The agony of matrimony

In our country there are two broad ways to get married – Love Marriage or Arranged Marriage. In the former one, you fall in love first and then get married and in the latter you first marry and then fall in love. I know many people would have views widely divergent from these two but then this article is not about types of marriages.

Now the past few months have been quite turbulent for me as I have opted for the second path of marriage much to the pleasure and satisfaction of my parents and the utter agony for me. I say agony because one of the worst things I have done in my life is to have searched for a bride for me through matrimonial sites and all.

The experience has been nothing short of disgusting for me as it has gone against my value system, my learning and my principles of life. I feel as if there is no difference between myself and the trader of medieval times standing in an Arabic market place and crying out hoarse rates for young girls standing on a pedestal in a manner that would disgust even the salivating dog. The then girl standing in the middle of the crowd on an elevated pedestal, being scanned from top to bottom as an object of worth underwent a trauma disgustful to be described beyond words, a trauma which killed a part of her self-esteem for the rest of her life. The agony the disgust experienced by woman doesn’t change today they were made to feel as inanimate objects then they are made to feel the same today. Then, most of the men used to feel elated as they were in a stronger role, deciding role and sealing the fates of completely unknown women, today the numbers go down but nevertheless the numbers remain.

I have now seen both sides of the fence from a girl’s angle when my parents were searching for a prospective bridegroom for her and from boy’s angle now.

What makes this “searching” process so demeaning is that girls are treated like objects not even cattle. And the girl’s parents are a willing party to this process makes it all the more frustrating for the girl.

Picture a girl - good looking, well educated, working at a respectable position in one of the best companies of the country, earning a respectable salary and leading a team of 8-10 people at her office. Now in her office setup she enjoys tremendous respect for the way she carries herself and the no-nonsense attitude she has.

She has learned all this from her parents - they have taught her the value of education, the respect one has to give to the work, how to carry herself so that she is respected by one and all.

Now one fine day the same parents tell this girl daughter u have grown up its time to search a potential suitor for u, now since we have seen the world far more than u and we are way more mature than u r we will do the honours.

The girl as always accepts it because its her parents they have never taught her anything wrong and they always wanted her to do the best, Now begins the ordeal. Every weekend when it is an holiday for her and she wants to rest or enjoy with her family begins her parade, she is all decked up and led into the living room by either the mother or sister.

The girl enters the room, she has her family there and a totally stranger family staring at her looking her from top to bottom, scanning her with their mental scanner trying to figure out everything which they have in their mental check list. Multiprocessing in the truest sense – When the scanning is going on at the same time the process is going on as to what wrong can we pick out in this girl so as to reject her and go on to the next house so as to enjoy the fun. All this time the girl is feeling as if “mother earth opens up and she sinks in it” as she has never felt so humiliated and wasted.

Now when the parents are short-listing the prospective grooms for their daughter they can afford to make certain adjustments here and there, they do not look for the best fit groom instead they look for a groom where their daughter can be the best fit. So what if he drinks, he is just a young guy he would improve after marriage, it doesn’t matter much if he is not a post graduate or doesn’t earn upwards of 5 lacs things would certainly improve after marriage. After all we cant go on rejecting guys like this, that way there wouldn’t be any prospective groom left.

Now the other side of the coin the parents are searching for a bride for their dear soon, here even if the girl has the slightest deviation from their ideal daughter-in-law her profile/resume is straight away brushed aside. Little thought is paid to the fact that the girl’s parents have send the resume with extreme high hopes. You are not brushing aside a resume you are extinguishing another lamp which they had lighted with such a lot of care and hope. While brushing aside the resume probably you have forgotten how disappointed you used to be when you used to receive a refusal when you were in the same position and how your heart used to wrench from within.

The demeaning part is not restricted for girls alone, its for boys like me too. When I receive emails from the girl’s parents saying “I request you to please reply back soon”, I feel like why is this gentleman begging in front of me, why is he not confident about his daughter. Or when I receive mails like “attached along with this mail are the particulars of my daughter, if you find them suitable please let us know we can proceed further”, why where did the girl’s consent go? Trust me friends, I have received such sort of mails from fathers of girls who are extremely beautiful, highly educated and well placed in the industry with salaries exceeding my salary.

The entire process has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have suspended my profile from all matrimonial sites for another one year and would probably never re-activate them or even if I do I would have a proper methodology to go about it.

I get the feeling that what sort of civilized society do we live in? are we even fit of calling ourselves civilized? Our parents are not to be blamed solely because we(both boys and girls) are active participants to the same. Why do girls agree to getting “Exhibited” and why do boys become a part of this process. I am not saying our parents are wrong what I am saying is we have to show them a new perspective of things in the new world and show them there can be a methodology to go about it.