Find us a match

To believe or not to believe is always the fundamental question-be it in God, in naturopathy or in arranged marriages. As with everything else that comes with belief, one’s personal experience tends to lend the defining colour to the subject.
Marriage being an amalgam of two sets of upbringings and philosophies, however close they may be to each other, can be hard to label as successful or otherwise. In India, a ‘know-all’ aunt, a common friend or a matrimonial site…match the big blocks: age, looks, social background, financial status, education…a horoscope match takes care of the fine-tuning of the compatibility of two personalities. Score 20/25 on the horoscope scale and you have cleared the matrimonial GRE!
As with every Indian institution, the system of arranged marriage is also caught in a flux. My grandmother was married at 3 to a boy of 8 and was sent ceremoniously to her husband’s house at puberty, became a mother at 15 and had her entire brood of 6 by age 24; she literally grew up imbibing her husband’s beliefs and her in-laws’ way of life; took charge of the children there, and by 35 was a shaven widow in white, brought up her children with the help of the extended family till her eldest son took charge of his family, evolved into a graceful matriarch, well looked after in her death bed. As I see it, except for the early widowhood bit, the arranged marriage worked. My grandmother didn’t have rebellious ideas of her own, accepted her new home and all that came with it, including a rough mother in law and epidemics as the norm and added her bit to make it a wholesome experience for all.

What is the scene today?
As with everything Indian, don’t we tend to value tradition and long to preserve it with the core gone?
‘Fair, tall and slim, convent –educated, well-mannered, home-loving…’are some of the epithets found in modern matrimonial columns; they either describe the parents’ description of their girl or the groom’s requirement. For his part the groom is described as ‘earning in 4 figures (or is it five?). Among specifications, besides caste and sub-caste are that the girl should be working. Guess that is today’s reality. Loans and EMIs are part of any marriage but in an arranged one occupy valuable calculated space.
That is more acceptable to purists who are repelled by today’s mall-like matrimonial scene: a Bong boy marrying a Tambram girl, who herself has a separated Mallu mother…like exclusive goods in exclusive shops, languages, cultures, cuisines and castes are to be accorded their right places and cultures are not to be mixed.
On another plane, an octogenarian aunt averred that she had never experienced the joy of physical intimacy with her husband despite 3 children. Do arranged marriages overlook body chemistry? Horoscopes are said to look into those volatile aspects too; but in many cases, once the novelty wears off, there is hardly any chemistry left to speak of; the prompt arrival of the first child transits the marriage into familyhood without giving the parents, as yet strangers, a chance to know each other. Cynicism can set in within a decade. Where naturally developed bonding lacks, a hastily developed family keeps the couple harnessed. Stability is the strength of a successful arranged marriage. A couple may live under the same roof for decades, nurture their progeny, get them married-and yet have a wall of ice in between them. That is arranged marriage too. There are the ‘God-made’ arranged marriage couples too; their life together rolls out like a velvet carpet without a skid or mishap.
Even in this decade when most young educated Indian girls work outside home, many look up to their parents to arrange them a match. If some young women do vehemently declare‘I am not an exhibit to be shown to prospective buyers’, there is hope for those who do not seem to find their partners on their own. If anything, the tension of finding the ‘right’ partner for their prized progeny today grips parents of boys as much as girls- there is no telling how temperamental a working girl will be or where she will divert her hard earned money. She can even think her parents have as much right as her in parents in law over joint resources… Yet, Indian parents or more importantly, uncles, aunts and friends, won’t shy away from the match-fixing duty. Parental help, support and at times life long intrusion are also part of the Indian arranged marriage.
But is this all marriage is about? Look at me! As a typically 'arranged married Indian' I am asking myself this question 3 decades after the event!
Did my grandmother know romance? Did she feel attracted to the prim and proper young man who qualified (by default) to be her life-long guide? No idea…
Anyways, when does a marriage qualify to have succeeded? During a flawless honeymoon? Or when the first baby (male of course!) has promptly arrived? When subsequent procreation pulls the couple this way and that? Or is it once the kids have flown the nest (finally!!)? On the silver jubilee wedding anniversary ? When the husband’s sister’s kids are helped to settle down in the absence of their father? When the FFs (frequent fights) provoke no more? Is it survival of the fitter or is it drowning in bits to surface in sync? Is marriage the blossoming of a timid personality or is it the subjugation of an independent one? Is it when a relationship acquires a sanctity which places it above the individuals that make it?
Sanctity, my foot! did you say? Well then… Is marriage like footwear, and a successful one the one which survives bites and bruises to the feet and moulds itself to make them cosy?

Never mind...one thing is certain. The Indian Arranged Marriage is a survivor which no other culture could hope to patent!