged marriages are organized after considering more than just love, intimacy, and sexual attraction. After interviewing more than 300 women who had arranged marriages in the US, UK, and Canada, Seth concludes that the first thing that happens in an arranged marriage is that the couple will get to know each other and build a life and family together. This process is easier and moves more smoothly if the two have similar backgrounds, goals, and expectations. After building a life together, the affection and intimacy grows.

In her book, Seth argues that arranged marriages are more durable than love marriages. In order to be happy, a woman does not have to love the man that she marries. She says that “common interests are less important than shared values.”


Pais, Arthur J. “Reva Seth speaks up for arranged marriages." India Abroad [New York]04 Jul 2008: Community News.

***This is a picture of my friends Mukta and Ajay during their engagement ceremony.

Arranged Marriage in America

There is a woman from India who works with my dad and since my departure for India three years ago, we have spent increasing amounts of time with her. I will call her Lakshmi for privacy purposes. Lakshmi moved from India to the United States about twenty years ago, when she first moved here to marry her fiancé who she had never met.

Now, Lakshmi has a daughter who is in college. This daughter has been raised in an Indian household with Indian parents, but she grew up in the United States. I decided to find what Lakshmi planned to do about her daughter’s marriage.

Lakshmi told me that she would like to arrange a marriage for her daughter to a boy of the same class and caste. This boy could be American, like her, or he could be Indian—in which case Lakshmi’s daughter would move to India to live with him and his family. Lakshmi has friends both here and in India who have already gotten their child engaged.

This past Thanksgiving break (a few days before I asked her about her daughter and arranged marriage), Lakshmi brought up this idea with her daughter subtly. She mentioned a few of her friend’s children of the same age who were already engaged, she also brought up my engagement. To this Lakshmi’s daughter replied: “That’s good for

them but I hope you don’t think I’m getting engaged.” She is resistant to the idea of arranged marriage, as seems reasonable for a girl brought up in the United States.

Lakshmi seems calm about this resistance, but it does not seem that this is the end of the conversation. Her daughter is still young. Lakshmi agreed that it would be possible to find the perfect man for her daughter: an upper class Brahmin, living in America, and studying to be a doctor, and yet things may not work. Lakshmi said that it would be better that her daughter marries for love than to marry a man who fits this criteria and yet he beats his wife or does not take care of her. While Lakshmi believes that arranged marriage is the right way, the most important thing is that her daughter marries someone who is going to take care of her and respect her.

***I took this picture in the state of Kerala. These girls were dancing on their roof until I came with my camera and they all got together to pose for me.

Seeing the magic happen

While in India, I was able to attend Pramod’s older sister, Supriya’s marriage. Supriya married a man who lives two houses away from their house and yet she had never spoken to him.

Supriya was 25 years old when getting married. Up until this point in her life she had lived in the same house, with her siblings and parents, her entire life. She had very little freedom to go out with friends or be independent. Every day she had to be home before 6:30, there were no sleep-overs, and there was certainly no interaction with unrelated boys of the same age—even into her mid-twenties.

Now, all of a sudden, her marriage is arranged and she must plan to be living somewhere else, separate from those who she slept next to every night for 25 years (due to living situations in their community, most families sleep side-by-side on the floor). Until this day her life has been pretty constant, she moved from school to work, it is now just her, her dad, and her brother (her other sister married shortly after their mother’s death), but nothing else is different. Then all of a sudden, everything changes in one day.

The day of her marriage, I saw her leave her house as a tired looking, teary-eyed girl who seemed to be terrified of the unknown yet to come. This is a very understandable response in my opinion. However this is speculation for though all these facts are true, I have no idea how she was feeling at the time. On the wedding day, I have pictures of her tired face changing from a scared child to an excited woman. Slowly her mood seemed to change and I have one picture from that moment her and her new husband met each other’s eyes and smiled together for the first time.

The natural response is to be scared of the unknown: moving to a new home to be with people she hardly knows is a new, different, and probably scary reality. However, Surpiya’s culture taught her throughout her life that this is what’s supposed to come for her and all girls. She quickly got over her fear and became excited of her new life to come.

