Marriage is perhaps the most important step in an individual’s life and more so in a country such as India where it comes with a lot of extra responsibility. For a man, it is his duty to take care of his lady and love her to the very best of his abilities – to make her feel special everyday. For the lady, it’s her responsibility to work, depending on her social strata and also bear children and if possible take care of the household as much as is possible for her. Marriages in India are of two kinds – love marriages and arranged marriages.
For all intents and purposes, in a traditional country such as India arranged marriages are given equal, if not more, weightage as love marriages. This form of marriage is for people who never really have had the chance to select their life partners due to any of the following reasons:
Main reasons behind arranged marriages in India
- The lady or gentleman in question was academically or professionally inclined, which never gave him, or her, the opportunity or sufficient time to look for a loved one.
- The family values and principles scoff upon such deviant decisions or actions.
- The lady or gentleman was never able to be accepted in love due to whatever reason before and are now successful in their lives and are thus in a good position to finally settle down in life.
- The person in question is getting too old and thus needs to be married so as to avoid the social stigma that comes in case someone is not married.
- People are often found to have lost their faith in these processes because of the relentless social scrutiny that they are subjected to and because how they are judged on the basis of success and failure in these cases. After a point in time, it becomes a source of harassment for the prospective bride and groom and instead of being an enjoyable experience altogether it becomes taxing for one and all.
- With these detailed and meticulous searches, it basically boils down to looking for people that fit a certain notion, a definite stereotype. Marriage is supposed to bond two people in holy matrimony but nowadays it has mostly, and unfortunately, become a process to join two very capable and skilled as well as acceptable individuals who may not be mentally compatible and may drift apart after a few years down the line. Such thoughts are rarely given any consideration.
- The essence of any partnership that is expected to last a lifetime is mental similarity that is reflected in areas like culture and values. It is necessary to ask if people are intelligent and perceptive enough to understand how the other person is in a space of an hour or even a year. For most it is like venturing into the unknown with no idea of what to expect. Perhaps, even in love marriages it is hard to know a person completely but at least some knowledge is there. In most arranged marriages, thus, there is a good chance that either one of the couple is making a major compromise somewhere and that may not be the ideal way to go about it. In such cases any decision often involves the prestige of the whole family, especially among relatives and peers. Annulment of marriage, due to even for the most justifiable reasons, is viewed with derision and people are often forced into marriages even without their consent. This contributes to several problems later on in life for both husband and wife.
