The Indian Wedding

Hi, welcome to my first ever blog. As it turns out, this is going to be on a topic which I have given much thought recently particularly because of the current wedding season and due to my own brooding over the topic. Still, my apologies, this article, being my first, might not be good enough to do justice to my views. I hope you do get a breeze of my thoughts. These thoughts deserve some credit to the Indian Railways too because these came to me on an 8-hour delayed train. Kudos to Lalu! Let me start with describing the issue here. I am writing on the current change in the way Indian marriages have been "arranged" over time and my perception of how they affect the Indian society.

Arranged marriages have been the norm for at least 3 generations past in India. Now, in light of greater interaction between the two genders at school/college/office the conservative Indian society is slowly opening up its petals. This coming change comes as all changes do, with a positive and negative side. As I said earlier, arranged marriages have been the norm in India. Now, as the workplace is "invaded" by the "other" gender(do not get me wrong here, I am not chauvinist), India sees a rapid change in its social ways. Love marriages are "the" trend. Is it for the right or wrong? I do not know. I will only say what I feel about it and let you brood on the rest. Earlier, an arranged marriage was not about just two people going through a sacred ritual. An arranged marriage epitomized two families entering a union. The bride and groom were supported by the bonding between families and their bond helped the families grow together. This bond between the two families came also from the trust as they came to know of each other through mutual and "trusted" contacts. This key aspect is somehow missed in most love marriages. While the two humans do share a stronger bond than was possible in an arranged marriage, the families do not exactly come together. In my view, this is mainly due to the fact that most love marriages do not take into account the mutual compatibility of the two families while they do take into account the compatibility of the 'lovers'. Now, this mutual compatibility of the lovers was not a 'pre-requisite' in arranged marriages. So, effectively, we have arranged marriages where we have a 'reinforced' bond and we have love marriage where we have the simple and strong bond. So, technically, we might also consider this as comparing sigma and pi bonds. So, which is better? A marriage which holds on despite rifts among husband and wife or a marriage which breaks for minor issues. I, for one, do not know. These arguments, however, are very generalized and do not really even touch the surface of issue. I would like you to think over the issue further. I can point out one more way the two ways of marriage affect society. The joint family and nuclear family. I leave it up to you to think further because I am bored of typing now and will move on to watching a movie :).

Lastly, a request to all of you. Those of you who liked my article, please do praise me, I would like to get high-headed and if you don't you will not get any opportunity later. Those who did not like it, the onus lies on you to counter my high-headed-ness. For your questions/advice/neutral comments do contact me. For girls, I would like to believe in love marriage. :)