Arrange Marriage – What, How & Why

Finally I am back from my self inflicted exile!!!!!!

As I am getting older day by day, I am precariously close of getting sucked into the greatest vortex ever existed in our society which is known as “Arrange Marriage”.

Before jumping to what it is? & how it is? Let’s first try to find WHY it is!!!!
For this we need to go back in time to the Era of Adam and Eve, I bet it was not there at that time :). It is safe to assume that we were polygamous in that era!!
And as we started developing and evolving there was a growing concern regarding how we can be different from Animals in terms of our sexual behavior towards each other and thus monogamy came into picture for the betterment of human being although I doubt it ;). ‘One partner, One relationship, One life’ gave birth to the term called ‘Marriage’.

But this approach was tweaked a little by our great civilization thus giving birth to the concept of Arrange Marriage which is a subset of Marriage. As we all know our society was initially divided into four different castes on the basis of nature of work a person does. And as you belong to a particular caste it is safe to assume that you want that caste to grow and outnumber the others which in turn will give you security and prosperity. I feel this gave birth to the concept of Arrange Marriage where parents makes sure that their son/daughter can only marry a woman/man of their caste which will indirectly help that caste to grow when they mate.

And as we kept on evolving this whole concept of Arrange Marriage become more and more complex and intimidating. Now days your parents will try to find a match for you who matches you physically (height, weight, complexion) and academically, who’s caste is compatible to yours, whose family is economically parallel to your family with good repute and to add icing on the cake horoscopes of both of you should be perfectly in sync with each other.

No wonder why it is said that marriages are made in heaven!!!

Believe me it is a very complex phenomenon, the amount of permutation and combinations involved in this process can bring a whole mainframe down.
The very first step of this process is to convince the boy/girl that now they should get married and settle down in life. And given the kind of generation we are and given what is going to come. I feel this is going to be the most difficult task in coming years with average turn around time running into years.

The Second step is to find a suitable alliance that satisfies all the parameters set by you. Again a daunting task but we have some traditional tools like relative network, marriage brokers and some cutting edge technologies like matrimonial sites to make our life easy.

The step three is all about human touch :) . I mean some ‘Deekho’ sessions by your parents and than by you. You can aptly call it a question answer round also as you gear up to face few easy ones like …Can you Cook? What is your highest Qualification? What are your hobbies? How much you earn?
And few nasty ones like Do you like joint family? Can you leave your Job? Are you Virgin? What about your ex-girlfriends...List is endless and so is the suffering!!!

The step four is all about negotiations ;) your negotiation skills are thoroughly tested.
How much dowry one can get or give all depends upon how one negotiates. If some body worth a bike then there would be a desire for a car. Gold should be accompanied by cash and fridge will not look good without plush Sofa. Then one needs to decide over where the marriage will take place. Would there be a common reception. How many people will attend the marriage, what would be the menu and blah blah blah ……All in all this is one step which is heavily dominated by the groom’s family and bride’s family doesn’t have much of a say in it …Thanks to our Culture and Society !!!!!!

And then there is Step five the preparation phase and step six is the D day but by now ones fate is sealed. And you just don’t marry the girl or the boy; you end up marrying with each others family/neighbors/cities and even to their pet dog!!!

Now the question is where I am right now …I feel I am still at step one only :) ..Which mean I still have few more bachelors months or years left :) .

Happy to be single…and today is Friday!!
What else one can ask more.... Time to enjoy my bachelorhood!!!!