A Matter of Inconvenient Convenience

January through March is the marriage season in India. It is the coolest and driest time of year therefore lending itself well for large celebrations. Grooms wearing red turbans ride on white horses through the streets during their night processions to the wedding. Family, friends, and marching bands in glittering regalia surround the groom in merry cacophany; electric lanterns and general claustrophobia are joyfully expected. The streets bulge as cars and camels try to squeeze by the procession.

In the morning newspaper a "Matrimonials" section replaces what Americans would call the "Wanted Ads". Love-Marriage is a new and generally frowned upon practice. In the rural areas, like the Thar desert, it is completely unheard of and Arranged-Marriages encompass 100% of the marriages.

The Indian supreme court recently ruled to lower the legal age that boys could marry to 18 (from 21) to make it the same age for both boys and girls. This will likely have some affect in the big cities, but in much of Rajasthan the ruling will be ignored. Child-marriage, although illegal, remains a strong cultural tradition.

For example, our driver at GRAVIS was telling us last night about his marriage, and he is no exception. He comes from one of the villages where GRAVIS does its work.
Our driver was engaged at 3 or 4 years old. This arrangment was made by family elders who ensure that the couple will be of the same caste, similar economic status, good family relations and that's about it. Our driver was engaged to his first cousin who was two years younger than him. In this way the parents don't need to worry about who their child will marry when they grow older. However child mortality is high, and fiances may need to be renegotiated.

At the age of 14, our driver was married to his 12 year old bride. The ceremony took place, but the couple would not live together until later. This early wedding made sense economically for the family because and older cousin and another couple were getting married at the same time. Therefore only one wedding party and feast needed to be paid for. Lavish weddings often throw Indian families into unreturnable debt, but this too is often expected.

When our driver was 21 and his wife was 19, his wife moved to her in-laws house and they began their married life. A second procession in which the groom goes to get his bride from her house occurs at this time.

Our driver is now 23 or 24 with one child.

In other circumstances, couples will be arranged and married in their later teens. The couples are restricted from seeing eachother and often the groom will only see his brides face until after the wedding. Talking to one man on the train the other day though about the arrangement he had made for his nephew who was getting married the next day revealed that the girl had received a photo of the boy from a secret source and only much later did the boy obtain a picture of her. The uncle was quite amused.

I'm hoping to make it to a wedding while I am here to understand more of the tradition, and although I've been invited to two, haven't been able to make it to any yet.

As you may be able to tell, the whole concept of Marriage is completely different from how we may perceive it in the West. Questions about love and divorce don't even need to be asked.