a suitable boy... (or a girl)

not like literal elephants...

That got chopped off somehow...

My comment was:

I'll take your word for it...

Unmarried man is incomplete. And after marriage he is finished!!

Disclaimer: I’m not cynical. I just act so for fun. It’ll be boring if write heaps and heaps about the holiness and all bla bla about love. I value relations.

By the way LOVE can be explained with theories of Chemistry. But you should know Physics to understand SEX !!

Ahhh! Beach you are talking dirty

Remember we are Indians !!!

Mala,

I'll tell you how I think this works, and I may be wrong...

INDIA

India is a society where the size of the family is breaking down from a feudal/ agricultural conglomorate into a unitary urban small family (that typically buys a first home in the US...or something).

Now if I had a family the size of an army, then it would be logical for me to have about twenty "suitable " boys and a similar number of "suitable" girls running around my homestead. An arranged marriage would then be a relationship between my (rather grand) homestead and Another(equally grand) homestead.

(let's not think this is too funny...similar things (except as class related matches, rather than CASTE related matches) are STILL the rule in some parts of north America...I've been to some of these weddings..).

This might also be true of "homesteads" in Indian expatriate communities here ,where (like Bollywood/hollywood...another film you need to start a thread over....) a matriarch/patriarch DECIDES for the family.

All makes sense if The family wealth is going to be handed down by primogeniture and if the other "lesser" gentry will rally to fight wars on behalf of the homestead...etc.

That's not happenning. The Biggest proponents of "arranged" marriages in India are people that LEFT india, and are feeling culturally threatened as their children grow up in the west and learn the bad habits of early sex, or whatever it is that makes them deamonize the lifestyle . (I'm not talking about some communities like the sikhs or the muslims, where there is ALREADY a strong sub culture which makes it difficult for , say a turbanned sikh boy to be seen as anything other than sikh PRIMARILY, but about Indian communities that feel no need to be culturally conservative...) .

In Bangalore or Bombay, the basic family unit is so threatened ALREADY that parents find it very convenient if their daughters (usually daughters, sons still fetch a price) can find someone...nice. Is this blashphemy/heresy? I don't believe so...maybe one of the Indians can corroborate).

India has become like the bush states/ gore states (except that the "Gore" part of India is urban India , mainly its women, with its men keeping that one foot still in bush India...(sounds familiar? this is EXACTLY as it is American societies...why do you think we are ALSO called a patriarchal society?).

Which Segues nicely into the question of the US :

The US:

We in the US are more sexually liberated than they in India(at least after the sixties , when the sexual revolution happenned here) , but we have ALWAYS had more sex than most other societies (as a rule) ..even european societies(one or two noted exceptions, of course) because the US was like this huge unsupervised plantation for much of its existance. People came here from Ireland and germany...or from norway to get away from their conditions back home(where they were often rigidly tied down to the lowest rungs of their social ladders) and wanted to give their children(at least socially) a chance to experience all that open space....

That hasn't stopped marriage (not sex but marriage) from being an EQUALLY class related affair here, in the past .This is, to an extent still so - nobody from wall street is likely to find a bride in rural alabama...or a girlfriend , for that matter...the DETERMINATION of class happens differently between India and the US. (and that's the biggie) ...and in the process, people here end up having much more sex than they do in India, before marriage(at least WE do, don't ya? LOSERS.... ). and IMO that's the reason the rates of divorce is higher in the west. They marry for personal reasons. It's not because they're encouraged to think as individuals or that they're different than or the same as their parents, but because they don't have that homestead with a cheftain deciding on their behalf. (if they did, I argue there will still be a deep south kind of matchmaking and "keepin' it in the family" still practiced in the US.


So which is the "better" System ?

Stupid question IMO. While people are going to follow their bliss in every occasion, it is presumptuous to think that we all know what our bliss will be five years from now(as individuals...or as a society).

The family...and the concept of a semi...class based "arranged" marriage may be strenghthened in the US , as the population ages, and the children get more affluent, and develop expectation about lifestyles that are more relevent than "individual" aspirations.....and the institution of marriage may be under attack in India as the children of the 1990's unitary urban families grow to be the largest demographic group in the country, and they start finding irrelevence in social institutions much the same way as the baby boomers did in the US in the early sixties.

Or India could communalize(not in the religious sense, but in the "community" sense) and redefine its core values to include "marriage" as between a man and a woman for life (and screw.....screwing for life. we can use all the unspent sexual energy to power our Missiles and atom bombs...) while the west becomes like the roman empire after claudius....one circus after another...and one orgy after another.

