Marriages: Arranged, Love, Polygamy, Polyandry

Marriages have different connotations for different people. For some it is the quest for the ideal match, while the others have the aspiration of living happily ever after. Then there is the social stigma of being single after certain age, as well as the hormonal, biological drive to be intimate to the extent of having intercourses without everyday haggling. Reasons are manifold, and marriage, at least in the Indian context, is both a social ritual and institution that isn't easy to escape from. In this blog, I will present certain ideas, not necessarily my own views or objectives, but certain ideas, that we must be cognizant of and maybe discuss freely. I present certain questions and debatable points about marriage. Perhaps some arguments are listed here just for the argument sake, but I will be looking forward to discussion and responses.

The traditional Indian method of arranged marriage has continued to be the main means of finding life partners. The peculiar aspects of it remain: in the first stage, the prospectives are selected based on both their castes and their astrological charts (birth charts). The birth charts are based on calculations, based on what time and place you were born at and this determines the position of stars and planets in the sky at the time of your birth. With that initial condition, predictions are made about every month and every aspect of your life. Only when the stars of male and female complement each other, they are ready to tango. Then comes the ritualistic meeting of families, secretive and furtive family checks and at last the male and female meet. In present scenario, it is more like an approved first date arranged by the family. Thrust into five to ten such dates, the Indian male gets to say yes to one of them. In progressive Indian families, girls get to have their say too.

What I am particularly curious about is this whole aspect of matching the birth charts: when did this custom come into play? The whole match-making business relies on an initial condition, which defines and determines the calculations and predictions made for the rest of your life. A four minute delay or so, changes the whole mathematics and as any non-linear dynamics or chaos theory expert will tell you, the error grows with time. In India, most people have watches that are inaccurate. In old days, there were no watches. How was this system established then? I asked my grandmother about this, and her answer was that in her childhood the custom wasn't as prevalent, and it is only in last 30-40 years that it has gained such a strong foothold. Being from a family of Brahmins, I know how much emphasis is placed on birth charts, and yet I am never convinced that it is an essential aspect for arrange marriage, or if it is necessary part of Hindu religion and practice. There are communities who don't care about birth charts at all. Yet starting with the time and place of birth, most Pandits arrive at similar conclusions, which points to the internal consistency of the system. Still, why birth charts?

The second obvious question is about selecting candidates from the same caste. If I ever try to throw an argument about how the caste system in ancient times was based on occupation and not birth, and hence every well-read, qualified female would be practicing Brahmin, I get glares which tell me of having committed a sacrilege. I am told that irrespective of what I say or believe in, if it is arranged marriage, why not look into the females of our own caste: there is neither dearth of beauties or well-suited prospective matches in our own caste. The emphasis on caste is then extended to emphasis of her being from same region. There is always too much social outrage, and family discontent involved in making a rational choice. So after the requisite melodrama, the sentimental outcome preserves the intra-caste tradition. The government and political system has contributed in its own menacing way through their vote politics, that relies on rifts in different castes as a means of annexing power.

The practical matter of getting the match fixed has its own routine of melodrama: egos clash, utensils crack, mud-slanging business occurs behind closed doors, detectives get work, and then there is investment, market survey and financial hiccups. Beyond all this thrives the practice of active and passive dowry. Active, when demands are outlined in terms of money and property required, passive, as the girls family bears all the expenses. This custom has many detractors, most just criticize others, and then themselves engage in dealings that fatten their pockets. Why cannot we collectively get rid of sale and purchase business that goes hand in hand with weddings? A recent trend is where "girls" threaten the family of the groom, gets the anti-dowry squad ready, and is able to extort money.

Indian weddings may bot be the most lavish, they definitely require more spending (if normalized by the annual income of the family) than anywhere else in the world. Gifts, food, place to stay, clothes, jewelery and so on add up to bills that can be used to construct better houses, or can feed many orphanages put together. Any attempt to cut down the expenses meets with mother's admonition who has dreamed of the event all her life, society's frown- who would rather have a corrupt Jayalalitha spend millions on a grand feast than look at a simple ceremony and in most cases, the bride or the groom requires the showdown to stamp his or her social and economic status.

