Arranging a Marriage in India

Serena Nanda tells us how marriage is arranged in India. She went there on a trip and found that basically their parents set up all the couples. She said that the parents can’t force their children to marry anyone that they don’t want to so they have usually one meeting before and if neither of them object then they will get married if the parents think that the other person is good enough for their child. Nanda said at first she would totally object to this and rebelled. “Had anyone tried to arrange my marriage, I would have been defiant and rebellious” (141). I know if my parents tried to set me up with a person that I only met once before I married them I would object too. I personally don’t think that I could handle that kind of thing. I would feel so forced and I don’t think being forced would be fair to my new husband or me. I also wouldn’t want to have to learn to love the person I marry. I want to already love the person I marry. I think its hard to find a person that will fit you and be good for yourself. How is someone else going to know what’s good for you when you yourself might not even know what is good for you. I think it would be really hard for me to spend the rest of my life with someone that I don’t even know if I get along with them. But the parents did seem very picky and they wouldn’t choose just anyone off the streets. They had a process almost in choosing who was good enough for their child. That is a good thing when it comes to arranged marriages. It makes for a division in social class though because they pretty much only look for people to marry their kids to in the same social standing as them selves. “The basic rule seems to be that a family’s reputation is most important. It is understood that matches would be arranged only within the same caste and general social class, though some crossing of sub castes is permissible if the class positions of the bride’s and groom’s families are similar” (144).