We'll never know until we live through it.

The grass, however, is NOT greener on the other side(inside the institution.)

Hey folks. We are having a lot of “arranged love marriages” also in India.

No one is much bothered about the suitability of this (arranged marriage) custom. Time has its own way to polish any custom to suit the thinking of its people.

If you ask me the biggest hassle in the Indian marriage is the dowry and the marriage itself. Yes. Marriage as a ceremony is an expensive and taxing task. It’s not a fun to invite 1000 odd people and have the event managed.

mala..
Aout the 100 odd guests.......That is the ‘politics & economics’ of the marriage. It’s more of a trap. If someone had invited you earlier for a marriage at their home, you’ve to do the same at your home also. Trimming the guest list is something people do not want to.

There are huge shops selling invitation cards. You can select your cards from a huge range of from rs3 per car to rs300 per card and above!

More people should be invited to make the marriage a political & economical success. Our Indian friends understand the well



The bride hunt continues……

Dad is not much bothered. Mom has been preparing as if we were going to the battlefield. She started collecting as much as details as possible about the girl’s family.

All the trouble making ‘aunties’ in the neighborhood has been invited unconditionally to our house to discuss various pros and cons of the proposal. They had hours long gossip on everything other than the proposal. Hot tea flown freely. “People of that place are not very nice.” One suggested. They advised mom to be ‘careful’. I did not know careful of what? Dad was nowhere near. It seemed he had many useful things to do.

Girl’s family lived at a town 200km south of our place. So the culture is considerably different!

One of the ‘aunts’ said that one of her cousins was living at that place. That she would call them to make a local ‘enquiry’. Mom got excited at that offer for help. She poured more tea to that ‘aunty’s’ teacup. At last for my big relief the aunt gang left home after ransacking the tea table.

I knew what this group would do next. They would go to the next home and talk about us. In no time they spread this news like a virus. I’m embarrassed with all these gossip chains. I complained to dad that we should’ve maintained some level of ‘secrecy’. And I fed up with all those tons and tons of unsolicited guests. Dad was patient. He talks less. He said that he was like me about thirty years back. That he understood all my concerns. And he gave me what he learned in his married life.

He said “Agree to all the arguments of mom. And do what ever you feel like !!.Never put her in the combative mood”

I was not very satisfied with that advice. But his calm posture gave me some comfort. I asked him about the proposal, knowing what he would tell. “If you are interested, we are also interested” has been his official line always.

Mom never allowed too much time for the dad-son nexus to develop. She knew what was going on. She had her on way to poke her nose into any discussions in the home. She arrived with two cups of tea. That is how she had been bribing us! And she hijacked the discussion. We did allow her, because she has been an enthusiastic lady and do a lot of things for us. And that ‘command’ made her felt that we all would make mistakes if left alone to decide without her supervision!

She made decisions and brought to us. We should approve and say it was a great idea! I agree, dad didn’t even hear what she has been saying and for sister it’s all fun worth watching.

She wanted to know when to go to the girl’s house. She already had prepared a huge question bank. She said we should go there unannounced. Her main concern was that they would ‘decorate’ the girl! I disagreed strongly. It would be highly embarrassing for me to be a part of such a commando guests. Then we arrived at a compromise. She wanted to see how the girl look in Sari ! That she would call them and give the dress code instruction for the girl during the meeting.

She already gave us a glimpse of her question bank.


“Do they eat fish?”
“What God they worship?”
“Does she know cooking?”
“Will she go for work after marriage?”


and many more. All she wanted was her ‘field intelligence agents’ to gave her the reports. Based on that she would re frame the questions.
None of the questions had addressed my concerns. But then I remembered dad’s advice. What the hell. Who prevent me from asking what I wanted to know. I mentally prepared for the D day

And the Booker price goes to..... Beach! for his "Suitable boy of small things.." !!!

Bravo beach! Wondeful part II. Great writing and really cannot say if its fact or fiction. Now waiting for the next edition

But do remember, invite us for the marriage

no, only of all of India...(I'm just saying that it's pretty easy to summarize North american attitudes about marriage as glibly(and statistically correctly) as it is to summarize the indian.



This summary reminds me of people talking about the japanese and their culture. While there is a component of japanese culture that is duty(giri) bound and ancestor worshipping, the current urban (youth) japanese culture bears little resemblance to what we are being "taught" to believe in the west. to an extent this is a steriotype that we might find useful (as opposed to real).

or your asian friends (divorce rates are among the highest in japanese americans) ...I think this is true, but I also think that there is an abscence of a homestead(feudal) family hanging over me in the west in a way I'll never know what it feels like to live in a family structure like they have in India.

