weddings
...eply involved throughout the period of child rearing. Hence, marriage lays the foundation for the traditional nuclear family, whose basic constituents are a mother, a father, and a child and which is the primary unit for ensuring the procreation of human beings and the preservation of their societies. Some forms of marriage have been found to exist in all human societies, past and present. The importance of marriage can be seen in the elaborate and complex laws and rituals surrounding it. Although these laws and rituals are as varied and numerous as human social and cultural organizations, some universals do apply. Unlike in Western civilization where love between spouses has come to be associated with marriage, marriage in India is rarely a matter of free choice. However, romantic love has not been a primary motive for matrimony in most eras, and the person whom it is considered permissible to marry has historically been carefully regulated by most societies. Endogamy, the practice of marrying someone from within one’s own tribe or group, is the oldest social regulation of marriage. When the forms of communication with outside groups are limited, endogamous marriage is a natural consequence. Cultural pressures to marry within one’s social, economic, and ethnic group are still very strongly enforced today in some societies. Exogamy, the practice of marrying outside the group, is found in societies in which kinship relations are the most complex, thus barring from marriage large groups who may trace their lineage to a common ancestor. Arranged marriage remains the most favoured form of marriage in societies in which the large or extended family remains the basic unit. The assumption is that love between the partners comes after marriage, and much thought is given to the socio-economic advantages accruing to the larger family from the match. In India, arranged marriage is the norm. The parents in order to meet this domestic obligation prepare themselves mentally and, more important, financially when their child reaches marriageable age. They search for a suitable partner keeping in mind the societal rules regarding cast, creed, natal chart, and financial and social status of the family. The dowry system is the fallout of arranged marriage that has bedevilled the Indian society. By contrast, in societies in which the small, or nuclear, family predominates, young adults usually choose their own mates. It is assumed that love precedes (and determines) marriage, and less thought is normally given to the socio-economic aspects of the match. In India love marriage is frowned upon. The average Hindu—anchored as he is to the age-old rule...