What Works

Someone left a comment on this blog talking about the things about the marriage market that work. And I thought my reply deserves a separate post. (Congratulations you! you've earned yourself a specially written post from The Goddess herself!)

The trouble with arranged marriages has never really been the fundamentals. The more time I spend looking at arranged marriages that work, the more I realize that. Family, upbringing and values form a large part of the reason two people decide that they can comfortably live with each other. Other things are looks, education and finances. Arranged marriages do not fail you in any of these.

Lets face it, if we didn't derive comfort from having a partner from a similar background, we would have long since married that extra special friend from school, college or work who we got along with brilliantly. We do care, and hence arranged marriages are not for social morons alone.

What troubles me is the way we have turned a beautiful concept into a market. It should be about meeting someone, concentrating on knowing him for himself and then deciding if you would like to be married to him without worrying about background issues. However, reality far from it. Today, a girl cannot really be any more sure of a guy she meets in the marriage market than of someone she meets, say at work or in a pub.

The reason is simple. The focus has moved from investigating a person who would keep your child happy, to seeking perfection. (For more on perfection, refer to avu's post). It shouldn't matter whether the boy is a rocket scientist or a chef unless your daughter does. It shouldn't matter whether the girl is a sari clad, temple circumabulating supermodel looker or not. But it does. And this is what I have been trying to say in the last 50 odd posts.

Arranged marriages are probably the best bet we have for ensuring that the gene pool stays intact and we get people from diverse yet similar backgrounds get to meet. But we've reduced it to a Kumbh Mela which just a cattle market at the end of it all...