It is highly flatterring to us to think that we get to make mistakes because we are gloriously individual people, who can (afford to) but that may not be the only reason we are "allowed to" make choices/ mistakes. Could also be because we don't have the (relative "safety" of the homestead option....

yes. (remeber devdas? the bride sellers/ bridegroom sellers dialogs) .

re: girl finding "family approval" (Vs a guy doing the same...)I can relate an instance.. There's this family I know in bangalore parents(both work for a government defense company. they have a daughter (two years older) and a son. Both these kids were educated well. She goes to engineering college in bangalore, and he to management school. She finds her own friend...and then husband(same guy) , He gets arranged married after graduation. IMO, from talking to them it appeared that SHE was more agressive...extroverted about finding a mate than he was (I put this down to the number of CHOICES he had to stay in bush India than she did...and the fact that both their parents were pretty well educated people from SMALL FAMILIES. Would the parents have objected to the girl's ability to make her choices in the matter of finding her own husband? I think , if they could, they might have,but the way they went about educating her(would never have happenned in bush India) and letting her be...and grow, I think they were reconciled early not to be in such control of their daughter's life,wearas, because the old tradition is not yet dead,(and sons fetch a price) the son "recieved a proposal" . he probably knew there would be one sometime.... ).



no it's not.It is a scenerio that can EASILY become true. The United states is ageing.All population statistics indicate that there will be more people in the 45 and above agegroups than in the 25 and below groups in the next twenty years, There has been no baby boom in the last fifty years in the US. this is no speculation. The united states is also becoming conservative, as a result. Imagine over half your population being over fifty. that's going to ditermine at least SOME values!

It's easy for us to look to OTHER societies and see trends, in our exhuberance, than to see them in ours, but NONE of the four (somewhat extreme...I expect each scenerio to be realized at least in part for SOME of each population) are soooo...out there..

we are. I don't know about you in canada, but we (the city populations in the US...even the smaller urban centers like dallas...or colorado springs...)are.

Now's when I get to pull age. Sex IS IN EVERY PART of this discussion. it is the elephant in the room. I'll even go as far as to say that sexual Identity, ambiguity and exploration/experimentation (or not) is a BIG part of what this arranged/ non arranged marriage debate is all really about. (sex and religion...but aren't those two among the three importanty motivators in the world...the third being more wild monkey sex on a beach in goa in july rains with multiple serial partners....or something....Kidding...the third being money..)

mpop,

The US is certainly not winning the "f-ing like monkees" sweepstakes. Nor is it the most sexually liberated place in the world, as it stands currently. It is also trending more conservative of late(I think this happens beause baby boomers are in the child(teen) rearing age, ) but this has not always been true.

The other notion (that Indians have more sex because there's a population explosion there) is another childishly simplistic summary. they have a population explotion because they still have homestead birth rates while the DEATH rate has dropped from modern medicine , etc. Anyway, as any good Irish catholic will tell you, Many children only means longer spaced sex, not more sex...

LArger cities in the US are not unhappy places. If someone with a magic wand came in and married off/ gave relationships to all the singles here, I suggest that they would be MORE unhappy, not less.


BTW, I'm not scared of "love" or "marriage" I'm however deathly scared of being "good" that's a responsiblity I don't think I'm equal to.

point it out. I'm hust making my points. I don't see this as an argument. (though I think consistency, like goodness, is a self serving virtue of dubious value).

oops somehow the thread turned to a discussion of the sex life in the US

mpop, I just thought you were champion of inconsisency, remembering another thread, something about the mouse . i quite like reading albaruni's posts. albaruni, pls keep posting. but i would also like to hear about sex life in europe too

beach!!!!! can you help us to get back to the original topic? actually, reading your saga i feel genuinely sorry for its main hero. the whole partner selection business is so public! terrible! my Mom doesn't have any idea how many boyfriends I have had.

Volga,

first, it's good to see you posting. second, YOU should tell us about sex in europe(oops I foggot! you are in britain. they don't have straight sex out there... )...my stories in this regard are rather limited (and boring, I'm afraid)..

We are talking about sitable boys(girls) are we not? whoever said anything about their being in/from India....or about marriages there? the topic is still being addressed if we went from wedding arrangements in India to sex in the city...

albaruni, mine too!

may be I haven't been here long enough (six years)?

Six years !! that's a lot.

are you volga like the river?