An excerpt from an article on marriages in India
At the first opportunity, I began, with
more curiosity than tact, to question the
young people I met on how they felt
about this practice. Sita, one of my
young informants, was a college graduate
with a degree in political science. She
had been waiting for over a year while
her parents were arranging a match for
her. I found it difficult to accept the docile
manner in which this well-educated
young woman awaited the outcome of a
process that would result in her spending
the rest of her life with a man she hardly
knew, a virtual stranger, picked out by
her parents.
“How can you go along with this?” I
asked her, in frustration and distress.
“Don’t you care who you marry?”
“Of course I care,” she answered.“
This is why I must let my parents choose
a boy for me. My marriage is too important
to be arranged by such an inexperienced
person as myself. In such matters,
it is better to have my parents’ guidance.”
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