Happy February, and Happy Valentine’s Day! The Pasupu is back, and we’re here to talk all about Love Marriage, and how the concept of marriage has evolved over the past few decades!
Although this is an old-fashioned concept, forced marriage is still common in South Asia today. As the name is self explanatory, forced marriage is being pushed/forced to marry against your own will, usually to someone whom you barely know. As mentioned in our previous posts, oftentimes, girls in the South Asian Community are considered as a burden. Families like to marry off the girl as soon as possible, and the easiest way to do so is to give her absolutely no say in who she marries, or what time (age) she wants to get married at. Although men can also be forced to marry, it is less likely. According to Feminism India, out of all cases of forced marriage worldwide, 80% of victims were women and 13% were men. In fact, India has a law that prohibits the act of forced marriage, but unfortunately, it does continue to happen, more specifically in rural, isolated areas.
Arranged Marriage is a concept that might be foreign in the United States, but it is very common in South Asia. Before technology and social media were a part of everyday life, arranged marriage was dependent on word of mouth and connections with family and friends. The typical arranged marriage is when a family hears of a potential spouse for their son or daughter and they set up a date to meet. On this day the families get together and discuss things like caste, job occupations, dowry, astrological compatibility, and other factors that are “important” in an arranged marriage. After this, the potential partners step aside and speak about their hobbies and interests and let their families know if they feel this is a good match. This “getting to know you” conversation lasts anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. This form of arranged marriage used to be the most common form of arranged marriage in South Asia, but since social media and technology have been so prevalent, arranged marriage has also changed.
The concept of arranged marriage has continued to evolve throughout the years. Nowadays, parents or family members will create a marriage profile for their child (or may even ask help from Sima Taparia), and have them get to know/date any potential matches. This way, the potential bride and groom will have a better understanding of their future spouse. This method of marriage has increasingly become more common, especially as South Asian countries have slowly started to become more progressive and accepting.
The term love marriage itself is not common in North America because love is usually what typical marriages in the United States are built on. However in many South Asian countries, love marriage is a term used to categorize marriages where the partners fall in love as opposed to arranged marriages which are seen as “normal”. Love marriages have been looked down upon for a long time in South Asia and there is a big stigma surrounding them. This is because when two people fall in love with each other and tell their parents, the parents are very unlikely to approve of the relationship and either the partners would stop seeing each other or elope together. Because of this, the term love marriage has a very rebellious attitude associated with it. However, we disagree with this because love marriages have created so many beautiful relationships and families, but the stereotypical South Asian priorities like dowry and caste have changed the perception of love marriage as a whole.
One of the main reasons why people were so against love marriage is because of caste issues. Although caste is an important factor in marriage today, it isn’t as important as it was maybe 20 years ago. Families highly cared about their honors, and knew that it would look bad if their child married someone of another caste or religion. Additionally, there are differences within castes and religions, and families were concerned that the cultural differences would be too difficult to manage within the marriage. However, we know that this isn’t true, as there have been millions of inter-caste and inter-religious marriages.
Bollywood and many other South Asian film industries consistently portray love marriages in their movies. This is very frustrating because although we enjoy seeing the storyline, love marriages in movies are portrayed way more often than arranged marriages. Additionally, a majority of the time love marriages are shown, the struggles are hidden. Typically, two partners fall in love and they end up happily together but as we mentioned earlier that isn’t always the case. Although most movies are fictional we think it is important to see representation of all types. There are also lots of movies where the hero and heroine get an arranged marriage but in comparison to the number of movies that showcase love marriages, this is very low. This creates false expectations in South Asian society because growing up if all you see in the media is love marriage, you are more inclined to want one, but the reality is that your parents most likely will not share that same desire for you.
There are many conditions when it comes to considering possible spouses in arranged marriage and love marriage. Especially if it is a love marriage, these factors are more influential in “allowing” the relationship. Parents tend to prefer spouses of the same or higher caste. This is a generational ideal that we do not support and there have been numerous inter-caste relationships that are very successful. Typically, South Asians will also prefer a partner from the same region or at least someone who speaks the same language. This is because they are worried about differences in language or even religion and they don’t want these obstacles to make it harder to find a match. Once again, we do not agree with this condition because as long as there is good communication in a relationship, these obstacles can be overcome.
In our first post of The TikTok Series we interviewed Palak Miglani; she describes her experience dating her boyfriend. Palak is Punjabi and her boyfriend is Telugu and her parents shared the concern of a possible language barrier but she explains that it hasn’t been as big of an issue as society claims it is.
South Asia is afraid of divorce.
The USA had a divorce rate of 46% in 2017, but India only had a divorce rate of 1%. Divorce is a common taboo amongst the South Asian Community, and it is extremely difficult to get remarried because according to society, no one wants a divorced spouse. The Pasupu could talk about divorce in South Asia for hours, but we will be dedicating a whole post to this topic. Stay tuned-- more coming next month!
The first post of our TikTok Series will be going up this Wednesday, February 17th with Palak Miglani! Come back next week for our next post on Debunking Fair & Lovely from a scientific point of view!