Stories about marriage in which South Asian women are treated like property, used as a means to obtain money, married off at the tender age of twelve, or attacked by their in-laws, understandably generate certain feelings, including shock, anger, disbelief, and sadness. Another expected reaction might be to think that these incidents occur on the fringes of a society: in an “old school” world that should be increasingly marginalized and whose degrading and stereotypical practices need to be exposed as such.
Categorizing these stories in this way not only stigmatizes certain vestiges of the “old school,” but also places or elevates the critic into a different world, a “modern,” “civilized,” or “Western,” one in which specific qualities — such as individual choice and gender equity — are at a premium. But, while disassociating one’s self from the old school has its psychological benefits, it would be a mistake to think that the women born and raised in the West are free of humiliation in the marriage or courtship process.
Recently, I have been reading a blog called British Born Confused Desi (BBCD). The author describes herself as:
a Londoner who has her foundations firmly rooted in her Pakistani heritage. I face a constant state of confusion as I battle between trying to be a good Pakistani girl and a modern British woman.
She writes candidly of her experiences as a prospective bride. Her posts give the impression that she is an unwilling participant in a draft, where the male suitor and his family thinks they have the final say as to whether they want to select this “free agent” girl.
My folks have a family coming over to see me tomorrow, I hate doing things the traditional way. It really is a meat market situation and for some reason the “boy side” always seem to think that its their meat to buy. [Link]
And when the family eventually came to “view” BBCD:
Today after a very long time I was made to feel like a piece of meat…. . We got on pretty well for a first meeting.. His mother on the other hand spent two hours staring at me making me feel so uncomfortable, I dont think she liked me at all, Im quiet sure that i was too “modern” for her. His father didnt smile at me even once, i think both the parents have been on a course as too how to intimidate a person…. Anyway as per usual in our silly community system of arrange marriages, lets just wait and see what “they” say. At least with last weekends bunch I wasn’t interested in him at all. [Link]
It is convenient to think of certain problems with marriage as confined to sectors of life that one does not inhabit or frequent. But, BBCD, who feels like chattel, could be my friend, neighbor, or colleague – not the resident of some pind, or village. I shudder to think how many other women in our “modern,” “civilized,” or “Western” society have experiences similar to BBCD’s – experiences that should be addressed, even if they are not as graphic or inconceivable as the four stories above.
I love this post.
Shudder a lot. The arranged marriage system – even in its present day “assisted marriage” incanation – is totally demoralizing for young women.
AMEN!
Just because people from the old school physically plant themselves amidst a “modern world” does not mean they become “modern school” in mind as well. It is a problem of culture and not of location, and as such I don’t see what your source of amazement is.
Maybe but no sympathy for those who go thru that and bitch about it being unfair/demeaning/causing weight gain. If she thinks its a bad deal and doesnt do any thing she is just as much to blame as her folks There are several women who enjoy going to the boys family and looking at him as the $ source. There are several girls who enjoy doing that and rejecting boys etc. There have been girls who say FU to this, and others in the family do backoff. usualy girls/women who are likely do this, the parents dont even bother initiating it. when some one would ask their parents about setting her up with Fofatlal who wears fabrics from Mafatlal and is a metlife annuity salesman in the city and makes $250k/year. the parents would reply, “you see she is not a homely girl, but a strong girl” “or voh gharelu nahin tez hai” strong,homely here are used in the indian context. strong => does not mean the girl can benchpress 200lbs tez=> does not mean she is a female dhavaak
There have been girls who say FU to this
Please provide the link Ely Stud, thanks.
Hmmm, I have to agree with GGK here and take the non-PC stand…why go through this if it leaves you feeling like chattel? I can sympathize with girls and guys who are not empowered to walk out (i.e. live in traditional society). But a modern empowered woman, who chooses to go through the process and then bitches about it online draws ambivalence at best.
And of course, not to mention the number of times I get to hear from my (primarily white) American and European friends or colleagues: “You Indian men all rape your wives” and things like that. Does that happen to other guys here? I used to be pretty unambiguously sympathetic to the kind of opinions in the article above, but I am not willing to be accused of being a rapist. I still can’t describe how much that hurts and it’s pushed me back to a defensive stance.
