[For centuries, fathers
sought matches among their social connections, often with the help of local
matchmakers who carried résumés door to door. But village-based kinship
networks are fading as more families move to cities, and highly educated women
often cannot find men of equal standing in those circles. Under such strains,
families have sought larger networks, increasingly through matchmaking sites.]
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NEW DELHI — For thousands of years,
fathers in India have
arranged the marriages of their children, and Garima Pant — like an estimated
95 percent of her millennial peers — was intent on following this most Indian
of traditions.
Her father found a
well-educated man in her caste from a marriage website that features profiles
of potential mates and presented his choice to her. And that was when her
rebellion began.
“I don’t think so,”
responded Ms. Pant, a 27-year-old special education teacher, after seeing a
picture of a man with streaks of color in his hair. So her father picked
another profile. “Are you kidding?” And another. “Ugh.” And dozens more.
When a profile of a man
who intrigued her finally appeared, Ms. Pant broke with tradition yet again,
finding the man’s cellphone number and secretly texting him.
Her boldness saved the
match. By the time the fathers discovered that their families were of the same
gotra, or subcaste, generally making marriage taboo, their children had texted
and emailed enough that they were hooked. Months later, the couple exchanged
vows with their fathers’ grudging blessings. Theirs was one of a growing number
of “semi-arranged” marriages in which technology has played matchmaker, helping
whittle away at an ancient tradition, but with a particularly Indian twist.
In a society where
marriage is largely still a compact between families, most parents, especially
fathers, are in charge of the search for a mate, including by scouring the now
ubiquitous marriage websites for acceptable candidates. But a growing number, especially
in India’s cities, now allow their children veto power. Even siblings have
begun weighing in; Ms. Pant’s younger brother became an early booster of the
man she would eventually marry after seeing his profile photo with a black
Labrador retriever.
Human rights activists
have welcomed the evolution as a significant change in the status of women
worldwide and are hoping even poor, rural families begin to allow marriages
based on choice.
Each year, they note,
roughly eight million mostly teenage brides marry men chosen entirely by their
parents, with many meeting their grooms for the first time on their wedding
day. Refusals can be met with violence and, sometimes, murder. In one case last
November, a 21-year-old New Delhi college student was strangled by
her parents for marrying against their wishes.
The shift away from fully
arranged marriages is being driven in good part by simple market dynamics among
Indians who have long seen marriage as a guarantor of social status and
economic security.
For centuries, fathers
sought matches among their social connections, often with the help of local
matchmakers who carried résumés door to door. But village-based kinship
networks are fading as more families move to cities, and highly educated women
often cannot find men of equal standing in those circles. Under such strains,
families have sought larger networks, increasingly through matchmaking sites.
The websites — India
now has more than 1,500 — nationalize the pool of prospective
spouses, giving parents thousands more choices while still allowing them to
adhere to longstanding restrictions regarding caste and religion. (Candidates
who fail to identify their caste get far fewer responses, matchmakers and
marriage brokers say.)
The system works,
analysts say, because India’s young people remain exceptionally open to their
parents’ input on mates.
“Intergenerational
relationships in India aren’t hostile. Our teenagers don’t have angst. They
don’t rebel or misbehave with their parents,” said Madhu Kishwar, a prominent
feminist author and a professor at the Center for the Study of Developing
Societies in Delhi. “And the reason marriages in India are more stable than
those in the West is because families are actively involved.”
Still, by allowing the
Internet to nudge its way into the marriage equation, parents are increasingly
surrendering control. On BharatMatrimony.com,
which says it helps nearly 50,000 people in India get married each month, 82
percent of male profiles are posted by the prospective grooms rather than by
their parents, up from 60 percent five years ago, said Murugavel Janakiraman,
the site’s founder and chief executive. Among women, the share of self-postings
is at 56 percent, up from 30 percent five years ago.
