Arranged marriage: a tale of love (sort of)
The story of my parents meeting doesn't constitute the classical one of 'boy meets girl'
By Nirmala Nataraj
Published: May 11th, 2007 | 1:38pm
The story of my parents meeting doesn't constitute the classical one of "boy meets girl." As far as I know, they have no tales of stolen moments of passion, no predictable funny anecdotes about her hating his guts the first time they met but managing to be won over by his sloppy charm in the end. In many ways, there's no real beginning/middle/end to their brand of love story - their relationship started only when they were married.
Generally, Indian families who are arranging a marriage for their sons or daughters use a variety of considerations to judge the compatibility of the match: favorable convergences in astrological charts, copious interviews with those who know the boy or girl best (and won't be afraid to give you an honest assessment of said person's strengths and weaknesses), and relationships that have already been forged between the two families. My parents, who were both 28 years old when the match was made, didn't have the luxury of such authoritative factors to cement their marriage - they were, after all, over the hill with respect to their connubial peers, and their families were understandably in a rush to seal the deal.
They met each other a total of three times, always in the company of scrupulous chaperones (usually an officious auntie or mother), before they got married. Prenuptial conversation between them, from what I understand, was limited to the basics - stuff it was acceptable to chat about in front of your relatives, like one's ambitions, favorite food, preferred number of children, and the like. As you might imagine, three conversations packed into the duration of a few hours couldn't have made for enough time to get into the nitty-gritty: for instance, two vastly different temperaments that just might mean these two weren't ready to start a family together. (Then again, if they had the luxury of months of deliberation and question-posing, it's unlikely that I would be here today.)
Given that my sister and I grew up in the United States - and were indoctrinated by the persistent television fantasy of practically every variation of "romantic" love that you can think of - the story of my parents meeting is an infamous one between us. Among all our childhood peers whose parents were still madly in love with each other and would flagrantly display their passion with unabashed PDAs, my sister and I were exotic specimens: the progeny of neither love nor passion, but rather, duty and obligation. As kids, we quickly overcame our outsider status and learned to indulge in the freakishness of our origins. We would relate the "three meetings" story time and time again to strangers and friends alike, perhaps with the hope that in the midst of all our slightly varying versions of the truth, we might be able to piece together some semblance of who our parents were when they first met-what they desired from marriage, whether each of them lived up to the other's expectations, whether they might have even felt a bit of what people commonly label "love" for each other. This was in no small part due to the fact that my parents scarcely ever spoke of their arranged marriage when we were children, so in some ways it was necessary to invent a story for them.
Most of the time, telling others about it resulted in reactions of horror and questions like, "Well, they don't expect you to have an arranged marriage, do they?" Given my voracious appetite for Harlequin romances and bad prime-time television as an adolescent, I quickly began to mirror the distaste of those around me. I grew to think of arranged marriages as both passionless and unrealistic. Considering that my parents' relationship and our family life - marked by a cycle of financial difficulties and pent-up rage - was hardly a walk in the park, I felt smugly correct. No matrimonial ads for me! Only passion and deep connection would ever drive me to such a drastic act as marriage.
As I grew older, I was able to suss out the nuances so that arranged marriage wasn't simply a black and white, good or bad sort of issue. I grew to understand that judging an age-old cultural practice by the same standards as those of the American society I lived in was fallible and reeked of false cultural superiority. As I saw peers and their parents going through ugly divorces (usually as the result of infidelity or, simply, "growing apart"), I began to appreciate the sustenance of my parents' close to 30 year relationship. While I'd hardly call them an exemplar of the success of arranged marriage, I have grown to value their resilience and ability to see beyond temporary hardships. What I mistook, as a child, for the deficiency of arranged marriage, when examining my parents' relationship, had far more to do with unfavorable circumstances than it did the actual institution. And to act as an arbiter of their relationship now would be impossible. Certainly, they have their faults, as any couple does; however, their marriage is a unique expression of who they are, and it's deepened and changed over the years in a way that makes me consider them differently than I might have as a bitter kid.
I do believe it takes more strength to end an unhappy relationship than to stay in one, so I don't necessarily see low divorce rates as evidence for the "success" of arranged marriages - but I also know that the desire to hold a marriage together doesn't simply arise from a blind sense of duty or honor. My parents truly understood the meaning of "for better or worse, in sickness and in health" so much more keenly than people I know who married, purportedly for love, only to decide that love wasn't enough somewhere down the line. And the truth is that love isn't enough.
