Love vs Arranged marriage - One of the most popular topics for debate among the current bloggers, mostly dominated by the ones who are pissed off by the age old tradition of parents deciding the spouse of their children. Few of these blogs really got me into some serious contemplation, and one of those blogs is: http://www.unusualpointsonlove.blogspot.com
The one common thing that I always found in such blogs is that the author in favor of love marriage always fail to capture the parent's point of view and (un)knowingly tend to showcase them as those mindless, insensitive brute who have no feelings at all for their children. I have a slightly different opinion regarding this.
When the parents hold their new born child in their hand for the first time, their feelings is just inexplicable. Marveling this miracle of nature, they decide to give the best to their child. Right from then till the child grows up and gets ready to live his/her life by self, the parents live for them fulfilling their demands and necessities whatever way they can. Now once the child grows up, is it really too much on their part if they expect a say in what spouse their child should get?
When the child comes to them saying that they "have decided" to marry that particular person, they have suddenly taken away this right from their parents. Yes, the child has to spend the entire life with that spouse, but they are not the only one who will be impacted by this decision. I see marriage as not something that's between two individuals, but between two families and hence, the decision should be taken considering the opinion of all the stake holders.
Having a look at the current day's scenarios that I have come across, parents have not just outrightly rejected the choice as long as the child is not of the same caste/religion. I agree that love doesn't care about these factors but yes the parents do. As I was thinking about the reasons for this, the only one that I could find was to ensure that when two families tie this wedding knot, they try to ensure that each of the couple does not feel that they landed into a different world when they visit their in-laws and thus adapt to the new life easily. Sounds reasonable though not correct always in all of the cases.
More the parents are "social" in the so called societies for the upliftment of their own caste/religion, the more difficult it is for them to agree to go out of it. It's no more a question of trusting the judgment of the child whom they themselves have taught and brought up, but its about giving up the beliefs that they themselves have lived with for their entire life.
I don't blame the parents for it but the society in which they live in. Yes, the society is formed coz of such individuals but the amount of courage it needs for people to pioneer such change is too much as there is a lot of pressure from the already formed "society" by their ancestors. Its not easy for each and everyone of them to become "the black sheep".
The change is happening and reforms don't happen in a single day. Gone are the days when parents used to choose whom their child would marry, and the couple used to meet for the first time only after marriage. Today, the process for arranged marriage is much different than what it used to be a century back and the discretion of individual getting married is considerably taken. The casteism is diluted a lot since what it was about that time and as the time comes, as the current people debating for the love marriage/inter-caste marriage become parents of marriageable children, the society is going to change further.
Marriage is nothing but compromise and it takes two mature people to make it a success and two immature to make it a failure doesn't matter if its a love or arranged one. Whoever finds the would be spouse first, whether parents or child, it should be positively taken by the other and the decision should be considered well by both of them.
The one common thing that I always found in such blogs is that the author in favor of love marriage always fail to capture the parent's point of view and (un)knowingly tend to showcase them as those mindless, insensitive brute who have no feelings at all for their children. I have a slightly different opinion regarding this.
When the parents hold their new born child in their hand for the first time, their feelings is just inexplicable. Marveling this miracle of nature, they decide to give the best to their child. Right from then till the child grows up and gets ready to live his/her life by self, the parents live for them fulfilling their demands and necessities whatever way they can. Now once the child grows up, is it really too much on their part if they expect a say in what spouse their child should get?
When the child comes to them saying that they "have decided" to marry that particular person, they have suddenly taken away this right from their parents. Yes, the child has to spend the entire life with that spouse, but they are not the only one who will be impacted by this decision. I see marriage as not something that's between two individuals, but between two families and hence, the decision should be taken considering the opinion of all the stake holders.
Having a look at the current day's scenarios that I have come across, parents have not just outrightly rejected the choice as long as the child is not of the same caste/religion. I agree that love doesn't care about these factors but yes the parents do. As I was thinking about the reasons for this, the only one that I could find was to ensure that when two families tie this wedding knot, they try to ensure that each of the couple does not feel that they landed into a different world when they visit their in-laws and thus adapt to the new life easily. Sounds reasonable though not correct always in all of the cases.
More the parents are "social" in the so called societies for the upliftment of their own caste/religion, the more difficult it is for them to agree to go out of it. It's no more a question of trusting the judgment of the child whom they themselves have taught and brought up, but its about giving up the beliefs that they themselves have lived with for their entire life.
I don't blame the parents for it but the society in which they live in. Yes, the society is formed coz of such individuals but the amount of courage it needs for people to pioneer such change is too much as there is a lot of pressure from the already formed "society" by their ancestors. Its not easy for each and everyone of them to become "the black sheep".
The change is happening and reforms don't happen in a single day. Gone are the days when parents used to choose whom their child would marry, and the couple used to meet for the first time only after marriage. Today, the process for arranged marriage is much different than what it used to be a century back and the discretion of individual getting married is considerably taken. The casteism is diluted a lot since what it was about that time and as the time comes, as the current people debating for the love marriage/inter-caste marriage become parents of marriageable children, the society is going to change further.
Marriage is nothing but compromise and it takes two mature people to make it a success and two immature to make it a failure doesn't matter if its a love or arranged one. Whoever finds the would be spouse first, whether parents or child, it should be positively taken by the other and the decision should be considered well by both of them.