“Twenty years ago,
parents chose the matches,” Mr. Janakiraman said of those who have embraced
technology in the marriage hunt. “Now parents are largely playing supporting
roles, and the brides and grooms are in the driver’s seat.”
But even as social mores
shift, relatively few young Indians, including those who demand more of a say
in their marriages, are straying too far from tradition. Dating — or at least
openly dating with parents’ consent — is still relatively rare. And many of
those who choose semi-arranged marriages say that romantic love, the
head-spinning Bollywood kind, is not their goal. Compatibility is, as is a
sense of control over one’s destiny.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m
head-over-heels madly in love with my husband,” said Megha Sehgal, a flight
attendant. “But he gives me a lot of comfort, and I see a friend in him.”
The percentage of
semi-arranged marriages has grown to an estimated quarter of all marriages in
India, according to a survey, while just about 5 percent of
matches are considered “love marriages,” in which couples unite with little
parental consent.
Indeed, many families
involved in both old and new forms of arranged marriages see falling in love
before marriage as threatening. Those with money sometimes hire private
investigators to ensure that a prospective spouse does not have any ill
intentions or has not already fallen in love then broken off that relationship
in favor of an approved match.
“Fifteen years ago, most
of my investigations revolved around checking out the family,” said Sanjay
Singh, a private detective in Delhi. “Now they’re mostly concerned with whether
the other person is already involved with someone else.”
For poor, rural women,
the notion of even semi-arranged marriage is still mainly out of reach — a fact
that human rights activists say leaves girls especially vulnerable.
“Marriage is the single
biggest risk to Indian girls,” said Joachim Theis, chief of child protection at
Unicef in India, which says that the country has a third of the world’s child
brides. “They drop out of school; they lose their freedom; they are under the
control of their husbands and mothers-in-law; they lose their social network;
and they are more likely to die and are 10 times more likely to be victims of
sexual violence than unmarried adolescent girls,” he said.
Many of the deaths are
linked to disputes over dowries demanded by the grooms’ families.
Those urbanized Indians
shifting to semi-arranged marriages say the change could not have happened
nearly as quickly without the growth of matrimonial websites and the
proliferation of cellphones, which have given young Indians a way to converse
away from the prying ears of their families.
As prospective brides and
grooms increasingly take a role in their courtships, the marriage websites’
formulas for suggesting possible mates have had to change, said Gourav Rakshit,
chief of operations atShaadi.com, the largest such site.
“We have seen marked
shifts in people using compatibility factors for their searches instead of only
the more restrictive parameters of the past,” like wealth and caste, Mr.
Rakshit said.
In the end, Garima Pant,
whose cellphone became a tool of rebellion, mainly got her way. She insisted on
meeting her future husband, Manas Pant, alone before making a decision, a
once-rare demand that is now routine in semi-arranged marriages.
A date was set for Café
Turtle in New Delhi’s upscale Khan Market, and Ms. Pant agreed to drive Mr.
Pant (whose surname was coincidentally the same as hers).
Mistake.
“I was 20 minutes late
picking him up, and he hates it when people are late,” Ms. Pant said.
Mr. Pant, 28, a marketing
professional for technology companies, had a slightly different take:
“Actually, she was 25 minutes late,” he said. “Then she hit a car.” But he was
already committed to marrying her, and she was impressed by his reaction.
“He said, ‘Well, we’re
off to a good start,’” she said. “It was a joke, and I thought, ‘O.K.’ I’m not
saying I heard bells or anything, but it was the right thing to say.”
After a two-hour date,
she dropped him off and drove home, where her father, mother and brother were
eagerly waiting in the living room.
That night, Mr. Pant
texted: “I’m telling my father to go ahead. OK?”
It was the equivalent of
a man in the West going down on bended knee. The families would still have to
meet, and horoscopes would have to be consulted. But in a monumental change,
nothing could happen without Ms. Pant’s approval.
She texted back, “Yes.”
Suhasini Raj contributed
reporting.
