Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Arranged Love Marriages




There is a TV commercial being aired  by Bharat Matrimony, promoting one of their services as “Assisted Matrimony”. It is a personalised matchmaking service where the Relationship Manager of the service provider first understands the  expectations of the prospective bride/groom. Then using superior technology combined with expertise in the field not only searches and sends  the most suitable profiles to the registered parties but also manages prospect responses. He also helps  parties to get married in an easy and convenient way
 
The commercial set me thinking about the most  discussed topic of `arranged vs. love marriages` – which works better in life?

A random survey in India will clearly show that arranged marriages are still more popular among boys and girls – who prefer to play it safe and leave it to their  parents to help them find a spouse.It is another matter that the number of conditions that they impose these days makes it a nightmare for parents to find suitable spouses for their son or daughter. Fed up  with such a situation many parents are even urging  their eligible sons and daughters to find their own partners.  I know of a friend who told his daughter- `religion, caste, creed no bar- just get married`.

In the earlier days, the men had a choice of girls who were paraded in front of them, in innumerable “bride seeing”ceremonies. Very often,  after partaking the delicious ‘sojjis and bajjis’   dished out by the girl’s families they rejected the girls, on flimsy grounds.  Today the empowered and independent girls have equal say in rejecting the boys, very often on equally flimsy grounds.Because of this the number of eligible boys and girls not getting married is also growing!

The major difference between the arranged marriages of yore and now is that the family’s role stops after they have done a `due diligence`  on the potential spouse and his/her  family and connected  the couple. No more `Sojji & Bajji` meetings.

Once the connection is established between the boy and the girl – it is for them to take the final  call.  They are given permission to talk  and  meet each other as often as they want.  If the distance between the location of the boy and girl prevents them from meeting often, they use technology to know  each other better through the `Net or mobile. This  can take a few months before the boy and girl agree to tie the proverbial knot binding them for life. If both the boy & girl are living abroad, it is not unusual for them to be `live in partners` for some time to find  out their compatability! During this long gestation period, many couples may even  fall in love and agree to marry.  And I call it ‘arranged love marriage’

In our days, we started falling in love with our spouses only after marriage.  And the bond between the husband and wife grew stronger over the years, cemented  by a deep commitment from both to make the marriage work – making tremendous adjustments and compromises  in the process!

On the other hand many of the love marriages conducted without the family’s blessings, fall apart  when the boys and girls, who were in cloud nine during the process of falling in love, face the realities of life.  They discover to their  dismay that their loving partners behave quite differently after marriage as compared to how they did before marriage.They are unwilling to make any adjustments, so crucial for a successful marriage. Without the family support system to help them tide over their conflicts, very often such love marriages, fail. It is another matter that even  some arranged marriages which are conducted in a hurry fail because the couple discover  many incompatibilities after marriage.

It is in this context and taking into account the realities of modern life that the concept of “arranged love marriages” is likely  to work better than pure  love marriages or  marriages arranged in a hurry.


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