Love Marriage & Arrange Marriage in India

In India, Love marriage is no greater event in a family than a wedding, dramatically evoking every possible social obligation, kinship bond, traditional value, impassioned sentiment, and economic resource (Wallerstein, 90). In the arranging and conducting of weddings, the complex permutations of Indian social systems best display themselves.

Background Information

Marriage is deemed essential for virtually everyone in India's Culture. For the individual, marriage is the great watershed in life, marking the transition to adulthood. Generally, this transition, like everything else in Indi, depends little upon individual volition but instead occurs as a result of the efforts of many people (Wallerstein, 90). Even as one is born into a particular family without the exercise of any personal choice, so is one given a spouse without any personal preference involved? Arranging a marriage is a critical responsibility for parents and other relatives of both bride and groom (Wallerstein, 90). Marriage alliances entail some redistribution of wealth as well as building and restructuring social realignments, and, of course, result in the biological reproduction of families.

Thesis Statement

This paper mainly focuses on the trends of love marriages and arranges marriages in India and how does it depict the culture of India.

Topic Sentence

In my view In Indian culture, marriages are considered to be an important institution and the word of the elders of the family is considered to be final. India's culture mostly focuses on the arranged marriages.

The customs followed in arranged-love marriages in India are traditional and might include all the paraphernalia associated with a typical Indian wedding (Popenoe, 1190). These kind of Indian marriages are arranged marriages and have proven to be more successful than the love marriages.

Whenever we talk of Indian wedding we try to equate it with arrange marriages. In India the social structure is such that we associate Indian marriages mainly with arrange marriages (Popenoe, 1190). Most of us have the feelings that arrange marriage is the concept of Indian society. But history tells us that arranged marriages use to happen even in the Victorian age. The history of England tells us that most of the kings and queens had arranged marriages (Popenoe, 1190). In India arrange marriages originated when child marriages was customary in the country. Caste system gave birth to arrange marriages, as the upper caste families didn't want their children to marry outside their community and caste (Popenoe, 1190). The concept of love marriage was a taboo in ancient India as India always had a tradition of arranged marriages. But after World War II and industrial revolution people's perception started changing and they became familiar with the concept of love marriages. In India the influence of the British culture gave rise to love marriages (Lundberg, 139). The idea, which was once a taboo, became more open and acceptable in the Indian society. But this change was seen only among the educated and high society Indians. The rural parts of the country remained ignorant and unaware of love marriages. In spite of ...