I have never looked for marriage (yet) but I have enough male friends in modern India who go through their side of the story i.e. getting rejected by girls for not being good-looking/rich enough etc. Many of them find it equally wierd and demeaning to go through the process and do not treat the women as ‘meat’. So would I. It is wrong for people to tarnish all Indian men with the same brush.
On a side note, I’ve not seen some of the regular SMers for a while…ANNA, cicatrix? where are u gals?
So what does one do when they haven’t been raised in a culture and unfamiliar with the concept of dating and finding one on their own? Why is it demoralizing to seek help from parents to find someone suitable? Having had the choice to pick whomever I want my whole life, with very progressive parents who will happily accept anyone I bring home; I have to say I feel just a little bit jealous of women who have the option to be introduced to eligible like minded men. It’s brutal out there to do it on your own, the dating games et all.
You can’t dismiss the whole concept of “assisted marriage” because of the few bad stories like the blog and others. There are 1000s of unheard from people who truly appreciate this because they don’t have other options, yes even in the west.
Sorry! The article is here.
Because of the emotional blackmail of family and society, I expect. It is not easy to turn your face away from your loved ones and your community. It takes guts. I don’t think BBCD is ‘bitching about it’ – if you look at her blog she has no problem with the idea of introductions per se, just with this particular tradition.
To share a very personal story:
This was about two years after I moved to the US, in the summer of 2002. I had graduated out of IIT in 2000, and moved to Houston, TX for grad school. That summer, I was in the Bay area for an internship, and living in an apartment with another fellow desi ex-IITian grad student type.
My roommate invited me to a dinner with some of his friends. Most of his friends had chosen to work after college, they were already married. Also, most of them were from the hindi belt (Bihar, UP). They came for the dinner with their wives.
As it usually happens, the men and women sat on different ends of the table and had their separate conversations. Inevitably, the conversation moved to the standard desi topics: the green card, prices of tickets to india, and weddings.
The guys started loudly describing and bragging, how each of them chose their wives from a stack of 300, 400 etc. ‘biodatas’. I couldn’t believe they were doing that in front of their wives. I turned to watch the wives’ reactions, and found them bragging to each other about how they were chosen by their husbands among 300, 400 biodatas.
I still don’t know what it was about that situation, but I just thought something was so wrong about that situation. I came to the US with the standard desi FOB American dream: get a degree, get a Silicon valley job, marry a pretty woman your parents suggest, buy a big house with two cars and have kids. I saw these people leading that life and having this kinda conversation and I couldn’t take it.
I came back to Houston and the next time I met a close American friend of mine, asked him to tell me more about ‘the dating thing that you Americans do’.
After three years, I still can’t decide what I want, but that experience totally put me off the whole marriage thing for a long long time. I have learnt more about the pains and perils of the American dating system than I’d bargained for, but I’m still not sure.
I agree with BBCD in that its a meat market situation. But to paint ONLY women as the affected party is inaccurate. Some women have no choice and get a raw deal but some do it to further their ambitions and social standing.
Interesting blog – I’m a BBCD I guess, educated and raised in London, had a ‘love marriage’ after a looong courtship then realised within a few months of being married that maybe I hadn’t really chosen my husband as freely as I wanted. Even though I was encouraged to think openly about studies, was brought up to beleive there would only be one man in my life.
As I have grown and changed from when I first met him – there are things that are fundamentally different between us that are difficult to reconcile.
But I also realise that you can’t survive by seeing yourself as a victim – like BBCD’s post. Asian women are often suppressed beacuse they carry on performing their roles as dutiful daughters, wives etc.
As soon as you realise you are living a lie – you have to confront the choices… It’s sad that the costs are so high. That’s a priority for our communities to make sure we break this cycle and bring our daughters up to have choices in their relationhips so they don’t have to carry these massive burden.
I still am considering mine…
Sorry it’s a long post, first time blogging and the subject is quite personal!
The commodification of the prospective spouse occurs to both men and women in these situations (although the factors being “assessed” are different to some extent), and although the guys concerned are often on the receiving end of somewhat cold-blooded “appraisals” where there is an element of opportunism and/or social-climbing involved, this doesn’t negate or diminish the fact that in some ways it’s even worse for women.
