Cultural Anthropology
September 2014Culture: MarraigeCulture influences many institutions of society; one example of this is marriage. Different countries have different cultures which each in turn have a standard when it comes to the type of match made for a marriage. For singles in the U.S. love matching is the dominant way of finding a mate. By contrast, in India, very rarely are singles married due to love matches. Indian parents are left with the decision of who their child should marry; this is called an arranged marriage. Both have pros and cons, so which is better?
Which type of marriage is better? In American culture individuality is a focal point. Women have to decide for themselves what they want in a man and then go out and look for it. In American culture couples can meet for the first time in many different ways; when going out dancing, meeting new people in college and mingling when out with friends in a social situation. Attempting to find a mate this way leaves a lot to chance and can cause anxiety for the woman. The “high anxiety of competition” to even draw the eye of the opposite sex is a “prominent feature of life as an American teenager”. As a young woman in college there are numerous pressures, a couple being to make good grades as well as decisions about the kind of carrier to strive for. The cherry to top it all off is the incessant pressure of trying to find someone to grow old with and the worry of possibly never finding that “soul-mate” with the perfect story book ending. Being shouldered with this giant responsibility draws away from truly experiencing life and enjoying the small amount of time as an adolescent/young adult.
Indian people have a different mindset. The young men and women of this country “do not date and have very little social life involving the opposite sex”, the entire match making process is done by the parents. This takes all of the guess work out of the equation and gives the young adult every opportunity to enjoy their youth. These young women do not know the man that they are marrying before-hand, there is no courting period so the ceremony is really the first real time that the couple spends together. An American would think this oppressive due to the fact that the woman has no choice in the matter but the young women of India see