In observing a medley of marriages over the years - arranged ones (that both include and don't include "love"), and ones forged from love and passion - I've come to recognize that marriage is a multidimensional construct, and there are many factors that contribute to it. Sometimes, two people are intrinsically incompatible - this can happen whether they are in love or whether their marriage is arranged. Many people don't understand that when marriages are arranged, parents attempt to make the best possible match they can - looking carefully at details such as personality traits, hobbies, education, temperament, habits, and the like. And, at least in Hindu marriages, a profession of lifelong friendship is an important part of the ceremony, meaning that equality and respect are just as important, if not more important, than love. And although a marriage treated like a business contract may not seem romantic, the basis of stability created by that sort of commitment ideally allows for sustained happiness rather than "a few good years."
At the ripe age of 27, I too am getting ready to make that next big step in my life. In the fall, several generations of family members will gather to witness my nuptials. My fiancé and I will be tossing out the traditional "white wedding" (as well as the week-long fiestas that are part and parcel of the traditional Indian wedding), and we'll be writing our own vows and fashioning our own ceremony to highlight our unique commitment to each other.
Despite my newfound appreciation for arranged marriage, I won't be having one myself. In many ways, I think of arranged marriage as being culturally specific; perhaps, if I'd grown up in India, I might have consented to one. However, being an American has entrenched me in certain beliefs and experiences. For instance, I do want love and passion, and while I know that some arranged marriages have led to these things, I've been more comfortable searching for them by myself.
But, like other Indian Americans of my generation, negotiating traditional beliefs with my own personal value system is important to me. At this point, I am learning to accept that I can both respect my family's traditions and pave a path for myself that feels authentic. I have chosen the person I will marry, but stability is also important to me. My fiancé and I have been together for five years; in some ways, despite my own unconventional views of marriage (i.e., I was never in a hurry for it to happen, and I never felt I needed to marry the first person I dated), I recognize that many of the values at the heart of arranged marriage can be found in my own decision to wed. After all my adolescent fantasies of passionate affairs with a smattering of desirable suitors, I realized early in my adulthood that uncontained passion was best left to breathy soap-opera vixens. For me, a pragmatic approach toward compatibility and love is key. Both my fiancé and I obviously love each other, but only when I realized that with all of the changes we'd lived through, we could still grow together, did I know that he was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
At times, understanding between my parents and I doesn't always mean there will be mutual acceptance of each other's decisions. Being a bicultural person has meant negotiating a lot of differences between my parents' heritage and my own over the years, but the result isn't always a nice, neatly wrapped package of cultural identity. I know that my family is happy for me, but in some ways, I am apprehensive of what they may think of my marrying a man who comes from outside our community, and how they regard my deviating from the custom of arranged marriage and marrying mostly for love. Even though I have attempted to understand my parents more as I have gotten older, there are definitely times when we disagree and I still find my own life is directly at odds with the life my family might have wanted for me.
All the same, I know now that my marriage might not necessarily be so different from what they had, and it's this possibility of a shared experience that makes me feel closer to my parents today. Marriage can't be broken up into simple dichotomies, such as "arranged" or "for love." In essence, marriage can be viewed as less of an institution and more of a unique contract that varies from couple to couple.
As I begin to think of the values I want my marriage to harbor, I find that many of them resound with those of my parents'. At their worst, arranged marriages can trap couples in cycles of abuse without any hope for an out, and can also force many people (especially women) to act the part of the martyr and put the needs of their families before their own well-being. But at their best, arranged marriages take into account that mutual respect, a pragmatic view of life together, honor for the family, and endurance through moments of hardship can only make the nuptial bond stronger. The capriciousness of love, so often neglected by detractors of arranged marriage, doesn't factor in here. When love comes for a couple in an arranged marriage (which, as I've seen, it usually does), it happens slowly and surely - and usually, with the clarity of maturity and mutual respect, not the murky haze of passion. And while the form of my marriage might be different from that of my parents, we are bound by similar values. Perhaps they may not see this the same way I do, but at least now, I can relate the story of their first meeting without seeing it as somehow outside myself - but rather, as a testament to the faith and nurturing that should be required in an undertaking as huge as joining your life to someone else's.
Issue #35
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