Marriage in Hindu family is considered as biggest festival because it occurs only once in lifetime. A lot of ceremonies are performed which proceeds like a journey from first meeting of families to last ceremony. Assembly of lots of people advocates the beautiful moments of the couple and gives blessings. Almost three generations of people enjoys the joyful events where children learn our culture from elders. Institution of marriage has changed significantly in last some decades in India which are both productive and counterproductive.
Changes over the years in marriage are-
- Love marriages are gaining pace in India which is actually necessary in autonomy loving youth.
- New ceremonies like sangeet(music) inculcated due to Bollywood masala movies impact.
- Attendance have become more important than enjoying ceremonies.
- People started seeing marriage as events rather than sacred rituals.
- Event managers came up in place of cooperation in family members for managing marriage. People look to enjoy more than helping in management.
- People thinks it as time waste of 6-7 days now days, rather than taking it as mind refreshing period.
- People have forgotten meaning of vows(Christians), fera(Hindu)...
- Marriages became businesses in various terms like for caterers, even sometimes marriages fixed for corporate advantages.
- Destination weddings have changed the ancient meaning of the institution as lot of community people lived with you skips the marriage so ultimate aim of Hindu marriages missing.
- People wish for small attendance in marriage but thats not Indian culture. Vedas mention attendance binds the people together and put more responsibility on couple to carry on in life at adversity.
- Kanyadaan is most skeptical term. It is actually not played by father but by whole attending community.
- Child marriage proportion significantly decreased in India.
- Dowry system significantly decreased but still prevalent in many forms. In U.P, Bihar openly asked, in Rajasthan given as money and households things and in south as gold.
- Couple are becoming just permanent room partners.
Hii,
ReplyDeleteI think your article gives a descriptive picture of what kind of marriages that you have attended. I totally agree and even I have witnessed such wedding rituals as well. But I think your views are quite limited to the way marriages happen in North Indian middle class families. I think India has a very rich cultural heritage and marriages are part of this which are not covered in main stream media. Various tribal cultures have a very different concept of marriage and as you have pointed out that it has evolved as well. But not all the people are evolving there is a huge chunk of people for whom it is very different. I would love to see that angle and your views on them as well. Also I have a problem with the definition of marriage. I think the couple is already United. Marriage is the celebration of their union. I don't know if that makes sense 😅. But anyway that's how I feel
Thanku
That is not my definition actually, Oxford dictionary defines in that way. Tribal marriages, LGBTQ marriages, transgender marriage etc. could be covered but that need research and I don't have proper details of that. I can't false content.
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