ARRANGED MARRIAGE

There are two types of marriages possible.

1. In one, the girl and the boy choose each other. This is called
as love marriage or unarranged marriage!

2. In the other, the boy and the girl even though adult, are
chosen by their parents or elders - arranged marriage.

The aspects of the arranged marriage are discussed below:

The parents/elders are objective. They don’t fall in love with the boy
or the girl. With their experience and maturity, they scrutinize and
analyze the background and other details and ascertain whether the boy
or girl is suitable for the would-be spouse and also as a unit of the family
etc. Once the parents are satisfied, the marriage is settled.

Now supposed it is the girl or boy who chooses the counterpart. Most
likely the view is superficial. They falls for each other. This is called
“falling in love”!

The boy and the girl do not know the other’s background, does not know
his or her parents. They get married due to familiarity of being in the
same office or locality etc. but soon discover that there are many
undiscovered short-comings. Married life becomes a great tragedy. Many
such problems which the boy or the girl may not see are seen by the
parents. When the youngster chooses his/her match, he/she gets
emotionally involved and looses the sense of objectivity. When the
parents choose, they are objective; not emotionally invovled. Therefore
they can be more practical. See the difference?

In an arranged marriage, you accept a person as your partner in life,

sometimes even before meeting him or her. It is only later, after the
marriage, you ‘discover’ the person chosen for you.

An American once asked me why Hindu marriages seem to last longer

than the American marriages. I answered that a Hindu loves the person
whom he or she is married to, whereas an American marries a person
whom he or she loves.

In a love marriage, the love often does not seem to last long, because
very often the person is discovered to be different from what he or she
was thought to be when the two start living together. You often find the
person has changed in course of time. Then what do you do? You get
along for some time. All that is there is sympathy. But sympathy cannot
keep you going for a long time. Soon the marriage ends in separation.
In India it just the opposite. You accept the person first and discover the
person later. The discovered person is loved in spite of his or her
limitations, since the person has been already accepted. Any type of
marriage can last happily only when the couple accepts each other
as they are.

Love does not have any particular prerequisite other than a simple
attitude of acceptance. You can love a pup, you can love a cat, you can
love any person, because you can love anything or anybody; you can
even love even a retarded person.

Therefore, you accept the person as the person is and there you find love.
It usually works. That is why in an arranged marriage there is an
advantage.

This arranged marriage concept is very prevalent in India for a very long
time. In the Indian languages there is no specific single word
describing divorce! It is usually a combination of words. Thus
divorce had not been even envisaged in the Indian culture. Now due to
the influence of Western culture etc. the divorce has come about but this
is a very small percentage unlike the western countries where even the
institution of marriage itself is becoming unpopular.