How to get married India style

Wiki by:  Lacey Saucer and Anna Zimmermann

Skit by:  Sabina Piepereit  A2 group 5

         In the past in India 80% of the time, the parents arrange the marriages of their children. This might be picked out at birth or anytime be fore the child gets to be older than 13. Back in the day, the children were arranged to be married at a young age.  After the parents find someone good, the children meet and decide "Yes" or "No" in the next few days. Then, they will date for a while and get married. For the other 20%, the children may find someone to fall in love with, but will need approval from the parents before marriage. Without the approval of the girl's father, bad luck would go to the family; also the younger sisters would have time finding a match. Social status weighs a lot in a decision to date someone. The parents (especially of the girls') want  to find a guy who will support their daughter and are hopefully wealthy with a promising future, but also they are interested in guys who will be kind and respect their possible wives.

          Marriage has always been a big deal in India. Songs are sang and it is very festive. One's marriage is always the most celebrated and anticipated event of the year. In Indian culture, it is very important that everyone will get married because it marks the true day into becoming an adult along with true independence and moving out of their childhood house. Traditions for before the marriage vary by area. In Northern India, the bride to be goes to live with the strangers to get used to new things. In South India, marriages are often between cousins or between more distant related family, opposed to the north.

       This is a traditional wedding dress that the bride would have worn. It has bright colors like much indian clothing does.

       In the “modern times”, however, Marriage and dating is looked at a little differently by our youth today. Some Indian children still believe in arranged marriages, but the rest have turned against their Indian traditions, to follow their hearts, and the numbers of believers will only get smaller and smaller through the years. The numbers have been going down, since the boys and girls have been seeing what other cultures and religions are doing, and how the kids get to pick who they want to marry, and how they get to wait until they are a bit older, and they start asking their parents to have the same privileges. Most of the time, the parents still believe in arranged marriages, so they are still set up every once in a while, but some parents have also learned to loosen up, and let their own kids live how they want to. Once this started going on the parents letting their children pick who they want to marry, the kids also started to notice interracial, and intercultural marriages going on around them. And of course, another part of Indian marriage was beginning to loose its standards, and Indians were allowed to marry anyone, and not just another Indian. Now, we know that it is not always like this, and in some cases, arranged marriages do occur in very traditional families, but it is not seen too often.

(PAST CULTURE WRITTEN BY LACEY SAUCER)

(MODERN CULTURE WRITTEN BY ANNA ZIMMERMANN)  

    This is a more modern wedding dress for a bride. It is more of a modern white, and less colorful.

Works Cited

James Heitzman and Robert L. Worden, editors. India: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1995.