Arranged Indian Marriage

Some of my friends had written on the same topic before. Some of their ideas are similar to mine but some are very different. I tend to think that many of us blame the society and faith for individual mistakes. Some even go to an extent of commenting on some subjects like experts that they have no expertise on. My friends are no different to this.

Like any other culture in the world, Indian culture is full of contradictions and subtleties. In India the culture varies from region to region and within the same region amongst the castes. Some people call it a curse. I would tell those people are no different from communists or any other fundamentalist because they cannot accept people as they are and want everyone to be the same. Nature hasn't created everything alike that includes humans too. Everyone thinks differently and has an individuality. Equality can be achieved only by accepting the difference and not by disregarding everybody/everything. If we disagree lets not follow. By forcing everybody to agree with our ideas we become no different from other fanatics who follow the very same that we oppose.

My friends had written about arranged Indian marriage. Although some have questioned the very idea of this, one guy in particular had taken social issues into consideration like dowry. The dowry system in India started with a very good intention in the past. The girl child in the family was given the fair share of the property from parents wealth. As the society was mostly agrarian, girls were given land's worth in gold or other forms of wealth and men in the family retained the land. Some of the trading communities gave some initial investment as the dowry so that the in-law can start his own business. All these were voluntary as parents wanted the well being of their kids. Like most of the good concepts things get tarnished over the course of time. When traditions lose values it has to change. I agree with that but who can change is a big question.

Dowry in the modern world is more enforced by woman on another woman. I rarely see man in the household demanding dowry. The solution to the problem lies with the woman. I am not trying to be a chauvinist here blaming the women folk entirely. I am just trying to point out that the solution to a problem can be found only by looking at the right cause of the problem than lashing out at everyone.

I remember a conversation that happened between my friend who worked for the late PM P.V.Narasimha Rao, and the current cabinet minister Mani Shankar Aiyer. My friend (woman) is a great proponent of women's rights and freedom on education. She was lashing out her views on male chauvinism and men suppressing women to Mr.Aiyer. He quietly pointed out to her that she and her brother were born to the same mother. If chavunism exists it arises from one's mother so appeal to your mother if you want to change something and not to your father. My friend understood the gist of what Mr.Aiyer was trying to say and even though she doesn't accept with his logic accepted the truth in his argument.

Coming back to our core topic of arranged marriage one of my friend had also discussed about "jadakam paarkum padalam" in our marriage. For believers it makes more sense for non-believers its just the squares. Just because one doesn't trust, truth doesn't never becomes false. That is the very nature of science. We can either prove it or disprove it but until proven wrong the corollary always holds good. I am not an educated person to understand the nuances in the astrology but at least i am not foolish enough to discard it without giving a careful thought about this subject that has been there for many centuries if not for millennium. There is definitely another school of thought that would argue prove its right then i will follow it. I am OK with their idea. But we always perform our actions on what we perceive as right or wrong and NOT on what astrology says. Even if we follow what jadakam says, it is because we believe that jadakam can be right. That being the case why should we question the validity of this fine subject although some interpretations are questionable.

To believe or not is in the human mind. As marriage is always a congregation of two like minded people and family i don't see anything wrong in accepting/giving dowry, see/not-see jadakam as long as there is mutual consensus. Society has to change from within and not from outside. I strongly believe that a third person has no right to define whats good for the other.

Just to point out that most people who oppose the above and call it a social evil do in fact have an unwanted pressure imposed on themselves to get married before a certain age. What a hypocrisy?