This is what happens when you turn marriage into some kind of inter-familial political “alliance” or a “business arrangement”, where genuine emotional intimacy in the true sense of the term is pretty far down the list of requirements, assuming that this is factored into the equation at all.
These attitudes occur right across the board and are not restricted to families originating in villages. High levels of education and status do not necessarily mitigate the mindsets concerned (sometimes they do, of course, but a lot of the time they don’t). Also, all this is not unique or specific to any one particular religious or regional desi community; to some degree or another, it’s very much a pan-desi issue.
Why does it seem that there is one individual always pop up on threads under different pseudonyms always posting bad news relating to Punjabis? Is this just my imagination? I’m not saying bad shit doesnt happen in the Punjabi community, I’m saying that there seems to be one person who makes it his life mission to google and paste it everywhere here.
If I am just imagining things then I apologise, if not, then up yours.
Anyway, everyone knows that ‘introduction’ marrriages are cool. Jews do that too to a certain extent, so do other communities. But we all know that with some people, at some point, some desi parents push their children and whilst it isnt forced, they use emotional pressure on their kids to get married at a time when they probably don’t want to. We all know someone who has been put under this subtle passive-aggressive emotional blackmail and seen this happen. Hell, the whole desi culture is obsessed with it, just watch Bollywood and the TV shows every single one of which revolves around the whole question of when to get married, family affairs and so on. That can be oppressive in and of itself – it is more subtle than the psycho parents who say – ‘Get married or we disinherit you’ – but it is still insidious in and of itself, this pressure to get married and settle down and marry into a ‘good’ family.
Thanks for that opinion, JOAT. I guess for people who’ve been raised in a dating culture, it is the easiest and natural thing to do. But for someone getting late into that game, the learning curve can be a real bitch. More so for guys than girls. (Especially if you’re desi…but feel free to construe that as snark :))
I guess for me, I would like to experience both kinds of the story before making a decision as to which one I want. I have nothing particular against being with an eligible girl my parents/friends suggest, but I don’t want to spend life regretting that I never experienced the Western ideal of ‘romantic love’, if it exists. Yeah, some people just want everything, don’t they? 🙂
Ok, I think I’ve posted way too much unsolicited opinion on this thread already 🙂
I agree. I’ve had many non-desi friends who say introductions are actually a lovely idea, and some of my friends say they wouldn’t mind if their parents played a more active role. BBCD hits the nail on the head when she says that in the desi community introductions often end up feeling like women are being picked out of a line-up.
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20060310.html I saw this on the news section on this site its funny
what about speed dating, that seems like a line up too.
Again i refuse to beleive that its the whole goddamn society and not the individual, particularly those who have the means to earn an independent living.
Byah karna hai byah kar, Na karna hai na kar sannu ki
One of the problems with the western way of thinking is, it’s the only that’s deemed right and everything else barbaric. I have to agree with GGK because too many times arranged or assisted marriages are termed heinous and unfair to women. GGK points out why that’s not the case and Janeofalltrades speaks of why thousands of them work. Granted, there might be some emotional blackmail from family and society, but isn’t the cornerstone of western values, the need to stand up for yourself? I’ve known desi girls bringing white guys home( why is it only white guys like 90%of the time?) and parents being cool with that. I have no sympathy for somebody who goes through it and bitches about it online when millions of her counterparts(sisters?) back home don’t even have an opportunity to stand up.
@Rani (#1) & BBCDfan (#2): Things are not as bad as you think. A lot of my friends, and, in fact lot of the people I know (Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra urban and rural) have had arranged marriages. They are very happy now.
It is not to say there are no fringe cases which are very tragic. As the blog indicates. Many of the horror stories you hear now and then are probably true too.
Contrary to the dave’s surprise, I think abcds have it way worse than those who stay in India (incl fobs). Many AB desis believe they are more progressive. As far as I have seen, they are either westernized or keep the notions of their parents that were frozen when their parents came here. Usually both.
But the clincher is this: in my opinion, sad stories like this happen when kids have been too dependent on their parents. In the US, most of the desis I have seen fall into this category. It is ridiculous how many AB desis in my university are here “because family is nearby”. In most of middle and lower middle class India, lack of parental economic means force you to take a more independent route—most kids land up supporting their parents by abt 25 or so. A combination of the respect parents develop for their kids from all this and the fact that the kid has proven h(im)erself responsible implies less pressure from family.