***This is a picture from Supriya's wedding to her husband Swamy. The two people standing over them are Vedashree, Supriya's younger sister, and her husband, Manju.

Lecturing

During my first trip to India in 2005, I met Pramod’s family who really did not know what to think of me. They were all sweet but uncomfortable speaking English as well as uncertain how to treat me. I came into their lives as an outsider who, while open to their culture, did not know much about it.

Pramod’s sister, Vedashree, who grew up with the custom of arranged marriage, felt it her duty to protect her little brother from this strange American who probably won’t be able to take care of him as a good as an Indian wife would.

One day Vedashree took me aside so that the two of us could talk and began lecturing me on my relationship with Pramod. She told me that everything I was feeling for Pramod was not real, that it was just infatuation, and that it was not a proper impulse to act on these feelings. Dating is not appropriate in her culture (boys have much more freedom which is why Pramod was free to be out with me). They are raised believing that love does not come before marriage. Love comes after marriage after learning to live with a person and respect him and wanting to take care of him.

Vedashree told me that if Pramod and I wanted to get married, it would be much more serious than I knew because “in India, people do not get divorced as they do in America.” She assumed that because I was an American, I would take marriage more lightly and get a divorce at the first sign of trouble as if divorce were as easy and acceptable as going to a store.

Her lecturing me about my customs which she believed to be naiveté was hurtful at the time. I just did not realize that she was only following what she had been taught to believe all her life.

***This is a picture of Vedashree holding her son (taken in the summer of 2008).

The Process

I will describe the process of an arranged marriage as told by one individual. I am sure that this process differs depending on location, community, and economic background.

To keep it simple, I will discuss the process for a son and his family even though the same would be done for a daughter:

A couple will look for a wife for their son at ceremonies or weddings. Generally most of the people at these gatherings would be distantly related and of the same caste. If the mother or father sees a girl who looks respectable and well behaved, they will ask their host about her.

The host then acts as the middleman, going to the girl’s parents and asking their opinion on the boy. If he is suitable, they exchange pictures of their children. Each family will ask around about the other girl/boy and their family. The family is important because 1.) if there were any indiscretions with the girl’s the parents or siblings, it reflects badly on her; 2.) a girl will move in with her husband’s family after marriage and so they must be sure that his family will treat her properly.

Later, the boy’s elders will go with him to the girl’s house where the couple can meet and decide if they like the looks of each other. If both families are still interested, they will go to an astrologer to make sure that the planets are right for their marriage. This is a very important step and even if everyone agrees to the marriage but their astrology is bad, they will not marry.

In this kind of marriage, the decision to marry comes from relatives including elder brothers and sisters and their spouses. Some families are less strict and if the boy or girl does not want to marry the other, they will not force the marriage. Others, however, do not take the couple’s feelings into consideration in the marriage process.

***I took the picture displayed here during an Indian wedding ceremony.

My Experience with Arranged Marriage

About three years ago I traveled to Southern India for three months to study yoga during the fall semester of my freshman year in college. In my time there I met and fell in love with an Indian, Pramod, now my fiancé, who opened my eyes to the realities of arranged marriage (which I didn’t even know still existed today). Up until our engagement ceremony this past summer, Pramod’s elders continued to show him pictures of eligible Indian girls in hopes that he would agree to marry one of them. This seems so strange to me. I have grown up in a place where I will get to choose who I will marry and I can date as much as necessary to find the right one. I cannot imagine saying yes to a spouse based only on a picture.

Throughout the last three years I have made friends with more Indians both in India and in the US and I have had many more encounters of the horrors and joys of arranged marriage; including witnessing Pramod’s sister’s marriage to a man she had never met.

I will examine arranged marriage through the experiences I have had in India, interviews with those involved, and stories from those who have experienced it. Through studying arranged marriage and talking to people who have grown up with arranged marriage as a cultural norm, I hope to understand the reasons for them and what makes them work. This practice is strange to me and the thought of marrying and moving away with a man who I have never met before terrifies me. However, this is a practice which has a long history all around the world. I hope that I can begin to understand arranged marriage and maybe it will help me appreciate and get into the mindset of Indians a little bit more.

***The picture above is of the Mysore Palace in the south Indian state of Karnataka where I have spent most of my time in India.