Attitudes towards dating and marriages in Indian society

This article is part three of my series on how one's birth year plays a part in shaping one's attitudes towards various things. So far, I have talked about consumerism and government. In this article, I elaborate on dating and marriage. To recap, the four groups according to birth year are: pre-independence, between 1947 and 1965, between 1965 and 1988, and post-1988. Each groups thinks of dating and marriage differently.

The first group has never understood the concept of dating. The members of this group often think of dating as something that 'good children don't do'. According to them, a guy and a girl meeting alone before marriage in not exactly acceptable. Let alone dating and then eventually choosing their spouse, they didn't even get to see their faces before they married them. The parents made the decision, and they simply accepted it. The marriage was not of two people, it was of two families. Once married, they couldn't even think of the possibility of a divorce. The fear of what family and society will think is just too great. Just like dating, the engagement and the honeymoon were non-existent too. Showing affection for the spouse in front of anyone, in public or at home, is not common either.

The members of the second group had considerably more freedom than their parents in choosing spouses. It was not considered inappropriate for them to 'have their eyes on' a prospective match. When the appropriate time to get married came along, the families would be brought into the picture, and the parents would do the talking on behalf of their children. A commonly used term for such a marriage is 'love-cum-arranged' marriage. The approval of the family was an important, but not the only factor in deciding who to marry. Though inter-caste marriages were not common, they weren't frowned upon either. Dating while in college was becoming normal, but it usually meant going out in a big group of guys and girls, with every member having someone special in the group.

The third group embraced the concept of dating and being in a relationship before marriage. Inter-case marriages are common, and so are the so-called 'love marriages'. The members of this group find nothing wrong in finding their own spouse, but also appreciate the benefits of arranged marriages. The last of this group will be married in the next three to five years, and a lot of them are marrying someone they've dated for a few years. With the obvious exceptions, it is uncommon to see members of this group having had multiple girlfriends before marriage. They figure that it is okay to date and see if things work out, otherwise there is always the option of having parents find someone nice for them. They look at the arranged marriage as a backup option.

The last group probably thinks life should be like the way it is in the sitcom 'Friends'. Members of this group will get married much later, and have their first boyfriend/girlfriend much earlier in their lives than those in the third group. They are comfortable with the concept of a live-in relationship and with dating in high school. They look at marriage as a tool to get society's approval for two people living together, something which they do not care much about in the first place. They are also much more accepting of homosexuals then the members of the previous groups. Just like their attitudes with consumerism, they find themselves to be closer to the western world. A lot of energy is spent by the other groups discussing the loosening morals of and lack of a value system in this group.

As of now it seems as if each generation marries later, is more liberal and more accepting of alternative lifestyle choices than the one preceding it. Each generation takes some amount of pleasure in the fact that its value systems are better than the 'kids of today', but worries that its own children would grow up just like those kids of today. Though inter-cast marriages have become very common, so have divorces and broken engagements. One thing that hasn't changed, however, is that very few people marry outside their own religion. Indian society has traditionally been highly segregated and no amount of liberalism has changed that in a substantial manner.