It is easy to beat up somebody and feel superior. It is much harder to understand issues correctly. But if you want to do something about helping people who happen to get a raw deal, you should be doing the latter not the former.
And the way to get rid yourself of trouble here starts not when you are 30 and looking to get married. Rather you can trade off your parent’s moolah for their respect.
Why does it seem that there is one individual always pop up on threads under different pseudonyms always posting bad news relating to Punjabis? Is this just my imagination?
No, its real. We have a club with weekly secret meeting to talk about the Punjabi menace. The London tube bombings, honour killings, the great depression, Air India 182, fat-bottomed women, rude taxi-drivers, the Spanish armada — we pin all of these on Punjabi speakers.
In our spare time, we put itching powder in Manmohan Singh’s turban and on Nawaz Sharif’s shiny bald head. We’re very evil.
Maybe I should clarify where I am coming from…
Many of my nearest and dearest have extrememly wonderful ‘arranged’ marriages. (I am not speaking of my parents, but of my 20- and 30-something peers.) Even they are critical of the both arranged and assisted deals and would have rather done it completely on their own. It’s not the introductions per se, as several have said, it’s the expectations, however subtly, placed on those introductions that gets to people, I think, based on my own observations. (I put all these caveats on this post, since many of the comments to this post will be TOTALLY based on personal experience.)
technophobicgeek I understand your delimma. You want to explore all angles before you decide. And I do agree with you that for men who get a late start can be a bit rough if they’ve never dated before. It’s easy to date and find dates, closing the deal to be in the ideal situation one wants isn’t that easy. I can only imagine what someone like you who wasn’t raised in that culture would have to deal with. Good luck to you 🙂 You’ll find your happy medium.
slightly off-topic, but still related to dating in the united states. CNN has a story on a website started by a former journalist called dontdatehimgirl.com. allows women to post photographs (not a lawyer, but it seems questionable to me) and horror stories about men who cheated on them. women can basically use it as a search engine for cheating men. men have the opportunity to tell their side of the story. who’s to say women and men aren’t making up stories about one another? some enterprising desi could do an indian version, rating the men/women they were introduced to for marriage purposes and why it didn’t work out. but is this really a good idea?
In the US, most of the desis I have seen fall into this category. It is ridiculous how many AB desis in my university are here “because family is nearby”. In most of middle and lower middle class India, lack of parental economic means force you to take a more independent route—most kids land up supporting their parents by abt 25 or so. A combination of the respect parents develop for their kids from all this and the fact that the kid has proven h(im)erself responsible implies less pressure from family.
Oh that’s good to know. And here I was thinking that Indians lived at home until they got married.
dear technophobicgeek,
i like your unsolicited opinions. 🙂 i dunno if u have a blog but u should write about ur experiences. i am an ABCD who is currently in a relationship with an “IIT FOB”. let me tell you, it has been a learning expereince. i’ve attended some of those gatherings you spoke about, and yeah the comments & beliefs from the IIT types are mindblowing at times (except of course my guy!). the mere fact that we are just DATING and he brought me as a “girlfriend” and not a wife releases lots of evil looks from the wives of these guys. even his mom has issues (i think since i am not one of the 400 biodatas of extremely gorgeous girls!) anyway i could go on and on…
pun-jabber
You’e not evil, you’re just a monomaniacal prejudiced freak! Get a life – flaming and pissing matches are so vulgar.
@Rani #23 I spoke too soon :). What you like is a matter of choice I guess. But I agree the arranged route is in part speed dating which makes people ask ridiculously personal questions too soon. Also that personal experience will count a lot into how you see these things. Then again, aren’t there subtle expectations in the dating game too?
And if you do find someone too, no matter how, it is not the end of the story. Thanks to Savitri for bringing in a new perspective.
dear chikki (love that, I got a cousin by that name 🙂 pray do go on. it’s good to share.
@Eddie
1 Many in India who stay at home tend to work after undergrad. Most of them work to support more than themselves. In the American case, kids do not support their parents at an young age in the same proportion.
