Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Arranged Marriage Essay

Like Serena Nanda wrote about the reaction her friend who she was helping look for a suitable wife for her son said “She is short, no doubt, which is an important plus point, but she is also fat and wears glasses”(pg.50). Nanda’s friend was looking for a wife for her son, she looked for women who were going to be able to live in a joint house where all the wives of the brothers lived. They wanted her family to have a good relationship with her and expected her to be very modest yet well educated. They did not want a woman who was of a higher caste because they didn’t want her to look down upon her husband’s family. Many young men and women in India believe that arranged marriages are good for them because they have the ability to focus on school and also to focus on who they are and what they want to do. They don’t worry about having to find a wife or husband because that responsibility is left for the parents. Nanda met a young Indian girl named Sita, she asked her how could she marry someone whom she had never met or even spoken and how could she think of spending the rest of her life with someone who she may not even like to this Sita replied “With you people (Americans) you know the boy so well before you marry, where will be the fun to get married? There will be no mystery and no romance. Here we have the whole married life to get to know and love our husbands.

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.

Mahashweta Devi is an extraordinary woman who has written, worked and fought for the marginalised tirelessly for the past six decades. She is a strange mix of an activist and a writer who has carried both duties fiercely all her life. Away from the spotlight, she keeps working for the welfare and betterment of those whom the media and mainstream conveniently keep forgetting. Her writing is disturbing because it shows the reader her or his own true face.

Arranged marriages do not seem very common in the 21st-century, but they constitute over half of the marriages worldwide. The short story helped to convey the reality that many people are opposed to the marriages that they are forced into. However, they do not wish to resist their cultural or religious traditions so they accept their fate. Consequently, love may not conquer all when it comes to arranged

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni highlights the differences between Indian and American culture in her collection of short stories, Arranged Marriage. Each tale utilizes a different narrator, whether it is first or third person narration, to highlight the struggles women face in all arranged marriages. Many of these women live in America, yet India’s strict moral code still burdens them. In “Doors”, Preeti struggles to balance her American beliefs with the Indian beliefs of her husband, similarly to Anju, who wonders if her life and pregnancy would be different if she lived in India throughout “The Ultrasound”. In “The Word Love”, a woman must confront her situation and push her boundaries. Divakaruni shows the highs and lows of arranged marriages, proving that I would not thrive in a commitment made without my input.

This paper attempts to examine the fictional projections of Indian girls, to see how they emerge in ideological terms. Their journeys from self-alienation to self-adjustment, their childhood struggles against the hypocrisies and monstrosities of the grown-up world, eventually demolishing the unjust male constructed citadels of power that hinder their progress- are the highlighted issues. The point of comparison between the two novels focused on here is the journey of Rahel in The God of Small Things and Sai in The Inheritance from a lonely childhood to a tragic adulthood passing through a struggle with the complex forces of patriarchal society. Both the novels portray the imaginativeness, inventiveness, independence, rebelliousness, wide-eyed wonder and innocence associated with these young girls.

The book mentions about the mental confusions, insecurities and the effort to understand their spouses. The writer has expressed simple and usual emotions of a womanhood, fidelity and family. A tint of Indian culture is reflected in each chapter indicating how a bridegroom and groom select each other, the nature of an Indian woman and how she takes up challenges in her life, reconciling the roles of a daughter, an ex-wife, a wife and a mother, the strength of the human spirit and their passion to survive and fight for a good life. It also features the distinctive qualities of Indian relatives highlighting their interest in an individual’s marital life and how offensive it is to the society to find a married woman talking to an unknown man. The book also focuses on the pain of a mother to see her unhealthy

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.