9 comments:
Good points indeed, but the author along with a lot of other people, has mistaken that people who support love marriage doesnot essentially stand against arranged marriage.
They mostly emphasize that irrelevant issues are used to evaluate a pair (both love and arranged). Once these issues donot exist then there wont be any arguements in this issue.
Most of the discussion is just to introduce and spread the idea that how redundant these issues of families getting married and similarity in caste/religion/language have become in today's context taking into account nuclear families, displaced from their local roots.
In older days the families had larger interaction, as time passes the only interaction times are festivals and vacations, which a very high cost to reject a near perfect individual.
The important thing is that couple respects each other's family and once that is in place, rest is a matter of mere short term adjustment.
So in basic the critera of evaluating a choice(parental/self) needs to re-evaluated.
The comment has confused me... Did I anywhere mention about relatives? Or has the current time become so advanced that once the children grow up, they ask their retired/non-working parents to live separately?
Caste/religion... I have already mentioned the reforms are needed. And it is in fact diluting. Keep up the effort. I really wish all the people were as mature and intelligent (to logically evaluate the cost of losing a near perfect individual) as "whatisinaname". The need for reforms wouldn't have been in that ideal world :)
Language: (Sigh...) Stuffs getting further complicated. Lets keep the language discussion on a separate thread.
I am not against love or arranged marriage, but just wanted to present the parent's point of view to people.
Relatives / Parents who ever is at the same level of importance come under the same category. From now on reffering to parents as the representative of that category.
Now retired parents does not always mean they are dependent on their children.
In the current world parents donot want to dislocate from their roots and move to the location of their children's livelihood,which by the way is increasingly become distant.
Most parents if they desire to live close to their home roots tend to live independent of their children and wont desire to move in with their children as long as it is the only option possible.
Now comming to the cases where parents are dependent on the children, that is a matter which requires a higher degree of compatibilty and the children must take into account the scenario before they choose their partners, but still doesnot justify the concept of arranged marriage as the bottom line is the only differnce between both the marriages in the way of selection or to be specific criteria for selection. As long as a proper criteria is used none of them needs to be condemmed.
I feel a longer you get to know some a better the evaluation process.
So longer courtship is something which is automatically missed in arranged marriage, if that is included I donot see a reason why it is different from love marriage.
In the same way love->Will_you_ marry_ me at first-sight is also as defective as arranged marriage as one doesnot get enough time to evaluate the significant other.
Besides the whole parents angle to marriage is directly related to the kids attitude, and the partner more or less plays a smaller role if the individual is determined to work for it.
uff!
well well well... alot has been said over here... I do not think that ne of the two is right or wrong if executed in the right way. I think its a collective decision and definitely there should be a healthy discussion within the family before going for a marriage. Definitley parents should have a say in their childs personal life, though i also agree that it should not be the final verdict. At the same time the children should also understand their point of view and think rationally before making the final decision. Its better to say no to yur partner sooner thn marrying him/her going against your parents wish and then later cribbing all through life that i left my parents for you. That wont work.
As far as courtship time is concerned, i think that our society is still not mature enuf to giv 2 individuals enuf time to understand each other before finalising. Though time is changing and dats a step in the right direction.
To summarise:: I think marriage is an association of two families and not two individuals. I am sure it will be successful only if we have their support with us.
I never believed in long virtual conversations and better they are done in real time specially when they are such sensitive issues related to our unique Indian society.
In case of marriage, I believe that if you and your partner understand each other (be it love or arrange marriage...doesn't matter at all), you can make out everything in this world with the help of each other. Just believe in love. But then that kind of love takes long way to happen.
But...when it comes to family, parents and relatives, still our society is tranced in the chains of caste and religion. You can see love stories around you breaking down just because of these virtual borders.
You are right when you are talking about parents as the center point in your discussion but then WhatIsInAName is also right when he says -
"longer courtship is something which is automatically missed in arranged marriage"
First sight loves are mostly the failures.
I can find many things missing in your this longer than brief post :)
Thanks Divya for supporting the view and I totally agree with Tarun... :)
Before progressing further let me mention this again that I am not opposed to any kind of love or arranged marriage. The whole idea behind this post is to add the parent's perspective to this discussion of love vs arranged marriage.
I would also request people to refrain giving comments (like:
those of nuclear families & "First sight loves are mostly the failures.") without being backed by proper data. As of now, in the lack of data I disagree to these statements.
It might be true that the trend is moving towards having nuclear families (due to reason mentioned by whatsinaname), but still I am not in a position to certainly say that this is true in most of the cases.
Neither am I justifying the concept of arranged marriage for choosing the same caste people as correct. I have already mentioned and mentioning it again that it is just a constraint on part of not-so-strong parents from society and needs reform.
If one can see the trend of families becoming nuclear and able to believe that this is the future, then I would request each of those individuals to look at the trend of arranged marriages as well which has come far ahead of what it used to be some time back and thus, imagine the future the same way.
For few modern techniques involved in marriages, see these link: :)
For Guys
http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2006/nov/01arrange.htm
For Gals
http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2006/nov/02arrange.htm
And last but not least, I would request Nitesh to please let me know the things that are missing here and share his thoughts with us.
Right!!!Balance B\W Traditionalism & Modernism.
hey vishal,
I just wanted to confirm r u the same vishal who works in perotsystems bangalore?
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