Although it’s changing in the cosmopolitan parts of India, marriage customs are still deeply anchored in Tamil Nadu. Coupa-Amma and Ragansami-Appa kindly invited me to their first daughter’s wedding, after long anxiety: waiting for proposals, dowry issues, and no boys matching (even astrology has to be checked). If the first daughter in the family wouldn’t get married, the rest of the children would have the same fate. Sed lex dura lex.
The bridegroom’s relatives are in charge of finding an approved couple combination. The prospective bride shouldn’t be too dark skinned, of an equivalent caste (that too hasn’t changed!), be less educated than her potential husband, and of course doesn’t get to chose who she will marry!
Nooooo way! I find it outrageous!!!! Poor them!!
“But that’s because of your traditions and your Western pragmatic intellectual heritage! The result is that in your country there are loads of divorces; while in India, whenever there is a problem in the couple, the parents solve it…”
Can such a cultural debate find a conclusion?!
Anywhoooo, the marriage reception was such a treat! The newly-married couple was on stage and the guests would come up to them with gifts and showers of blessings. Tons of beautiful flowers, orchids, jasmines, roses, marvelous saris, all our friends looking at their best, and a scrumptious Tamilian Banquet! Unfortunately I missed the nightfall Badaga dances. Convent curfew!
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