sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) (06/21/85)
From: linda@amdcad.UUCP (Linda Seltzer) <1625@amdcad.UUCP> > As an American reading this newsgroup, it was interesting to hear the > comment "who can understand you better than your parents?". Not too many Americans could make that statement. > If the son or daughter gets along well with the parents, then > an arranged marriage does not sound like a bad idea. The parents > might know some very nice people. However, if the young person does > not get along well with the parents, then problems could most > probably occur. In my own life in the U.S. I was always interested > in the arts professionally and my parents completely opposed it. Imagine a girl in both a liberal and conservative setting. If she is inclined to study, both settings may encourage her to con- tinue her studies. The liberal setting may encourage her to study whatever she may want, while the conservative setting may encourage her to study "marriable" subjects (like arts). If she wanted to pursue an even higher education, the liberal setting may okay it, but like the conservative setting, it would have some res- ervations. Excessive education may 'price' the girl out of most of the marriage market. This situation (excessive education) would make the parents scramble for marriage partners for their daughter. The chances for these girls to find a 'perfect' match (one which is in favor of the girl) is almost nil. They will be pushed on to the first Tom-Dick-or-Harry who shows any interest and many times there will be great incentives to have a guy take their girl (like bigger dowries, expensive 'gifts'). This of course may make the parents of the girl take a tremendous financial hit. Knowing the girl is limited to knowing her 'Opportunity Costs for Marriage'. Consider how a class of 'Bounty Hunters' who look for these 'deals' could easily exist. In North America (USA & Canada), how many know of Indian colleagues who have gone to India to get an Indian doctor as a wife? :-) > one looks forward to the opportunity to marry someone who might > be a little better off or who has more education. Reasons why a guy would take a girl poorer than himself include: 1) girl is very doscile and can be 'molded' easily to fit into guy's family. 2) girl is very good-looking (everyone wants to have attractive children and grand-children). Reasons why a girl would take a guy poorer than herself include: 1) girl is 'priced out' of the marriage market. This includes widows and divorcees. 2) guy is well-educated and/or lives abroads. As noted by Prentiss Riddle (riddle@ut-sally), a marriage is actually a marriage of families so when I mention 'Reasons why a ...', I am also referring to their families. As one can see, education is always a plus for the guy, while for the girl, education can be a minus. Is this why many 'highly-educated' girls marry non-Indians? Sunil Trivedi sunil@ut-ngp.ARPA \ / ut-sally netword \ / ut-ngp | sunil
rafferty@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA (Colin Rafferty) (06/24/85)
[Sunil Trivedi] > Reasons why a guy would take a girl poorer than himself include: > 1) girl is very doscile and can be 'molded' easily to fit into > guy's family. > 2) girl is very good-looking (everyone wants to have attractive > children and grand-children). How about: "3) Girl is witty, fun to be with, and he is in love with her." Oh no, that can't be right, love doesn't count in marriages. > Reasons why a girl would take a guy poorer than herself include: > 1) girl is 'priced out' of the marriage market. This includes > widows and divorcees. > 2) guy is well-educated and/or lives abroads. Ditto with this. > As noted by Prentiss Riddle (riddle@ut-sally), a marriage is actually > a marriage of families so when I mention 'Reasons why a ...', I am > also referring to their families. Does that mean that if someone wanted to get married, his/her parents saying no would mean he/she won't? That seems a little odd to me. When I get married, it will be because I love that girl, not because she came from my income bracket, or my parents like her. I'm sorry, it's my life, not theirs. As for the idea of marrying only from a different social class: we will both be in the same boat after we get married. ---- Colin Rafferty { Math Department, Carnegie-Mellon University } "I may not agree with your ideas, but I will defend to the death your right to speak them" -Thomas Jefferson
ganpaty@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (S.Ganapathy) (06/25/85)
From: sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) <1857@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> > ... If she > wanted to pursue an even higher education, the liberal setting may > okay it, but like the conservative setting, it would have some res- > ervations. Excessive education may 'price' the girl out of most of > the marriage market. This situation (excessive education) would > make the parents scramble for marriage partners for their daughter. > The chances for these girls to find a 'perfect' match (one which is > in favor of the girl) is almost nil. They will be pushed on to the > first Tom-Dick-or-Harry who shows any interest and many times there > will be great incentives to have a guy take their girl (like bigger > dowries, expensive 'gifts'). This of course may make the parents of > the girl take a tremendous financial hit. Knowing the girl is limited > to knowing her 'Opportunity Costs for Marriage'. Consider how a class > of 'Bounty Hunters' who look for these 'deals' could easily exist. > In North America (USA & Canada), how many know of Indian colleagues > who have gone to India to get an Indian doctor as a wife? :-) > As one can see, education is always a plus for the guy, while for the > girl, education can be a minus. Is this why many 'highly-educated' > girls marry non-Indians? This is supposed to be a possible explanation to the questions thrown up by the above message from Sunil. I don't think that the above scenario applies to a Asian Indian setup here. The views expressed in the above letter seem obsolete and prepostorous to me. I think with education for both gender the only reason why arranged marriages still seem to holdout is the reason that in spite of education the psyche is still the same as back home since a major portion of the formative years have been spent in India under a different enviornment. Hence concepts such as dating take a while to take root. But neverthless love marriages would be on the rise hopefully for the good of the parties involved. One possible explanation why highly educated (Indian) girls marry non-Indians is the dating population that reaches the girl. Since more than 90% of dating requests come from non- Indians the (Indian) girls have less of a choice of getting to know Indian men. So for the above reasons an educated (Indian) girl is a self-sustaining,self-supporting entity and hence is not a burden (financial) to any one. S.Ganpaty ganpaty@ut-ngp.ARPA ...!ihnp4!ut-sally!ut-ngp!ganpaty ...!seismo!netword!ut-ngp!ganpaty <For beth@sphinx, I now have learned how to use vi & postnews>