[Each year, nearly 10 million prospective husbands and wives
register on the sites, which have become the first option for many families who
can no longer rely on the neighborhood priest or the friendly aunt to provide
suitable matches in India
 |
| A young Indian couple on a date. (iStock) |
“We began chatting on
Whats App. He kept asking me for more and more photographs. Then he asked,
‘What are you wearing right now?’ ”
recalled Maddur. “It was creepy. There are men on these matrimonial sites who
are just looking for an affair, not for marriage.”
So she blocked him.
Maddur is not alone. Scores of women have complained that
married men are posing as single on these sites, that many lie about their job,
income and age, and that they are using the sites just to hook up with women
with no intention of getting married, officials say.
With incidents of fraud
growing, the government wants the popular portals to not only verify the
identity of the men who register, but also to determine whether their
intentions are honorable.
Operators of India
“The number of complaints the
government has received about this is huge. Men are using these matrimonial
websites for dating, for harassing. They make inappropriate comments,” said Maneka Gandhi , India
Each year, nearly 10 million
prospective husbands and wives register on the sites, which have become the
first option for many families who can no longer rely on the neighborhood
priest or the friendly aunt to provide suitable matches in India
“As traditional close-knit,
caste-formed communities broke down, people moved to newer cities and jobs,
joint families split up. It was no longer possible to cut, copy, paste the old
model of arranged marriages into the new world,” said Ira Trivedi, author of “India in
Love.” Thus, “matrimonial sites filled this gap well.”
Despite sweeping changes in
Indian society, analysts are puzzled by how the tradition of arranged
marriages persists so
strongly.
A 2013 survey found that almost
75 percent of young Indians still prefer marriages arranged by their
parents.
Whether advertised through
Sunday classifieds or matrimonial sites, finding a partner has always been a
family business in India
But the old system of picking
trustworthy matches that existed in communities that were once close-knit does
not work as well in cyberspace.
Last month, Gandhi convened a
panel of officials from three ministries and portal owners to draft new safety
guidelines to regulate the $60 million industry. Some of the measures
discussed included prominently declaring that these are not dating sites;
making it mandatory to upload the government’s biometric identity number as
verification; and requiring men to answer a questionnaire to assess whether
they really intend to marry and how soon.
“Unfortunately, the portals do
not see it as their responsibility,” Gandhi said. “Their attitude is, once you
register, you are on your own.”
The portal operators say they
already follow a two-step validation process by asking for a cellphone number
and email address.
Forcing
people to upload government-validated identity documents — such as a voter
card, biometric number or driver’s license — would be “impractical,” said an
executive of one matrimonial site, speaking on the condition of anonymity
because he did not want to jeopardize the ongoing discussions with the
government.
Many people in India
Questionnaires about a person’s
intention to marry will not work, he said. “Many people browse for months
before they agree to meet someone. We can’t ask them how soon they will marry.
Many profiles are managed by parents who may say immediately, but their
daughters and sons may want to delay,” he said.
Matrimonial sites say they are notresponsible for how their members behave
when they engage with each other offline.
But fraud abounds in the online
matrimonial universe.
Last year, Mumbai police
arrested a 27-year-old man who routinely uploaded pictures of a good-looking
friend on his profile and lied about his parents’ business and his own job. He
would chat and charm prospective brides, befriend them and then cook up a sob
story about a stolen debit card or a family health crisis and say that he
needed an urgent loan.
The uncertainty in the online
matrimonial world is driving some families back to the traditional matchmaking
bureaus, which conduct personalized checks on the families, relatives, friends
and colleagues.
Some even hire detectives to investigate the lives of
prospective matches.
In the big cities, some
independent working women find the family presence in the matrimonial sites
stifling.
“The matrimonial sites are very
old-school. The men’s parents talk down, they are very judgmental, there is
pressure on you to prove you are the ideal daughter-in-law,” said Aprajita
Virmani, a 30-year-old digital marketing professional. “I want to approach men
on a more equal footing, minus the parents. So I am going to try out a dating app.”
In the past year, apps such as
Tinder have made inroads into Indian cities.
But safety is a bigger factor
on dating sites.
TrulyMadly.com, a new Indian
dating app, checks male members’ Facebook newsfeeds,
verifies their marital status, counts their friends on Facebook, seeks social
endorsements and even pings a government database to spot any criminal acts.
“Dating apps in the Indian
cultural context will work only if women are convinced that the men have been
checked and declared safe,” said Sachin Bhatia, TrulyMadly’s co-founder. He
said matrimonial sites in their current form will go out of business in a
decade.
“Technology, communication and
women’s choices are changing very fast,” he said.
Meanwhile, Maddur has found a safety measure that she trusts: She told her
father about the creepy caller.
“Now my father handles my
account and thoroughly screens the men before I interact with them,” she said
with a laugh.
Read more:
@ The Washington Post
