Arranged Marriage in India
Guys, first sorry for not been bloggin frequently. I have been busy with my Thesis. Struggling thro the work.. adhan.. my bloggin frequency has now come to 1 blog her month.. worst rate..
Anyways, i am taking a break in between my thesis work and thought would pen down my thoughts on one of the facets of Indian Family Scene - arranged marriage..If u take 100 parents, 80 of them would say that they are happy if their children went for an arranged marriage..good point, as in arranged marriage u involve both sides parents and it is always better to keep the family happy in the longer run..but the good point stops there..for the past couple of months, I have been on and off involved with searching a groom for my Sis-in-law. The scene i am seeing is very disheartening and doesnt potray any advancement in the society. Some of my idhaya visumbhalgal (my dear blog friend Ammu, i am borrowing ur catch phrase) are as below:
- Jadagam matching: 9 out 10 groom's parents ask for Jadagam matching. Worst is even if the bride's family doesnt want to match, the groom's family force them to do it. I still dont get how these well educated groom (also include their parents) can still etch themself in unscientific factless thing like Jadagam. How can 8 squares in that jadagam tell your fate? If that is the case we dont need to do any effort at all. Well for starters, the jadagam is built upon ancient astronomy. Ancient astronomy is well adept in predicting star and planets path. But wait, the rider is they didnt have telescopes. So they traced the path of stars, planets they saw. They havent included pluto or the 2 moons of saturns which were recently discovered or other planetary objects like Haley's comet. If astronomy as a science is still evolving, how can we depend on calculations which havent been updated till now. The second, if u look at the development of civilization, science by itself is a hard sell. Our forefathers were adpet in mixing science with religion and thus making it attractive for the followers to learn. Astrology is a mix of undeveloped science and religion. It is high time, our generation makkal get over this malice of the society. What would these idiots say, if they marry a girl based on full jadagam match and still turn sour??
- Dowry: "maami, enga veetula ella naatupennum vaira thodu potu dhan vandhu eruka? nenga vaira thodu poduvela?" "30 soverign poduvengala?". I am hearing these things from 6/10 groom family. Arent these makkal educated? First they could be jailed for just asking. Second, it is inhumane to treat matching of mind like matching of animals. At the lowest level, this whole process is a panda maatru murai. But atleast we can do it humanely.
- Male chauvinism: time and again i see that when the bride rejects the guy, the groom's family give a frown. bull shit.. if the guy can reject, so can the girl. Next, even before the whole process can start chauvinism starts. 8/10 times, the groom's family expect to see the girl's photo/profile and all, before even giving a copy of the groom's photo....
For my part, I keep discussing these issues with my friends in the hope that atleast they reflect the knowledge which they have imbibed upon. Lets hope that this unbecoming practice sees the end of its life with this generation..
