Arranged Marriages in India

Arranged marriages are very popular amongst many countries and cultures. It is the tradition of someone’s spouse being chosen for them, usually by their parents. Unfortunately, a decent amount of these marriages occur with the person being forced against their will, or the bride being a child. Arranged marriage, as seen in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” is an important topic in literature and modern-day culture.

Arranged marriages have been a practice that has been around for a long time. It has been predominantly common in third world countries where the income gap is significantly obvious between the wealthy and the poor. By definition, arranged marriage is a marriage that is arranged by the parents of the man and woman getting married, instead of the man and woman choosing to date and marry each other. Shafer-Landau states that cultural relativism claims that the correct moral standards are relative to cultures, or societies, where as ethical subjectivism claims that the correct moral standards are those endorsed by each individual. The practice of arranged marriages and similar scenario of forced marriages alike are both controversial and up for discussion.

In our society, we wouldn’t consider arranged marriages as a normal thing we are, use to consensual heterosexual serial monogamy. But in some countries, they do consider arranged marriages normal. In India, arranged marriages have been apart of the Indian culture since the fourth century and many consider it a central fabric of Indian society (Arranged Marriages, Matchmakers, and Dowries in India, 2000). Pakistan also considers arranged marriages as normal in Pakistani culture elders of the family are considered wise and they are the ones who help pick out a spouse a family member (Arranged Marriages are the Part of Pakistani Culture, 2012). Japan still practices arranged marriage but now less than ten percent of marriages are arranged compared to half a century ago when about seventy percent were arranged(Tying the Knot, 1998). In China, they have marriage markets where parents line the pathways share with other parents their clippings they have on their child, hoping to find a good match for their child (Epatko, 2015). Still, today many countries consider arranged marriages normal.

ReferencesAugust, P. (2005, October). Arranged Marriages in the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arranged_marriageBowman, H. & Spanier, G. (1978). Modern Marriage. McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Marriage practices vary across cultures. Every culture has its own way of conducting marriage according to their traditions and customs. Most cultures share common customs and practices, while some cultures have unique practices. Marriage refers to a social union agreed upon by the couples to unit as spouses. The union of couples implies sexual relations, permanence in union, and procreation. This research paper focuses on comparing marriage practices in American and Indian culture. There is significant difference between the two cultures in marriage practices.

Ali explained to me that in her Hindu culture and religion, it was custom to have a marriage between two people arranged by the parents. My shock turned to confusion; I had only heard of arranged marriages in movies and books. Not something seen in real life. I was used to a culture where the majority of the population is Catholic and Hispanic and couples choose each other. Since she’s my friend, my first thought was concern for her happiness in an arranged marriage after living in the United States for so long. How much of our culture and customs has she absorbed and what impact will it have on her “arrangement”? But, she then mentioned she was happy and excited because she knew and liked the person whom she is set to marry. My concern for her arranged marriage dissipated; I knew that what may not seem normal for me was normal for her. So, I also came to realize the important part here was that she was happy. I didn’t know it then, but those thirty minutes around lunch table altered my views and they were forever changed for the better. It also exposed me to a small part of the world outside of my non-diverse border

For thousands of years, parents have chosen their children's spouses; hopefully with some success. Some countries still practice the tradition today. India turn most, if not all, of the wedding decision over to the Patriarchs of the groom. In other countries only a portion of the country's population practice it: even though the urban areas are controlled by the government many chinese dwelling in rural farming areas still practice arranged marriages. In the United States of America people have moved on to the idea of letting the young adults choose their own marriages, but do children make the same choices as their parents? It is often the idea that younger adults will make the wrong choices in marriage; however, marriage in today’s world

First of all, every culture has different customs implemented on its community. This is especially evident in “Matrimony with a Proper Stranger”, which details the circumstances of arranged marriage and its application in Indian life.