In the realm of Afghan marriage, women are sometimes granted the opportunity for an arranged marriage, although consequences may still ensue. Arranged marriage is just one of the many ways women are married off in Afghanistan, as well as other countries around the world. The women, who were groomed for marriage from birth, are sought after by the suitor’s relatives. The same goes for the suitors, although the men are often the ones who instigate and ask for the woman’s hand in marriage. While it may seem obvious why the two are marrying, they may happen for different reasons. “There are two types of arranged marriages in the Afghan society: those conducted for the sincere happiness of the couple, and those that resemble business transactions conducted primarily as a means to settle deals with families,” (Bashir 1). Sometimes the woman and man find each other and are pleased with one another. This is similar to Tariq and Laila’s relationship in that they found love together and their families approved it. However, it is known that things do not work out for the two at the time. Although some of the arranged marriages end happily, there is another side to them. Sometimes poor families sell off their daughters to pay off a debt or settle a feud. While these women are technically given the option to refuse, it does not come without consequences. Journalist Hannah Spruce explores this idea in further detail when she emphasizes that, “Some children who refuse to consent may find

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).

Marriage is a union between a man and woman. Selecting a husband and wife is one of the most important decisions of a person’s life because a marriage can bring either a happy or unhappy life. Choosing the best partner is one of the keys to get a happy marriage. For some people they may choose to get married with the person whom they love, which is love marriage. Actually, there are two kinds of marriage that are love marriage and arranged marriage. Arranged marriage is when the parents or family will choose the partner of their child or relatives. Arranged marriages occur in around the world especially in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In many cultures believe that marriage is not always love. Those people claim that the couple who are getting married still young and have less experience. In this sense, some cultures believe that the best choice of the child’s partner is made by his or her parents. However, it is still controversial among people that choosing arranged marriage is the same with forced marriage. In this sense, the couple do not have a freedom of choice to choose their own partner. They have to follow their parents decision to get married with the person. In some countries, people do not agree with arranged marriages, especially for the Western people. They believe that every person has their own choice to choose their partner in a marriage. Adults seem always think that love before marriage

In the book, Arranged Marriage, by Chitra Divakaruni there are multiple stories that demonstrate arranged marriages from within the Indian culture. In some cases, arranged marriages work out better than others. However, in the short stories in her book, most don’t work out positively. In the short stories, “The Bats” and “The Disappearance”, the arranged marriages don’t work out. Chitra Divakaruni’s viewpoint on arranged marriages is clearly negative, due to violence, and the effect on children.

This joint family, like any social organization, must face problems such as acceptable division of work, relationships and specific family roles. These familial relationships are managed on the basis of a secular hierarchical principle. In fact, all Indians owe respect and obedience to the head of the family, who usually is the father or the oldest man of the family community. In The Gift of a Bride: A Tale of Anthropology, Matrimony and Murder by Nanda and Gregg, it is explained that, “females [are] placed under the perpetual guardianship of first their fathers and elder brothers, then their husbands.” (Nanda & Gregg 22) Thus, all the spending decisions, studies and profession, or marriage, are exclusively the responsibility of the father after the possible discussions with the other men of the family. Age and sex are the basic principles of this hierarchical system. The eldest sons enjoy greater unchallenged authority than their cadets. Of course men have more authority than women, but older married women have an important role within the family. In fact, the authority of a woman depends on the rank of her husband inside the group. Traditionally, the wife of the patriarch rules over domestic affairs and has considerable power over the other women in the community, especially her daughters- in-law.

An analysis of example can be derived from the aforementioned discriminatory sexist roles in India that prior to globalization highly favored the male population verses the female population. The female population in India has previously been less than second class citizens. Indian women's cultural roles have been previously defined by traditional customs that are centuries old and no longer apply in this day and age. Previous to globalization, Indian women were to take total domestic responsibility. They were not allowed formal education as the majority of teachers and pupils were male, and the chances of a female remaining chaste was slim in those settings, and related to tradition, females

Literature is the reflection of the society. It has major impact on the development of society, political system, culture, and civilization. Manju Kapur,in her novel presens the problem of the Indian women in the male- dominated society. Manju Kapur vividly shows the importance of education and freedom for Indian women. Through the character of Virmati, the protagonist of the novel, Manju Kapur makes the society aware of women's inner conflict and the cultural diversion in their life. She proves herself that there is no hierarchical division from male to express her 'self'. The women characters in this novel have explored themselves to establish an identity, not imposed by the male patriarchal society. Based on these perceptions many Indian