2 It is not to say that the well off in India are any different. If you are a parent you will do anything within your means for your kids. Misguided or not. But I was speaking of middle to lower middle class India.
My point remains the same. You can trade off your parent’s moolah for their respect. You may be lucky in that you dont have to. But in many cases, parents love you, not respect you.
dear chikki,
more power to you. it will work out.
@Eddie again There is a difference b/w staying at home because you will be helping out. You may not like it, but most in India dont get to make that choice.
And again, this is lower-middle to middle class Indian parents I am talking about. How do you measure this? The way we see it, it is what you are if an airticket to US is about your annual household income or half your annual household income.
And let me add it is not even “till they get married”. In cases where the reason is economic, the family usually stays together after that too.
bytewords:
Thanks for clarifying it as more of a class issue. I went to a fairly elite school here, and all the guys from India and Pakistan had family businesses–auto dealerships, industries, “agencies” — to go back to. They may not have had the respect of their parents, but they knew how to “work” them to get what they wanted. It was we, the ABCDS, who were figuring out what the heck to do with our lives once the faucet went dry 🙂
You must be the first, congratulations 🙂
I endured 8 years of my parents trying very hard to introduce me to a suitable boy, before marrying my best friend from college, the love of my life, on my own terms.
Like some of you readers, I grew up mostly outside India (not U.S.) . I spent some wonderful years in college in India though, before moving (over a decade ago!) to the U.S., which I believe gives me some sense of empathy for both sides of the fence.
With the best of intentions, my parents ‘introduced’ me to various suitors from ‘very reliable sources’. My friends and family have heard the funny versions of all the ‘proposal’ questions that I got from potential suitors… from “Do you listen to Wham?” (rhymes with “farm”) to a blatant “Are you a virgin?”. However, unless you have been through it, I don’t think you can fully understand the humiliation and frustration of going through the experience of a proposal.
Why did I put myself through 8 years of it? I loved my parents too much to let go of the guilt so easily. The arguments, the fights, the tears that ensued were not worth it in the long run, but at the time, when my dad said with eyes full, “You have a good job, a nice place… all i want is to see you with a nice boy, why don’t you meet this one?” it was hard to say “No.”
Over a decade since the whole proposal fiasco started, I’ve stopped blaming my parents. I think they were trying to do what was best for me in the only way that they were familiar with.
Incidentally, when I did tell them I wanted to marry my now husband, they were wonderful about it, and more than a little relieved.
For a different take on assisted marriages, chk this out
http://imaginingourselves.imow.org/pb/Story.aspx?id=114&lang=1
Well, you know the drill then :).
You will see quite a few rich ones in the US. The unfortunate part is that India is still a fairly poor country. Even with the range of salaries I talked about, 80% of India falls below it. And 80 is being optimistic, the number is probably higher.
But with the rich ones—if you were a parent in India and you had a kid whose every whim had to be fulfilled by you, would you trust the kid to make the correct choice in marriage?
Oh this post and BBCD’s experience hit close to home. I’m doing the whole dating thing, as well as the “facilitated marriage” thing, so here are my two cents re: the latter. I love the concept, I hate the execution. Meeting someone through my parents in many ways is similar to meeting someone through my friends—it’s all hit or miss. I’m going to click with some, not so much with others—my parents and family are just another source.
That said, the “execution” can be incredibly demoralizing, demeaning, and emotionally exhausting. I’ve had one experience where the (prospective) MIL checked me out head to toe evaluating every piece of jewelry – I sat through the entire experience composing my summary email to my friends in my heads. And then I’ve met some other moms who were incredibly sweet and treated me like one of their own daughters. After the first experience, I sat with my parents and was brutally honest about how I felt, and it actually helped to pave the way for some pretty frank conversations about the process, and gender roles and family expectations when it comes to arranged marriage.