Rajeev Narang, in telling the oral love story of how he met his wife, implicitly explains the culture of India in the mid-20th century and even delves deeper into the subcultures of the region and their impact on love and marriage. Indian culture, even more so decades ago, was known for its system of arranged marriages that primarily focused on the compatibility between families and little on the love between two potential partners. In their journal article, “Gender Scripts and Age at Marriage in India,” authors Sonalde Desai and Lester Andrist discuss the marriage system in India in terms of the gender roles that men and women play, the impact of family intervention, and how age and economic factors impact marriage decisions. Specifically, when mentioning the influence of family, they state, “It is particularly crucial to look beyond individual decisions to focus on what the marriage of a son or daughter represents for the parents. Marriage systems… have been dominated by the influence of the corporate family” (668).

Arranged marriages occur all over the world and in some parts it is popular or compulsory and in others not so admired. Most

One of my sources titled, Confluence of Influence: Indian-American Youths’ Perception, Negotiation, and Transformation of Arranged Marriage Traditions in Modern American Society, written by Dianne Laura Fabii, talked about the opinions of second-generation Indian-American youth on arranged marriages (show visual). Their parents, grandparents, and past generations all had one, but since they are growing up in the United States, a western country where individualism and freedom are highly valued, they decided that the tradition will not apply to their futures (Fabii, 2017). In addition, I came upon an article which was a real-life story rather than a collection of data. It was from National Public Radio written by Jamie Tarabay, titled, Arranged Marriage: Trapped Between Two Cultures. It focused on a 25-year-old female named Mediha Sandhu (show visual) who is dealing with her parents wanting her to move to Pakistan to have an arranged marriage, as opposed to her wanting to stay in New Jersey. The article dives deep into her story and explains her feeling trapped between two completely different cultures. Sandhu is afraid of losing her freedom and identity, and how she won’t be able to express herself the way she is doing currently, because she is being forced to move back to a country where women are seen as unimportant and simply useful for being a housewife (Tarabay,

In Claudia Kolker’s book The Immigrant Advantage, she talks about the cultural tradition of arranged marriages brought by South Asian immigrants to the United States. Kolker agrues that arranged marriages are much more effective in finding a spouse than traditional marriages. Kolker believes that this tradition of assistive marriage should be adopted by Americans. Research and studies have shown that “women in arranged marriages rated the highest marital status” (Kolker, 71) compared to couples who have arranged marriages. Arranged marriage is great for individuals who are ready to settle down and start their own life without wasting any time finding a partner. Arranged marriage saves a great amount of time on dating people who are not compatible with your personality or beliefs. As Kolker states, assistive marriage does not just save time in finding a lifelong partner but, it also leads to exceptional happiness between the couple than a traditional marriage reported by couples during studies. Traditions brought by immigrants such as, assistive marriage should be considered by American traditions.

When you think of arranged marriages you will probably have an image of a 16th to 19th century picture going on in your head since that’s when it was really common and normalize back then, but that’s not always the case because even now in modern times arranged marriages are still practiced throughout other places and countries such as India, Japan, and China. Some keep up these old traditions for their religious beliefs and others for their own personal reasons. As we step into modern times though, a new type of forming a relationship has had an uprising for the past decade or so which has come to be known as online dating. Some may feel like online dating is different from arranged marriages and in a way it is but in many ways, online dating and arranged marriages have the same structure just with fewer people involved.

One of the major areas this reality is demonstrated is the process of arranged marriages (Ross 279). Typically, Renaissance women were used as a way to combine families and increase political or financial growth for both families. Lucrezia Borgia is a perfect example of how young women were used during this time. When Lucrezia was just thirteen years old, she was married to Giovanni Sforza who was twice her age. She was married to him because an alliance with Giovanni would bring great political advantage to Lucrezia’s family (Hibbert 44). These marriages were basically business transactions with the daughters and sisters of the family being moved around like pawns to create the best possible outcome for the men. In some extreme cases, a widowed woman could be taken away from her children and forced to remarry because it would benefit her family (Keuhn 62).

In American culture the view on arranged marriages are not looked at very favorably. This is because we have grown up with the knowledge that when it comes time to marry we will have chosen our spouse of our own free will. The match will be a love match and one that is chosen through our own needs. Young men and women in India grow up with an opposite view on marriage. They know that when it comes time to marry their parents will find them a suitable mate and it will be considered scared and a lifelong commitment (Agence France-Presse.) A total of 74 percent of respondents from across India voted in favour of traditional "arranged" marriages, according to the poll by private television channel NDTV. In the Hindu faith, marriage is