The blog of my Experiments with Truth

What is an Arranged Marriage?

Arranged Marriage is a custom wherein the the marriage partner is decided by parents and society, instead of the intended parteners choosing each other by falling in love and pursuing methodical courtship.

I would like to discuss on the aspects of the Arranged marriage custom of Southern India, which has one of the highest instances of Arranged marriage among educated families, in the world. The practice is controversial and might even appear outright stupid for a casual observer. But, why do we still follow it? I wanted to pursue a deeper study in this and understand its concepts, as I would like to do with every other custom and tradition, particularly of my community. In this blog, let me put down some of my initial thoughts on this subject.

Marriages are one of the highest instituitions in the Hindu society. Unlike the modern Western societies, the Indian society is very closely knit and carries a lot of historical heritage. Here, a marriage is considered a noble instituition for the continuation of thousands of year old customs and traditions, which have withstood the raids of thousands of determained raiders. It is also an enabler of community links and family bonds. Thus, a marriage is not just an affair between two souls, rather it is a part of building family ties and communal harmony. It is a way of celebrating our collective existance and exhibition of joy in the form festivals, rituals, prayers and family events.

What should the partners expect in a marriage?

This is a hard question and depends from person to person. But, in traditional and historical societies, such as ours, we would like our partners to be compatible with our families, conforming to our believes and customs, besides be a companion for our souls. We would like our partners to have similiar core constitution as us, though the exact attitudes and interests may vary. The better the match in various factors, the lesser is the chance for friction and breakup.

Why arranged marriage would work?

Many people are of view that the only way to judge a person is to interact with them for a long time. But, I'm willing to contradict them. I believe that human psychology is complex enough that even after months of interaction, we might be surprized by our friend's reaction to a specific thing. This is due to their inner constituition. While we might get an idea of their apparent outer posture, it is extremely hard to know and estimate even our own inner constituition, leave alone theirs. Thus, I believe that the probability of understanding one's inner constituition, which is very crucial for marriage success, is very slim by just having apparent interactions and unless in cases of very intimate bondage, we can never know, whether that person would be matching the factors, indicated earlier.

So, how do we determine whether a person can match our constituition?

One of factors that affects the psychology and attitude of a person, is the immediate family. Because, this is where the young kid lives entirely for the first few years of life, when most of the learning happens. Thus, the kids parents and the immediate family has a great bearing on one's inner constituition. Next comes, the class, caste and community. One's believes to prayer to diet to attitude towards various things comes from the community s/he belongs to. Then comes the society around him/her. Thus, the three main factors that determines a person's psychology are the family, community membership (caste) and the society around. The society factor is determined by education level, economic level and region of domicile.
Thus, to know the inner constituition, an ideal arranged marriage looks at this holy trinity of human psychology. Though, many of the arranged marriages are not perfect, the ones I've seen were made in such a way that majority of the variables that decide the person were already taken into account, before the boy meets the girl. Then, the prospective candidate get a chance to talk and settle out the top level issues and they have much less variables to sort out. After that, the marriage is fixed, which is normally a few months after the settlement. During this time, the prospective couples are given chances to get-together well, and in worst case the couples might even decide to split up, without too much loss on both sides.

The process of wedding itself is a great event in a person's lifetime. That 3-5 day event is a life-long memorable carnival for the entire family and arranged marriage ensures that both the wedding and the married life thereafter goes smoothly, if done properly.

When we marry, we have to remember that we carry thousands of years of civilization in our hand and the customs laid down by our fore-fathers. That is our history and we are laid with the responsibility to uphold that dharma (roughly meaning, a set of rules for the maintanence of a stable society). We shall be proud of rich heritage of this great Indian society and let us strive to uphold the spirits.

The next blog post would discuss on dating and how the rich set of practices in it, can be utilized to enrigh our instituition of arranged marriage.