Arranged Marriage, Part Three

If you're just joining us, this is the third installment of a four- or five-part series on arranged marriage that is the result of an e-mail correspondence with a reader, Barani. Here is part one and part two.

Today, we'll learn about caste, diet and religion. Again, the text in italics has only been edited for clarity.

Next we move onto the caste taboos:
There are thousands of castes, and the upper castes tend to be vegetarian.
Virtually no caste that is vegetarian is lower caste.
In my caste, they will accept love marriages with any vegetarian caste (which is also forward caste).
One of my cousins married a Gujurati Patel (vegetarian) as love marriage with family support.

Familial opposition will be severe if the other party is non-vegetarian (can be assuaged if the other party agrees to become vegetarian).

So the first fault line is diet.
The second fault line is religion.
The line is between Indian origin religion and foreign origin religion (can be assuaged if the other party agrees to become an Indian religionist).

Diet actually goes like this:
Vegetarian = 95% probability of being upper caste
Non-Vegetarian = 75% probability of being lower caste
The other 25% Non-vegetarian upper castes are soldier castes who have to be used to bloodshed and the soldier castes also do animal (goat) sacrifices to get used to blood.
Often people to find out if a person is low caste, ask whether he is vegetarian.
Crudely - Vegetarian = Upper caste
Goat, Chicken, fish eater = low caste
Beef and Pork eater = Dalit (untouchable)

So there is a 3-way segmentation based on diet.

RELIGION
Marriages are fairly common between Hindus and Sikhs, Hindus and Jains and Hindus and Buddhists.
Often within the same family you may have 2-3 Indian religions.

In the birds and bees conversation in India, every teenager learns - you will be dead meat if you bring home a non-vegetarian or a non-Indian religionist.
In Punjab, 10% of all murders are done if a hindu or sikh (Indian religion) marries a muslim or a xtian* (foreign religion).

*Editor’s note: “xtian” denotes Christian.

Arranged Marriage, Part Two

Last Sunday, I wrote a post about arranged marriage, which you can view here. Today I'm posting part two, covering virginity, the traditional Indian view of marriage as being between two families (not two individuals), and the generalities of how a match is made.

All text in italics was written by a reader, Barani, who is kindly sharing his first-hand knowledge of this topic. All I've added is punctuation.

In Indian society, it is compulsory that the bride is a virgin.
The only exception is if the groom has a blemish, such as old, bald, poor, handicapped etc.

So very few Indian boys will knowingly marry a non-virgin.
In some cases, non-virginity is hushed up, sort of don't-ask, don't-tell.
If the woman already has a child, then it is impossible to use this fig leaf.
In Indian divorce law, if the bride is a non-virgin, then it is a legitimate grounds for divorce.

So no parent will allow his or her daughter to date.
If a man asks a girl for a date, her brother or father will come after you with a gun or a sword.

More than 75% of Indian women are virgins and 0% are unwed mothers (will lead to shot-gun forced marriage or honor killings).

Next, in the Indian context, marriage is between 2 families because after the marriage, you owe your in-laws as much responsibility as your own family.

Next, until recently and even now to some extent, poverty is widespread in India and the girl's parents want a good earner, not a hunk. Only well employed men need apply, no students.

Now that we have understood that Indian marriages are a merger deal between 2 families, then it means that both of the families must be of comparable socio-economic status and speak a common language.
India has 25 major languages with 20 different alphabets.

So you need to specify, Gujurati, Punjabi etc. to indicate Language.

People like to marry within their own religion, even in the west.
So classified Ads in the west will say Jewish, Catholic, Born-Again etc.
Same way in Indian Ads you have to specify religion.

There are traditional matchmakers in rural areas who do this for a living.
In north-India, the bride has to be same caste, and not closer than 5th cousin.
In South-India, the preference order is sisters daughter, Fathers sisters daughter, Mothers brothers daughter.
If these are not suitable then they search among second cousins and neighbors daughters of the same caste.

Arranged Marriage, Part One

About a month ago, I received a comment to my "Classified Ads" post from an Indian who said that martimonial ads have improved the matchmaking system; he then offered to tell me about arranged marriages from his perspective. I set up a "contact me" button, and shortly thereafter, Barani (his chosen pseudonym) began to send me long, detailed e-mails full of well-organized, concise, honest statements about all aspects of arranged marriage.

It's fascinating to suddenly be given a different lens to view a thing that I've been trying, and failing, to understand. I'm grateful that he's taken the time and energy to write to me, and that he's trusted me use his words as I see fit. Some of what he says is not news to me; for example, what he says about the reasoning behind the system:

In the west, you date for 3 years to find compatibility
In India, if you marry within similar castes, the culture is identical, and you don't need the 3 years of getting to know
Both sides know exactly what is expected and there are no surprises


But some of it is revelatory, such as what he says about going through the winnowing process via matrimonial ads:

It stung, even though it was long distance rejection
I could never handle direct rejection as in the western system


He draws parallels between matrimonial ads and western personals -- though I would take it a bit further and argue that eHarmony and its ilk are watered-down, western cousins of the arranged marriage system.

These matrimonial ads are no different than what western people do in their personal ads

Of course all women claim to be beautiful and all men handsome
In reality less than 10% will be beautiful or handsome


And he lays out the details of the process (note: my understanding of biodata is age, occupation, education, religion and caste):

So first there will be matrimonial ad
Next step is photo exchange
and both sides can reject based on photo or biodata

After mutual photo approval there is interview of 1 hour
Next if both sides agree, then marriage takes place

The vast majority of my non-Indian readers will probably have a strong reaction to that last line. I used to, but now that I understand the reasoning behind it, it just seems like a different way to approach marriage. Not one I would be comfortable with for myself, but one that's worked for millions of people for many hundreds of years. Granted, there are arranged marriages that don't work well, but obviously, the same can be said of love marriages.