As we all see, in India we follow arranged marriage system, where two or more parties arrange a marriage between two persons. Love before marriage is considered bad in this country. No my friends today I am not going to talk about the negative aspects of our marriage system. I believe like every aspect of life, arranged marriage also has its merits and demerits. Compared to other countries, Indian people are more emotionally attached to their family members; we give more importance to relationships and family customs. In our country ours parents take care of us till their last breath, because in our country family’s safety comes first. To protect their children from any future problem arising due to marriage in other religion or caste parents in our country generally find suitable spouses for them from suitable families within their own religion, caste and social status. Now if the couple says yes for the marriage, then not only the bride and the groom comes close to each other but also two families gets united, and if by chance any problem arises after marriage then both families try together to work out the problem.
When I attend my friends or
family’s week long arranged marriage function, then always one question crops
up in my mind and that is from where did all this started. The first thing
which all of us would normally do to get answers for such questions is to take
help from Google. I also did the same thing but I didn’t found any result which
could satisfy me. So I started talking to my elders. The answers which I got were
different from different people. In a
nutshell what I understood is; it originated from the time when the system of
child marriage started to spread its wings in India. In those time children get
married at an early age of around 9 years, so naturally they were not be enough
mature to find mates for them or decide for themselves, and so parents were
consenting. At that time parents were scared that if their kids will grow up
and marry to someone from lower caste or to someone from another religion then
they will not be able to show their face to the society and will get humiliated.
So to restrict their children from marrying outside their caste and social
status they developed the system of child marriage which eventually transformed
to arrange marriage system. In today’s India of 21st century the
system of child marriage is almost abolished but people still believe in
arranged marriage culture. From the first arranged marriage till now, this
system has survived because we Indians are scared of inter-caste and
inter-class marriages.
According to the Indian
Government’s law, today we are free to choose our life partner of opposite
gender from any religion or culture as long as that individual is above the legal
age of marriage. Indian parliament in 1955 has passed the Hindu Marriage Act (1955)
as part of the Hindu Code Bills. Three other important acts were also created
during this time and they include the Hindu Succession Act (1956), the Hindu
Minority and Guardianship Act (1956), and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance
Act (1956). All of these acts were meant to modernize the then current Hindu
legal tradition of marriage. But it is sad to say that there are few communities
in India which don’t abide or follow these laws. One such community is in
Harayana which is controlled by the Khap Panchayats.
Even educated parents from higher
society try to control their children’s life by trying to arrange their
marriage within the limits of race, religion, caste and class. In such families
if someone by mistake falls in love and want to marry him/her then their
parents first try to blackmail them emotionally if that doesn’t work then they
would start threatening them in many ways. They threaten them that he/she will
not get any share from family property, they even threaten them that if they
will go against their wish then he/she will have to leave his home. Even after
all these threats if someone marries without their family’s wish, then many a
time the newlywed couple is murdered within months. So just to avoid all these
problems and tensions; many men and women just accept what their parents decide
for them. Many a time it happens that they don’t like the spouse which their
parents has searched for them but because of family or social pressure they get
married and then suffer for their entire life. In love marriages, the couple
knows about each other before marriage, they know each other’s positive and
negative sides, they knows each others like and dislikes and more importantly
they love each other. Whereas in arranged marriages, parents search their kid’s
life partner, and after the marriage they close the door and ask their
son/daughter to love their choice, we can see this kind of love in most of our
Indian homes. I think marriages are partnership between two opposite sex to
share their sorrow and happiness for their whole life, so it should happen only
through mutual consent who enter inter into marital union because they are the
one who will have to walk through all the pain and joy which may come in their
way.
You would be shocked to know that
in today’s time arranged marriage is more prevalent in higher caste and class
people because they are the one who wants to protect their so called status in
the society by marrying their kids in their own caste. They think that if their
children will fall in love with someone from lower caste then they will lose
their status in the society. Whereas the people from the lower segment of the
caste system they are not so much worried about this, because they have nothing
to lose.
Dowry system is another devil
associated with arranged marriages. In today’s time it has integrated itself as
a ritual in arranged marriage system. This dowry system existed before the
British rule when Aryans invaded our country. Rich Brahmins during those days started
to give land and jewelry to the newlywed couples just because they wanted to
help them in starting their new life also they wanted to insure the couple
during financial crisis. Actually the bride’s parent used to give a part of
their property to their daughter just as sons used to get their share from his
father. So till that time everything was fine, but when Britishers made the
rule that females will get share in the ancestral property then slowly and
slowly the groom’s family started asking for the share in bride’s father
property. In today’s time the concept of dowry has changed so much that now
before getting the consent of girl and the boy, their parents discuss on the
amount of dowry to be given. This system made me to think that whether girls
are considered as humans or commodity. Every 3 out of 10 married girls become
victim of domestic violence after marriage because her parents are not able to
give the promised dowry; many a time this violence takes the life of the bride.
Most of the time, the guy and the
girl getting married come from two different cities, so their living style and thought
pattern vary from each other. So before getting married it is very much
important for the couple to know each other, but our society doesn’t allow the
unmarried couple to meet and talk before marriage. If somehow the parents are
broad minded then they allow the guy and the girl to meet each other two or
three times before marriage, but that meeting mostly happens in the presence of
their parents or some family member. So before knowing each other their
marriage happens, which results in fight between the couple after few years of
marriage.
As I said in the starting, I
don’t want to talk only bad things about our marriage system. In arranged
system also GOOD marriages happen. Parents who really love their kids and not
the false family pride, they seek their children’s consent before arranging
marriage. Their parents ask them if they have someone in their life with whom
they would like to get married. If the answer comes in yes, they meet with
him/her and try to judge if he/she is fit for his son/daughter. If somehow
their parents would find their kids choice unfit for them then they sit and try
to discuss ways to overcome the obstruction. So I believe that good arranged
marriages happen when the parents help their kids to find their own partner.
In one way arranged marriage is
good and in other way it’s bad. It is
bad when the marriage happens with hatred and prejudice over other religions,
castes and creed; it is bad when our Indian parents try to control and over
protect their kids to the extent of denying every wish and finally denying
their kid in choosing their partner thinking they are not enough mature to
decide for themselves. Arranged marriages are wonderful, when freedom is given
to kids for final consent to marriage, and before marriage when the
would-be-spouses are allowed to meet and know each other; it is good when love
is converted to arrange marriages by the parents after meeting their kid’s
choice if any.
Just because someone is not able
to find his/her partner according to their wish, they should not get married to
anyone by compromising their choice. Marriage is a mutual sharing for whole
life, each spouse should feel equal and mutual respect for each other, no one
should feel superior or inferior, and either the husband or wife no one should
feel submissive or aggressive. All these things are not possible when we
compromise and get married.
Whether it be arranged or love
marriage, we often seek perfect husbands/wives, but my friends I am sorry to
say that; a perfect husband/wife is a myth. No such person lives or ever lived
in this world. We should not expect anyone to be 100% perfect. We are all
called to be perfect, but in reality we are only on the way to be 100% perfect.
As there is no perfect wife/husband, there is no perfect marriage either.
Success of marriage only depends on mutual understanding and acceptance, and also
in mutual love and respect.
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