Love marriages banned in Indian village

[AnnieLobeseder]

More erosion of women's rights, this time in India.

But I guess with the huge erosion that's going on the US at the moment over the elections, it's hardly surprising that other parts of the world are following their lead.

Yes, I agree that religion is a major factor - kind of took that for granted, but should have included it in the list.

As for in-fighting between wives, well, yes it does happen. Not always, but it's common enough. My nephews' wives are constantly at war with one another, and we have to be super-careful about treating them equally, otherwise jealousies start to form. It isn't really surprising, given that they are living in close proximity to each other with very little privacy and lives that are often very tough. Relationships between DILs and MILs can be very strained too - nothing new there of course but these things tend to be amplified if you all live in the same house! But it's not just the women - there can be plenty of disputes between brothers too!

I feel like I'm painting a very negative picture here, and I don't mean to. Arranged marriages and joint families can work really well. We have more educated friends and relatives in the cities, and their lives are very different. The companionship between co-DILs can be a wonderful thing, and some of the couples we know are blissfully happy. In fact, even my nieces and nephews in the villages seem happy on the whole. I think their expectations are just adjusted to fit their own reality.

And in any case, love marriages aren't always all that they're cracked to be - just look at how many end up in divorce. I think the big advantage with arranged marriages is that you go in with your eyes wide open - you know you're going to have to work at it and compromise, and you don't have any rosy images that love will be all you need to get you through.

Agree jinsei, can't help feeling though that some women miss out on life experience or what it would be like to be truely independent. I think it sometimes makes it harder for them to know what is acceptable or not within marriage. I learnt a lot about myself from my previous relationships, which has helpe me to make a better go of my current one. I sometimes hear my niece arguing with her new husband and they are making all the common mistakes you make when you first experience love relationships... Saying things without understanding the repercussions etc.

Ah well, I can't comment too much on that, as DH was my first serious relationship.

Perhaps, it's just different depending on your outlook.

I know what you mean, actually. Some women have very little life experience before they get married, and it must be hard for them to know whether their expectations are reasonable or not.

I do think they benefit from a very strong community around them though. Years ago, when DH and I hadn't been married for long, I remember having quite a public row (about something very minor) while staying with some of his relatives. My own family probably would have been a bit embarrassed and left us to it, but DH's relatives didn't do that. The women all took me aside, talked about what happened, joked about how rubbish men were and persuaded me that I was overreacting a bit. The men all took DH off and talked him round to my way of thinking. Initially I was a bit embarrassed, but they were all very matter of fact about the fact that marital conflict happens, it's not the end of the world, and you just have to work your way through it. DH and I ended up laughing about the whole thing, and that was that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the village women (and the men) probably do lack life experience when they marry, but perhaps they benefit more from the experience of older women in their communities. You could say that the way our relatives intervened in the dispute between me and DH was very intrusive and interfering, but in fact, it diffused the tension between us and I found it very comforting. Indeed, I have often wondered since if many more marriages in this country might survive if they had that sort of guidance and support in the early years.

Thats a brilliant way of looking at it. Any serious issues I have experienced relationships or otherwise, I have been helped massively through speaking to my dad. Elders really do have a lot to offer and maybe that is a big asset that helps arrange marriages.

jinsei my experience in my family is very different. My grandma was married at 15 to my grandad, also 15. Grandmas daddy was a very well to do accountant in a very tiny village and granddad family were
Farmers but educated. My grandad spoke English with a British accent living in India having never visited. When they were introduced, my grandad asked granny to read him the news paper. He wanted a wofe would could read and right. Also, granny had green eyes so he wanted to check she was not blind!
This was back in the 1930s/1940s India. They both had a choice to say no. Maybe it depends on families. I have seen more arranged marriages work not because of pressure to remain together but because generally families like each other and the two married people pull the families together. If there are problems, they are sorted out with the help of the extended family. Kid of like the Greeks and italians
Or Jewish people.

I think the same support probably makes a big difference when having children too.

Right=write!! Not sure how that happened.

In fact the more I think about it... This thread started out about ways in which women are oppressed in some instances in India...it has kind of turned around to illustrate the way women pull together to overcome and alleviate some aspects of the oppression to a certain extent, IMO.

I thinks some of the things discussed point to the strength of communities and their bonds which make changing things difficult but also in some ways enhance individual lives. Perhaps that's why my sisters and nieces choose to live there, rather than here or US. I do get the sense that women are very supportive and maternal towards each other there.

Yes, absolutely it helps when having a child - some women here are very isolated at home with young kids, and its really easy to feel overwhelmed by it all. In a typical village community, however, there would always be plenty of other experienced women around. Though of course, they do have to deal with MIL poking her nose in at every step of the way!

silli, I'm sure it differs greatly from one family to the next and from region to region, but I suspect that the biggest differential of all is education. I think it's natural for an educated man to want an educated wife, and if a family has invested in educating its daughters, the chances are, they will want to match them with educated partners. Also, education itself is so empowering. It sounds like this is what made the difference in your family.