In response to someoneÂ’s comments re: (quick and dirty summary here) if you dislike it, donÂ’t do it and donÂ’t bitch about it. To tell you the truth, that made me mad. And then it made me think. IÂ’m an independent, self-sufficient woman who moved out of her parentsÂ’ home 9-10 years ago when she was 17. Why do I continue to agree to meet men through my parents with such an onerous process? ItÂ’s not emotional blackmail. ItÂ’s not cowardice and an inability to confront your parents (trust me, it takes hella guts to walk into a room full of strangers whose primary purpose there is to check out your marital and fertility prospects.) Over time, you build up pretty good armor against any kind of filmi emotional drama. For me itÂ’s due to an idealistic faith that through this process I can meet someone who IÂ’d love as well as someone my parents would be proud of. Best of both worlds—too much to ask? 🙂
If the “kid” does not have the maturity, intelligence, and common sense to make the “correct choice”, then that person is not enough of an “adult” to be married full-stop.
Janeofalltrades, thanks a lot indeed for your understanding, appreciate it!
chikki. More power to you! (Oh, and do you have any like-minded single female friends? 😉 )
@40 Jai,
You are taking this out of context. Plz go through 21, 26, 31, 33, 34 first.
green angel, i completely agree with you. it must be so difficult and confusing for our parents too who want to do the “right” thing (which somehow seems to be “the way it’s always been done”) but then are confronted with independent daughters (and sons!) who have a radically different, more rational perspective. the heart doesn’t/can’t easily buy what the mind tries to sell.
the older they get, the harder it gets for them to admit they can be wrong sometimes. or maybe that’s just my parents. 🙂
I know exactly what you feel like. Can you imagine the stares my girlfriend (now wife) who’s white got in such a gathering? Of course, our close friends and family have always been supportive. But outside of that my experience with desi uncles, aunties, H1Bs, FOB types have been anything but pleasant. I even had some guys come up to me and ask who’s the “gori”, not knowing she was wifey. Some of the reactions are just plain hilarious.
Ok, in defence of ABCD gals, I do meet/have dated some who are pretty open-minded about FOBS. I personally have come to think that the ABCD-FOB divide, while it exists, is also aggravated by stereotypes on both sides.
Chikki (lovely name, I agree), I do have a blog, but I’m always a bit leery of writing very personal emotions on there for the world to see. I think of SM as a friendly community, so I’m more comfortable writing here. However, I do fantasise about writing a best-selling chick-lit novel about my experiences someday. Heh heh.
It would be interesting to hear more about your experiences regarding dating the “FOB type” too. Feel free to write.
Green Angel –
I agree with you. I’m sure all parents do what they think is best for their kids. I’m from a similar upbringing, I spent most of my life outside India and went back for college and then came to the US about five years ago. My parents are back in India and have been for a while now. They are very concerned about me getting married etc, and have been “assisting” me to meet girls here in the US. I’m sure most of their motivation is concern about me being alone, but I also get the feeling that a lot of the time, the girls they want me to meet, fit too snugly in what is considered a good find in my community.
There is a lot of subtle nudging from people suggesting that either, there is something wrong with me or that my parents have managed to raise an undisciplined child, who doesn’t value the opinion of his parents, because I’m not married yet. When you are back home in India and deal with relatives and just your community on a daily basis, there is a lot of pressure for parents, so although the driving force is concern for your children, it seems that in India there is also added pressure from your environment and community in general for parents to do “the right thing”, ie: find someone in the same caste, get you married at a certain age etc.
Back to Dave’s point of being “westernized”, I definitely feel that if my parents were still outside the US, they wouldn’t have the pressure from the community for me to marry, and my un-marriedness wouldn’t indicate any inadequacy on their part. So maybe there is some validity in being surprised with the situation.
I think it’s a horrible and unethical idea. We have no right to judge someone and screw up their future simply because we didn’t work out with them. It’s dehumanizing and demoralizing to “rate” someone based on our myopic view of them. People deserve more respect and privacy then that. I think it’s a absolutely disgusting farce.
Financial independence plays a huge role in “dealing with” the parental issues, at least for young people in India. I know tons and tons of people in India who are dating and marrying for love, now that they have good jobs with multinational companies and earn more than their parents ever did.
Even for me, I have supported my parents financially out of my grad student stipend for the last 4 years, that has given me self-confidence to stand up to them, put my foot down and say that I would make up my own mind about my relationships. This I did not have when I was a student in India and my parents even resented me having any female friends.
technophobicgeek , Please give me your shaadi.com id, I know a suitable girl…
ROTFLMAO!!!! You made my day 😀
I’ll email you after my speed dating session this evening 🙂