Thursday, November 10, 2011

Arranged Marriage!!!!

This is probably the first time when I have started hating facebook. Every one in 5 friends from my friend list are either married or are getting married and my wall is filled with status updates like “Engaged, in a relationship, married”.

Not so long ago I had written a post about Love Marriage where my entire clan wanted know whether I had a girl friend here in Bangalore and whether in future I will be going for a love marriage or an arranged marriage. That was the time when going by the experiences of my friends I had started believing that one should never fall into the trap of this so called “Love” because once you are in a relationship it will suck the blood out of you and your entire life will revolve around your girl and all you will think about is making her happy and doing things that makes her happy and in the process your own happiness will be lost somewhere in between these nonsensical things. Moreover such relation always comes in between friends and have the tendency to spoil the friendship. Once you are in a relationship, you will have no time left for friends, not even your very good friends. This has happened with so many people that I know and has happened recently with a very close friend of mine and in such cases it's always the friendship that goes for a toss. So basically I believe that Love Marriage sucks.

So this leaves me to the concept of an “Arranged Marriage”. I have never tried to explore this territory until now when certain factors led me to think about it in a great detail and that analysis told me that this concept of Arranged Marriage sucks in a bigger way than the Love Marriage.

To understand that last sentence we need to see how arranged marriages work in India. As we all are well aware of the 1000s of year’s of old tradition where the guys parents will select the girl and when they are satisfied with the girl, her family and her educational background etc, the guy will be shown the picture of the girl and one fine day in the presence of 100s of relatives he will get a chance to see the girl (Read - only see, not talk) and that time he will have to tell whether he is ready to marry the girl and within 2 hours he will get engaged to the girl. How silly could the process be? How can one decide to marry a girl in such a short duration?

Exactly the same had happened with a very close friend of mine. His parents’ chose a girl, showed him the picture of the girl and he got ready for the marriage. He said this is how it works and if parents are happy with the girl, why should I have an issue!! Are you kidding me !!

Now my point is how one can decide to spend his entire life with a stranger with who he has just met and not even spoken even a single word!! What if after engagement he finds out that his frequency doesn’t matches with that of the girl!! The idea of spending life with some stranger is scarier than the scariest of the movie ever made till date.

Again there are some stats present which demonstrates that out of all the arranged marriages ever done, less than 5% ends in divorce where as the number is much more in case of love marriages, but again how much can one trust the stats when we all know that stats are made on the spot in order to suite the situation.

Until now I have never thought about all this at all but now after giving it a thought I have started hating Arranged Marriage and I am not a big fan of Love Marriage either, so where does this leave me? Now one may wonder that why am I discussing such a thing now. So this is because in another year or two I would have to go through the same process that I have mentioned above and the very thought of it scares the shit out of me. Well I guess some things are best left unsaid.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

simple. it leaves u where smart people like I have been for a while now... no marriage at all! Live a life of freedom and bliss. And die a happy person. :D

Dory The Fish said...

I hav to agree with mahek here.. And low divorce rates in india might not have anything to do it arranged or love marriage..

Barely in the cities do woman feel independent and are deemed independent in society.. Be with a guy or divorce him if they wish..

Otherwise they are very much tied to to their families and there values, which makes them outcasted or disrespected if they wish to be single their whole life..

Upliftment of women is a more likely reason for rising divorce rates in india I feel..

Quaintzy Patchez said...

lol, stop being afraid man. Do whatever works for you.

Megha said...

:) i have quite similar views here about arrange marriage and about love ..god!! i never fall for anyone!
infact both the ideas scare me to death. So being a free bird is always better :D

Sharda said...

Hey there! Weather love marriage, arranged marriage or no marriage at all; it's something a person chooses him- or herself and I leave it up to them.;) There are people that are happy in their love marriage, there are also people happy in their arranged marriage and there are people that are happy in staying single. But the opposite can also be true; being happy or not is something that you yourself create; you are the creator of your own destiny and no one else. Even when people's marriages get arranged they have less time for their friends.;) And then the kids come, so lesser time. Does it mean that people that don't get divorced are happy in their marriage? I doubt that especially when it comes to Indian marriages.

Ankita said...

i can relate very well to this post...

:)

nice read indeed!

Anupama Garimella said...

So you've gone from arranged vs love to marriage vs no marriage :) Good one.. I liked the last para..

P.S: The higher divorce rate in love marriages may be attributed to the fact that, someone "daring" (per Indian standards) enough to find their own parter, would also be daring enough to break it off if need be. Those that are docile enough to "marry a stranger" as you put it, would be prone to continue being docile / accommodating and hence less likely to consider divorce as an option. - My theory :)

laddu said...

super theory anu.. :):)

Tanvi said...

The only thing you can supposedly do is keep getting scared until you have to face it one day and find a way through :P :P Or if you are mature enough then find a girl for yourself who you can tolerate for the rest of your life. And if nothing works, love cum arrange does work the best :D :D

If you want my opinion, "stay single stay happy!" :D(I doubt if your parents will ever agree to this :P)

Cheers,

Cheers,

Unknown said...

Bhai... Tu khush hain na ... is sab ke baad.
Then-I-also-Happy-happy.

Kapila Pande said...

ok so the debate here is love vs arranged vs none of these...lets look at the pros n cons of each and then decide:

1. Love Marriage:
Pros - you know the person too well and are comfortable with them...you know they burp after meals or drool in their sleep so nothing will take you by surprise (i.e. you arent marrying a perfect stranger who might end up being a perfectly normal person by day and axe murderer by night)
Cons - yo know the person too well and are comfortable with them...arranged marriages work because the couple spend their entire life trying to discover each other and with each passing day they find something new and something amusing to keep them going for a while longer...whereas if you already know the person inside out there isnt much left to discover...which leads to boredom and ultimately divorce (in extreme cases)
Verdict: if you wana go for a love marriage - ensure you dont let the relationship die due to boredom and the fact that you know your partner all too well.

2. Arranged Marriage:
Pros: refer to cons of love marriage (you wont ever get bored because your partner will amuse you throughout your life)
Cons: refer to pros of love marriage (axe murderers arent cool!)
Verdict: if you must go for this option ensure your tolerance level is at its max and realize that the other person is as equally uncomfortable as you are and since they are trying (or even if they arent) to adjust to your idiosyncrasies you need to make an effort to do the same

3. No Marriage:
Pros: as Mehak has suggested live a life of freedom and bliss...not be bound by social norms of the responsibility of a family, kids, wife/husband, in laws etc etc etc...live for yourself...by your own rules
Cons: as lovely as the pros sound...nobody wants to be lonely (thank you ricky martin for this line)...when you are young, not having anyone to 'burden' your life may sound super cool but as you grow older and your loved ones pass...you feel the need for companionship, for love and care and support...at that time when you look around and not have anyone to turn to...you realise what a big fuck up you've done
Verdict: go for this option only if you know 200% that your other support system (friends/family/etc) is robust enough to ensure you will never be lonely and needy...because then you will die a sad lonely person

Overall verdict: to each his/her own...whatever option anyone choses...they know what they're getting into...forebear to judge for we are all sinners...well written laddu

Goofy Benedict said...

Sorry i'm pretty late to this post, but speaking as a married guy, married life isn't so bad, there's nothing to be so scared about.

laddu said...

@Goofy: Well yeah those were my views some 1-2 yrs ago.. now if I look at it, I feel that time may be I was not ready to plunge into such a thing and the sense of responsibility was what scared me the most apart from spending the next 50 yrs of my life with a stranger.... well I don't think I am that scared anymore, may be I have accepted the terms and am ready to face it with full force.. bring it on.. :)