Monsoon Wedding : Indian Culture

The film shows that the marriages are monogamous. When Rajinder was getting married, Dadi and the two daughters-in-law (Darshini and Sita) stayed at home singing, dancing and preparing sweets. They will meet the new daughter-in-law the next day when she arrives in the village. Usually, the marriages would be arranged

Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settled together in Cambridge, Massachusetts, following their arranged wedding. Ashoke is an engineer by training and has no trouble adapting to his new life. Ashima, resists all things American and pines for her family. Ashima remains silent about her feelings of loneliness, however Ashoke is aware of how much she misses her homeland. Ashima and Ashoke have been raised in traditional Bengali homes where having servants is part of the culture. At their traditional Indian wedding ceremony, Ashima circled her husband seven times. I can envision this ceremony as this practice is the same in a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony I also engaged in. There are many traditions that are cross-cultural creating an understanding among the similarities.

The wedding ceremony is a celebratory event romanticized by couples nationwide for its ability to unite creativity and tradition in a convenient package. One need only observe the plethora of wedding trends, from outlandishly alternative to stringently orthodox, to understand how important representing individuality remains among contemporary couples. In retrospect, much of the symbolisms attributed to these trends come from centuries of applied social significance; couples see the most value in a marriage celebration which allows them to flaunt their unique qualities as individuals while simultaneously modeling the long-standing customs of preceding weddings. In the 2002 film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, director Joel Zwick illustrates the

There are many unique concepts in marriages in India that differ from American marriages, such as arranged marriages. According to statisticbrain.com, “88.4% of marriages in India are arranged marriages”. The idea of having families set you up with your significant other is viewed as a very odd concept to people of American culture. Many other norms and traditions generally seen in Indian weddings differ greatly from what you might see at a wedding in America. There are many differences such as the traditions before the wedding and what goes on during and after.

As a comparison between tribal and western communities, a brief story is shown about a marriage in Canada. This marriage is the man’s second but the woman’s first, although she already has two children. This part of the film shows the man and woman getting ready for their wedding and talking of how they knew it was the right time to get married. Their wedding marks a right of passage separating them from the dating world and bringing them into the married world. Like the Nyinba tribe, a gift is given in the wedding ceremony to show this but instead of coins they exchange rings.

The marriage is one of the best things to make a happy life. Many years ago, parents had arranged marriages for their children. In Asia, as the customs of Vietnam, parents who decide and arrange the marriages of their children. Normally, parents flanked by close friends so they wanted their children to marry parent friend’s children, and gratitude between them will be even stronger together. Additionally, parents arranged for their children to marry the wealthy children to give their children full life. Also, parents choose their child partners and it is their customs. These children have no right to disobey and reject marriage. Their children married without ever knowing each other or see each other 's face. According to the book “The Immigrant Advantage,” it has a story of the Indian girl married under the marriage arranged by her parents. Until now, the Indian customs that still exist. Not only in India, in other countries, there is still customary marriages arranged by parents. Vietnam is no longer

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.

Parent understand that their girls are a burden and their sons are a gift, and this is what their sons and daughters grow up believing. The dowry placed on girls plays greatly into the sex-selected abortion rate in India. Boys are plainly and simply a better financial investment. Boys will not cost the parents money for marriage, in fact, with a marriage, they are guaranteed to make the parents money. Parents forced with the decision to have a girl and deal with the financial consequences, or abort and hope and pray for better luck in the gender of their child next time around. Quite often they chose the

Monsoon wedding”(2007), an award winning movie, directed by mira nair. Features widely known Indian actors, such as Vasundhara Das, Naseeruddin Shah and Vijay Raaz.

If they were to meet each other without the parent’s permission, it is considered as bad manner and bad upbringing. In India, the average age to marry is 24 years old for the males and 22 to 23 years old for the females. Indian weddings are usually the longest wedding, which are held in the night time in a huge wedding hall, that includes many different rituals which are performed in front of the God and the couple promise’s each other that they will be together in a sad or a happy moment, no matter what will be the results. Even though wedding has the same meaning in every culture, the way of celebration and ceremony is different. According to iloveindia.com, the ceremony in India is about the priest, groom, bride, and bride’s parents sit beneath a mandap, and a canopy. The wedding ceremony starts off with the Kanya Daan, in which the bride’s parents give away the bride’s hand to the groom with all her responsibility. Then the couple holds hands together and start circling around a small, enclosed fire in a ritual called the mangal phera for seven times by taking a seven oaths together to spend a rest of the life to live as a one soul. The seven steps around the enclosed fire, is the vow to support each other and live happily together. Finally, the groom will apply a red powder to the center of the bride’s forehead and tie a black beaded necklace around her neck, symbolizing

Daughters are considered to be an economic problem to her parents mainly because of the heavy dowry payment demanded by the groom's family, as well as the high cost of the wedding,

Monsoon Wedding, a Bollywood film directed by Mira Nair and released in 2001, earned just above $30 million at the box office [1]. The film brilliantly depicts romantic entanglements during a traditional Punjabi wedding in Delhi, while delicately handling sensitive issues such as child-abuse, pre-arranged marital infidelity, growing old and striving to be different as an upper middle class Indian boy, or being a flirtatious, bored but basically settled NRI (non-resident Indian) housewife. The film won the Golden Lion award and received a Golden Globe Award nomination, achieving a total of six wins and ten nominations [2].

Marriage is a significant social event in contemporary society. It is a means of building new bonds between two individuals and their subsequent families. The foundations of memorable weddings are built on those that bring often-distant family and friends together for the occasion, while dressed in their most sophisticated attire, surrounded by elegant flowers, a night of dancing, captured through the lens of an exceptional photographer. Although Hinduism and Islam are two extremely distinctive religions, their matrimonial customs do share some comparable elements, like most other cultural wedding ceremonies. In both religions, they are devotedly obedient concerning religious and cultural practices in their marital ceremonies.

Even though this is an arranged marriage, it is evident that the future husband is “marrying down” and Aditi is “marrying up”.

In the same way as arranged marriages are an established and expected part of Islamic culture, arranged marriages are very common also in India, where Hinduism is the leading religion. Most marriages here are arranged, but importantly with” the consent of the bride and the bridegroom and the blessings of the elders” (http://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/h_marriage.asp). Also here the question of consent is very important to provide a distinction between arranged and forced marriage. This focus on consent has been a modern development of this ancient tradition. In the past, consent from the spouses was not necessary for them to be married (http://www.culturalindia.net/weddings/arranged-marriage.html HHHHHjjlafdkdk.)