Love-cum-Arranged Marriage = Assisted Marriage

The international media’s soft corner for India continues as NYT reports on the new breed of “Assisted Marriages” in the US. I also tried my hand at naming Love Marriages and Arranged Marriages.

Arranged Marriage – Match fixing

Love Marriage – Resisted marriage / Registered Marriage

Less than a decade ago, the decision about whom a South Asian woman here might marry was often left to her parents, the prospective bride's preference for dentists or contemplative artists notwithstanding.

But purely arranged marriage has morphed into a new culture of what might be called "assisted" marriage.

Parents are now free to arrange all they like - allowing their sons and daughters choice among a roster of nominees screened for caste, lineage and geography, among other measures - and their children are free to veto those choices.

The purpose of assisted marriage here is not simply to preserve Indian cultural identity, but more pointedly to maintain class, religious and regional identities in a place where they might easily be diffused. When Mona Mahajan, a recent graduate of Harvard Business School from New Jersey, married an Indian she met on her own, she was the first in five generations of her family not to have married a Punjabi.

The embrace of more traditional habits is apparent in other ways. Many couples still consult a Hindu astrologer who schedules wedding ceremonies according to the stars. This autumn is expected to be an unusually busy wedding season in Indian communities because many couples postponed weddings last year when many days were deemed inauspicious.