The Indian Marriage

Arranging a marriage is one of the hardest jobs; an Indian father is expected to do in his lifetime. Everyone in the family looks forward to this event except the poor father esp. if he happens to be the father of the bride. It starts with him running from one place to the other pleading with people to accept his daughter as their daughter in law. It is considered below dignity for the boy’s father to go to the girl’s house with a marriage proposal.

Then comes the ritual of matching the horoscope. Thousands of marriages have been broken; Lakhs of girls have been widowed even after a perfect matching of the horoscope. Yet, the practice continues. If there were any substance in it, no Christian or Muslim or Sikh marriage would have survived. It is really amazing how educated class also refuses to do away with this practice.

The fact is that marriage has always been the biggest gamble an individual takes is one’s life irrespective of it being an arranged or a love marriage. Most of the marriages in India are arranged marriages. The philosophy behind this has been that a marriage is coming together of not only two individuals but of two families. With the advent of unitary families with children moving away from the families mostly for jobs, this argument is no longer valid. There is a trend these days of bowing to children’s desire and parents converting love affairs into arranged marriages. This probably is the best arrangement. For parents, nothing should be more important than their children’s’ happiness. They should act as guides and tell the children about what to expect from a marriage. Marriage is nothing but a series of adjustments and compromises.

Once the marriage has been fixed, enters the pandit. These pandits are the biggest villains in this whole drama of marriage. They will start by telling you which date will be the most auspices for the marriage. I fail to understand how a day or a moment created by God can be inauspices . Guru Nanak Dev has written,

‘ har ghadi shubh ghadi, har war shubh war,
Nanak bhadra tab chadhe, ruthe jab Kartar’

It means that all days and all moments have been created by God and how can anything created by Him be inauspices, It’s only when He turns away from you that your bad times start.

There is a tradition amongst the Hindus that the father of the bride gives his daughter away as ‘Dan” This is called ‘Kanya Dan’ and is supposed to be the biggest ‘Dan’. The idea behind this was that henceforth the father of the bride will have no say in her life and that the girl will have no connection to her family. Nothing can be more ridiculous than this. A girl is not a commodity that can be given away as ‘Dan’. The Vedas have no mention of this. This is something that was added much later. Everything in life including the religious rituals must change with time and the earlier we get over these, the better it will be for the entire society.

In ancient times, marriage meant seven “Feras” around fire, which is considered sacred by the Hindus. Gradually, the pandits added a lot of things to this ritual and now it has become a whole night affair. This was all right in the era when people had a lot of time after the harvest to indulge in such pleasures.

Indian marriages otherwise are wonderful occasions when the entire family and friends get together and have a very nice time. Except of course for the poor father who has to loosen the purse string and literally sweat it out.