Sadly, my PIL were both illiterate, and so are all my SIL. :( It is actually very difficult to explain how utterly disempowering this can be. Education really hasn't been highly valued in their peasant community, and especially not for girls. It is changing now - most girls do go to school for a few years at least, and the boys tend to go for a bit longer. And thanks to DH's determination and persistence, it looks likely that our youngest niece will be the first one to go to University. :) I am so very proud of her, and also of DH, as he has had to fight with his family to allow her to continue her education and not to marry her off instead. She is now engaged, but the boy is well educated too and seems quite forward-looking - his family are happy for her to get her degree before they get married, which is really quite unusual in that community. Hopefully, things will be a bit easier for the next generation...

In my community, the 'arranged' marriages are very different. For example, a couple I know...

In my 'community', level of education is matched more than anything else. So a Doctor will look for someone similarly educated and from a similar family back-ground. People generally stick to the same religion. so one would not arrange a marriage between a Hindu and Buddhist for example. For convenience, they stick to the caste as the chances are that if they are from the same caste, then families are likely to be similar in outlook and therefore get on well. Nothing more. Saying this, there are more out of caste marriages happening in my community than there are people who marry within the same 'caste'. If they are the same caste, they look at 7 generations of each family line to ensure that they are not related in any way in the last 7 generations. Otherwise, the marriage cannot take place. Then if you believe inthe horoscopes, they are matched, if they do, great, the boy and girl get a go ahead to meet up. The 'meeting' sometimes involve the family, mostly not. So for example, my cousins took the girls/boys out to the local 'McDonald's' or a coffee place. If they thought they were attracted to each other/compatible, they may meet a couple more times before the parents meet to discuss the engagement/marriage or the parents may have met already. At this stage, they are not dating or bound by this. They can have as many 'dates' and meet up as they like (within reason as its still considered not too good to meet say for a whole year and then call it off without a good reason).

So this way, my cousin 'dated' her husband and got to know the family. Then they decided to get engaged (6 months into dating is the norm) and marriage (within the year).

One cousin, things have not worked out. Despite all these checks etc, she found she was not compatible to her husband. She got a divorce within a year of marriage. This was gossiped about but not a big deal. Same as it would happen to my White friends here really. People talk till its news and then something else takes their focus. She is now re-married, similar way,and is happy and has a child.

Electirc Agree jinsei, can't help feeling though that some women miss out on life experience or what it would be like to be truely independent.

Agree they would miss out on life experiences if they are forced. There are cousins I know who have played the field and then gone back to parents to say, help me find someone as I am not choosing the right guys here.

I am not trying to print a rosy picture of arranged marriages. But just that its very different in different families. There are levels of 'freedom' they give to their children and it varies from family to family.

silli, your experience sounds much more like what I have seen in urban areas - very similar in fact.

In DH's village, there are no coffee places and no "McDonalds" or equivalent for miles! And girls wouldn't be allowed out with boys unless chaperoned, so definitely no dating! It is a very different world...

Yes there does seem to be a massive range of situations... Shows things are changing.

By contrast in the UK new mothers can often feel isolated and without support because the nuclear family is considered the norm. I went crazy with loneliness at times. Also love marriages have high expectations heaped on them which often leads to disappointment.

Agree too about the help from the community. That is the strength. But one would get that whether it was an 'arranged' marriage or a love marriage. You just have to be prepared to marry the entire family rather than just the boy. So if you dont like the family, say no!!

You dont have to co-habit either. People generally do for financial reasons and for child care e.t.c. There is nothing wrong in having your own house next door for example. There are such variations that when the 'West' thinks that all Indians are forced to marry at a young age to people they are not attracted to, and women are in servitude, this irritates me. Its not like that at all. Maybe in a tiny percentage of families. That would be true here too.

The key as I have said in other threads too is Education.

Also, the DM link, they say the village where they are going back 300 years and acting like its Taliban ruled is on the outskirt of Delhi. Think they have it tagged incorrectly on the map they are showing... not that it matters.

My guess is that this village is probably full of migrants from small villages who are keen to hang on to the culture of their village and traditions and are afraid of change. This is so similar to what happens to Indians in the UK/USA. Indians in India are more forward thinking. Whereas people who migrated here from the subcontinent say in the 60s or 70s still hold the values and culture of that time. Holding on to 'tradition'. People have moved on in India.

I agree with most of what you say, silli, and I too get irritated by many of the stereotypes. But I disagree that it's only a tiny percentage of families. In the cities, yes, and among educated families. But a huge proportion of Indians still live in rural areas, and in my experience at least, rural women do still have very little control over their lives.

X post. But the cities have moved on while the rural areas haven't. I have been to villages near to Delhi which are like a different universe from the capital itself. If you go to somewhere like Gurgaon and base your idea of India on that, it looks like a very modern, liberal society. But you don't have to travel far at all to find yourself in a village where very little seems to have changed for hundreds of years. Smart, educated, sophisticated and ambitious girls in the cities, but just a few km away, married women are still routinely covering their fades in front of older men etc. The contrasts are beyond anything I've ever seen elsewhere - it's one of the things that makes India so fascinating.

I know exactly what you mean though about Indians in the UK being more conservative than their counterparts in cities back in India.

Jinsei, you are probably right. Also probably depends on the area of India you are from in what the thought processes are... There is probably a correlation with education there too..

Education Education Education...

faces, not fades

Yes, education is definitely key!