In India there is no
greater event in a family than a wedding that dramatically evokes every
possible social obligation, kinship bond, traditional value, sentiment, and
economic resource.
Marriage is deemed
essential for virtually everyone in India. For the individual, marriage is the
great watershed in life, marking the transition to adulthood. Usually, this
transition, like many other things in India, depends little upon individual volition
but instead occurs as a result of the efforts of many people. As one is born
into a particular family without the exercise of any personal choice, so is one
given a spouse without any personal preference. Arranging a marriage is a
critical responsibility for parents and other relatives of both bride and
groom.Some parents begin marriage arrangements on the birth of a child, but
most wait until later.
In the past, the age of marriage was quite
young, and in a few small groups, especially in Rajasthan, children under the
age of five are still united in marriage. In rural communities, pre-puberty
marriage for girls traditionally was the rule. In the late twentieth century,
the age of marriage is rising in villages, almost to the levels that obtain in
cities. Legislation mandating minimum marriage ages has been passed in the past
decades, but such laws have little effect on actual practices.
Essentially, India is
divided into two large regions the north and the south. Additionally, various
ethnic and tribal groups of the central, mountainous north, and eastern regions
follow a variety of other practices.
Broadly, in the
Indo-Aryan-speaking north, a family seeks marriage alliances with people to
whom it is not already linked by ties of blood. Marriage arrangements often
involve looking far afield. In the Dravidian-speaking south, a family seeks to
strengthen existing kin ties through marriage, preferably with blood relatives.
Kinship terminology also reflects this basic pattern. In the north, every
kinship term clearly indicates whether the person referred to is a blood
relation or an affinal relation; all blood relatives are forbidden as marriage
mates to a person or a person's children. In the south, there is no clear-cut
distinction between the family of birth and the family of marriage. Because
marriage in the south commonly involves a continuing exchange of daughters
among a few families, for the married couple all relatives are ultimately blood
kin.
On the Indo-Gangetic
Plain, marriages are contracted outside the village. In much of the area,
daughters should not be given into villages where daughters of the family or
even of the natal village have previously been given. In most of the region,
brother-sister exchange marriages (marriages linking a brother and sister of
one household with the sister and brother of another) are shunned. The entire
emphasis is on casting the marriage net ever-wider, creating new alliances. The
residents of a single village may have in-laws in hundreds of other villages.
In most of North India,
the Hindu bride goes to live with strangers in a home she has never visited.
There she is sequestered and veiled, an outsider who must learn to conform to
new ways. Her natal family is often geographically distant, and her ties with
her kin with blood relation fade away to varying degrees.
In central India, the
basic North Indian pattern prevails, with some modifications. For example, in
Madhya Pradesh, village exogamy is preferred, but marriages within a village
are not uncommon. Marriages between caste-fellows in neighboring villages are
frequent. Brother-sister exchange marriages are sometimes arranged, and
daughters are often given in marriage to lineages where other daughters of
their lineage or village have previously been wed.
In South India, in sharp
contrast, marriages are preferred between cousins (especially cross-cousins,
that is, the children of a brother and sister) and even between uncles and
nieces (especially a man and his elder sister's daughter). The principle
involved is that of return--the family that gives a daughter expects one in
return, if not now, then in the next generation. The effect of such marriages
is to bind people together in relatively small, tight-knit kin groups. A bride
moves to her in-laws' home--the home of her grandmother or aunt--and is often
comfortable among these familiar faces. Her husband may well be the cousin she
has known all her life that she would marry.
Many South Indian
marriages are contracted outside of such close kin groups when no suitable
mates exist among close relatives, or when other options appear more
advantageous. Some sophisticated South Indians, for example, consider cousin
marriage and uncle-niece marriage outmoded.
Rules for the remarriage
of widows differ from one group to another. Generally, lower-ranking groups
allow widow remarriage, particularly if the woman is relatively young, but the
highest-ranking castes discourage or forbid such remarriage. The most strict
adherents to the nonremarriage of widows are Brahmans. Almost all groups allow
widowers to remarry. Many groups encourage a widower to marry his deceased
wife's younger sister (but never her older sister).
Among Muslims of both
the north and the south, marriage between cousins is encouraged, both
cross-cousins (the children of a brother and sister) and parallel cousins (the
children of two same-sex siblings). In the north, such cousins grow up calling
each other "brother" and "sister", yet they may marry. Even
when cousin marriage does not occur, spouses can often trace between them other
kinship linkages.
Finding the perfect
partner for one's child can be a challenging task. People use their social
networks to locate potential brides and grooms of appropriate social and
economic status. Increasingly, urban dwellers use classified matrimonial
advertisements in newspapers. The advertisements usually announce religion,
caste, and educational qualifications, stress female beauty and male (and in
the contemporary era, sometimes female) earning capacity, and may hint at dowry
size.
In rural areas, matches
between strangers are usually arranged without the couple meeting each other.
Rather, parents and other relatives come to an agreement on behalf of the
couple. In cities, however, especially among the educated classes, photographs
are exchanged, and sometimes the couple are allowed to meet under heavily
restricted circumstances, such as going out for tea with a group of people or
meeting in the parlor of the girl's home, with her relatives standing by. Young
professional men and their families may receive inquiries and photographs from
representatives of several girls' families. In the early 1990s, increasing
numbers of marriages arranged in this way link brides and grooms from India
with spouses of Indian parentage resident in Europe, North America, and the
Middle East.
In much of India,
especially in the north, a marriage establishes a structural opposition between
the kin groups of the bride and groom--bride-givers and bride-takers. Within
this relationship, bride-givers are considered inferior to bride-takers and are
forever expected to give gifts to the bride-takers. The one-way flow of gifts
begins at engagement and continues for a generation or two. The most dramatic
aspect of this asymmetrical relationship is the giving of dowry.
After marriage arrangements
are completed, rich panoply of wedding rituals begins. Each religious group,
region, and caste has a slightly different set of rites. Generally, all
weddings involve as many kin and associates of the bride and groom as possible.
The bride's family usually hosts most of the ceremonies and pays for all the
arrangements for large numbers of guests for several days, including
accommodation, feasting, decorations, and gifts for the groom's party. These
arrangements are often extremely elaborate and expensive and are intended to
enhance the status of the bride's family. The groom's party usually hires a
band and brings fine gifts for the bride, such as jewelry and clothing, but
these are typically far outweighed in value by the presents received from the
bride's side.
After the bride and
groom are united in sacred rites attended by colorful ceremony, the new bride
may be carried away to her in-laws' home, or, if she is very young, she may
remain with her parents until they deem her old enough to depart. A pre-pubescent
bride usually stays in her natal home until puberty, after which a separate
ceremony is held to mark her departure for her conjugal home and married life.
The poignancy of the bride's weeping departure for her new home remains prominent
in personal memory, folklore, literature, song, and drama across India.
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