On Its Last Legs : The Crudeness In The Indian Marriage System

Morality, religious beliefs and value systems have always been looked upon by the rest of the world when it comes to India. The culture boasts of a harmonious blend of art, religion and philosophy. Through time, it has interwoven in the fabric of life and thought, such that it has become inseparable.

Indian Weddings are a soulful yet tedious affair, filled with ethnicities and rituals which claim to bond a husband and wife for their next 7 lives. Even though marriages are sacred and sanctified all over the nation, the criteria that they are built on shows that they are not taken earnestly. While the parameters of love are impossible to etch in stone, arranged marriages are characteristic of a controlled trial where cast coherence, societal homogeneity and religious compatibility between the families is more focused on.

Prospective partners should rather focus on familial interests, understandable needs, providing space and compromising while not exhausting one’s own interests.Simply put, it’s about how much are you in “love” with each other. Society, although has involved factors like the groom’s salary, the daughter-in-law’s complexion and similarities in caste practices which should play no role.

Apart from participating in an outdated arrangement, we have still not been able to eradicate outdated traditions and henceforth have dissolved our free minds into superstition, leaving our hearts slaves to prejudice. Furthermore, some customs have evolved so as to be accepted by urbane people, such as conveying dowry in the form of gifts and compensation. Such a set-up builds up a pressure to respect the self-esteem of certain privileged individuals.

Sure, customs like Sati and honor killing have completely been eliminated for the better, but certain individuals avidly practice archaic and outmoded rituals such as changing the first name of the bride in order to achieve successful pairing through an astrologic chart or, marrying “Manglik” women off to a peepal tree/dog firstly in order to escape from an early death of the husband. Live-in relationships are looked down upon and divorce in any marriage is considered to be a taboo along with being a sign of emotional instability. Such traditions are plain superstition and blind faith, insulting women in the most predominant manner.

Of course, many arranged marriages work out. Many love marriages fail. There is no certain perspective as to which sort of companionship is favourable. But the very captivity of dead and loveless marriages can be observed in the silence of the houses of many middle-aged couples. Although, there are certain steps that can be taken while not corrupting upheld morals. Splitting the wedding expenses in half, limiting the guest list are examples through which focus can be shifted on to the chief issue, making the event a blissful experience for the bride and the groom.