Arranging a Marriage in India

As a young American woman in India for the first time, I found this custom of arranged marriage oppressive. How could any intelligent young person agree to such a marriage without great reluctance? It was contrary to everything I believed about the importance of romantic love as the only basis of a happy marriage. It also clashed with my strongly held notions that the choice of such an intimate and permanent relationship could be made only by the individuals involved. Had anyone tried to arrange my marriage, I would have been defiant and rebellious!

At the first opportunity, I began, with more curiosity than tact, to question the young people I met on how they felt about this practice. Sita, one of my young informants, was a college graduate with a degree in political science. She had been waiting for over a year while her parents were arranging a match for her. I found it difficult to accept the docile manner in which this well-educated young woman awaited the outcome of a process that would result in her spending the rest of her life with a man she hardly knew, a virtual stranger, picked out by her parents. “How can you go along with this?” I asked her, in frustration and distress. “Don’t you care who you marry?” “Of course I care,” she answered.“ This is why I must let my parents choose a boy for me.

My marriage is too important to be arranged by such an inexperienced person as myself. In such matters, it is better to have my parents’ guidance.” I had learned that young men and women in India do not date and have very little social life involving members of the opposite sex. Although I could not disagree with Sita’s reasoning, I continued to pursue the subject. “But how can you marry the first man you have ever met? Not only have you missed the fun of meeting a lot of different people, but you have not given yourself the chance to know who is the right man for you.” “Meeting with a lot of different people doesn’t sound like any fun at all,” Sita answered. “One hears that in America the girls are spending all their time worrying about whether they will meet a man and get married. Here we have the chance to enjoy our life and let our parents do this work and worrying for us.” She had me

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