Love marriage in India lives in the shadow of the arranged one. These days people have become smarter about making choices which are more acceptable to parents; so choose someone of the right caste and right qualifications. The arranged marriages are such an accepted trend, that even when someone strikes as a good match, one must think a zillion times over before committing, which by the way, is like the declaration of a battle. As my friend said, "I had to go for arranged marriage, for I never found someone worth creating a Revolution for." Dating, at least the way we thought of it then and now (I know the new generation is perhaps as different from us, as we were from our predecessors) , dating involved meeting up enough times, and usually ended up as damp squid as either the girl or guy's family put their foot down. I hear the trends have changed a bit, love marriages face lesser hurdles (especially if caste, birth chart and qualifications match alright).

Most customs, most rituals, most anarchist beliefs are carried by the middle class. The poor have their bellies as the biggest concern, the rich buy and sell rules as and when they please. The middle class takes pride in being the guardian of "culture", and yet the middle class, by its middling nature, fails to take stand on any big issues. We thrive by brandishing our anger in view of petty matters, for even if our anger caused by various misgivings against society and government, we can control and manipulate only our local domains.

Marriage as a union of just two bodies is a Christian myth, a western phenomenon. We actually come from the land of multiple marriages, and say upto fifty years ago, this was practiced everywhere in the country. Neither the Hindu religion or custom or tradition has ever thought of polygamy as bad or unacceptable. Yet, like Dharamendra, either you go through a touted religion change or you divorce the first wife, if you intend to marry another. If women could live together and share space and responsibilities for centuries in India earlier, what is the reason for forbidding this constitutionally? Be it Dushrath with four wives, or Krishna with hundreds, they who could afford to feed and satisfy their innumerable spouses were the only ones who married multiple times. Most feminists get appalled at this suggestion, though heart of the matter is that neither polygamy nor polyandry is any better or worse than monogamy. The happiness of a family depends primarily on its financial well being and on spouses being accommodating and reasonable. In certain regions of Himachal, polyandry has remained a custom: one wife for all brothers. It functions exactly on the lines as Draupadi who was shared between her five husbands. Muslims, under whatever clauses, can have more than one wife. Why have we Hindus become so obsessed with the foreign ideal of monogamy? I may or may not want multiple wifes, and I don't belong to the tribe where polyandry is practiced, but I see no reason why it should be prevented, why I should frown at such a possibility.

On a lighter vein, say in polygamy, existence of many wives will lead to a healthy competition between them. The male shall need to work twice as hard for sustainance, and this will lead to overall increase in productivity. Every mother will want her Bharath to outwit Ram, encouraging more competition inside the home. I cannot imagine any of our epics could exist without polygamy. Not even Dhruv Taara (Pole Star). The sisterhood of wives of same person is legendary. We have become increasingly nuclear in the present system, where working sons and daughters must migrate away from parents, each family has only one or two kids, and the whole culture of uncles, aunts and close ties with fifty other family members is fading. We need bigger families, better families. Already the number of females per thousand males has touched new lows in states like Haryana. Add polygamy to the system, maybe the dowry system would die altogether. Allow polyandry and every man will have a wife. In tribes that practice polyandry, the woman is at the head of the household, and of course, runs her men as she pleases. More or less.

What is the essence of this article anyway? Is the author trying to figure out how he can marry more than one woman? Does he need to get married to a girl of other caste, without having to go through birth chart and horoscope business? Is he dead set against dowry or has he by living in US for few years lost his grip on Indian realities and Indian customs? Of course, I need to raise these questions myself, for I know many readers are particularly curious about the personal life of author, or just because rather than attacking any idea, any superstition, any social or religious hogwash, they find it more satisfying and intellectually appealing to just pound the speaker. Dismiss the author, my friends, and start to think. Then tell me, what do you think?