Mom, I love her! Can I bring her home?
Its a question a lot of people of my age group have! Can I marry the one I love? Will my parents understand? Will the society understand?
The funny thing with parents is that they will more or less accept anything less than what we are bringing. I have a friend who told to his parents about having a girlfriend who is from another country and they say that they will accept if he brings anyone who is an keralite! I have another friend of mine who tried for a girl who belonged to a different religion and his parents told him that they will accept anyone from their own religion no matter who she is! I have yet another friend who tried to make her parents accept her lover who belonged to a different caste and her parents said they will accept anyone from the same caste.
When we fall in love, we rarely check if the girl is from a particular caste or religion or region or have a family belonging to a particular society status. Is it wrong to make them try and understand that marriage which is supposed to be a union between two souls is made into some kind of business deal for the society by them? Isn’t marriage about the compatibility of two souls rather than two social animals! God had given us the ability to love but I wish he had given us the ability to love 'only' a particular sect of people.
How can people even think of marrying someone who they have never seen or talked to before? According to our society the girl is going to be living in the boys house which makes it even more tougher for the girl. She is not only going to call a stranger her husband but she is going to have to call the stranger’s mother as "MOMMY!". According to the current custom, the house she was born to, the family she had, would no longer becomes her own and in one lavish ceremony she would not only change her social status from 'Ms.' to "Mrs.' but she also have to make the stranger's family as her own! Is that fair on that poor girl?
Recently while I asked my mom why I cant try and find the girl who is compactable, she replied in one word 'Tradition'. Wow that’s a huge explanation! So I continued.. Do you think the girl who you find will be able to understand my weakness and strength? Again my mom replied in one word.. 'Yes'. What???? How can you know that? eager to know which one word she is going to use this time. This time she replied a bit more than a word. "Well.. you see when I got married I never saw your father! I didn’t know who he was or what he did. I just felt confident that my parents will find the right person for me! I did alright didn’t I? So will you!" There you go.. Just because she got lucky, I have to believe that I will be too! For her, parents have some kind of psychic ability to find the right guy/girl for you!
What can parents actually know about that stranger which is going to come to your life. Well in case of girl they will find ... He has a nice job! He is working outside India! He is handsome! He has moustache!!! Similarly for the guy... the girl is homely or working in a good firm or her family is a very well known one, so she will have been brought up properly! Wow.... that’s materialistic to say the least. Does he smoke or drink? Does he beat? Does he get angry for no reason? Is he a chauvinist? Does he have a previous lover who he can't leave out? Will he let me wear jeans? Similarly questions for the strange girl! How can parents know these unless they know the boy close for sometime?
Currently among us, we want to marry a person we love! We want our parents to understand us! Will they be able to understand that we want to only marry a girl who we know for sometime, who we fell in love with? How can they understand when they themselves got married without seeing the other person? They wont be able to digest it! Why? If my daughter or son came out telling that she is in love with a guy, wont we accept it. To a large extend we will provided he has the capacity to give her a good life. Then why cant they think in the same line? I will tell you why. These are things which is natural to us and accepted by our circle! We can accept this! But consider the condition where my daughter comes up and tell that she loves a person but she also want to be sure she will be able to live with him, so she is going to move in with him!! My god my daughter is going for a live-in relation with someone!!! What will the society say? What will my friends say? Maybe that is the in thing with her circle but it is not acceptable in mine!!! I cant dare to imagine such a thing!
Maybe this is the scenario which is going in our parents head! Maybe we need to find a way to satisfy our needs without hurting our parents! After all for what ever we do, they are indirectly responsible! So what can be this midway which will satisfy both us and our parents? Or is there no such thing as a midway for this crisis?
The funny thing with parents is that they will more or less accept anything less than what we are bringing. I have a friend who told to his parents about having a girlfriend who is from another country and they say that they will accept if he brings anyone who is an keralite! I have another friend of mine who tried for a girl who belonged to a different religion and his parents told him that they will accept anyone from their own religion no matter who she is! I have yet another friend who tried to make her parents accept her lover who belonged to a different caste and her parents said they will accept anyone from the same caste.
When we fall in love, we rarely check if the girl is from a particular caste or religion or region or have a family belonging to a particular society status. Is it wrong to make them try and understand that marriage which is supposed to be a union between two souls is made into some kind of business deal for the society by them? Isn’t marriage about the compatibility of two souls rather than two social animals! God had given us the ability to love but I wish he had given us the ability to love 'only' a particular sect of people.
How can people even think of marrying someone who they have never seen or talked to before? According to our society the girl is going to be living in the boys house which makes it even more tougher for the girl. She is not only going to call a stranger her husband but she is going to have to call the stranger’s mother as "MOMMY!". According to the current custom, the house she was born to, the family she had, would no longer becomes her own and in one lavish ceremony she would not only change her social status from 'Ms.' to "Mrs.' but she also have to make the stranger's family as her own! Is that fair on that poor girl?
Recently while I asked my mom why I cant try and find the girl who is compactable, she replied in one word 'Tradition'. Wow that’s a huge explanation! So I continued.. Do you think the girl who you find will be able to understand my weakness and strength? Again my mom replied in one word.. 'Yes'. What???? How can you know that? eager to know which one word she is going to use this time. This time she replied a bit more than a word. "Well.. you see when I got married I never saw your father! I didn’t know who he was or what he did. I just felt confident that my parents will find the right person for me! I did alright didn’t I? So will you!" There you go.. Just because she got lucky, I have to believe that I will be too! For her, parents have some kind of psychic ability to find the right guy/girl for you!
What can parents actually know about that stranger which is going to come to your life. Well in case of girl they will find ... He has a nice job! He is working outside India! He is handsome! He has moustache!!! Similarly for the guy... the girl is homely or working in a good firm or her family is a very well known one, so she will have been brought up properly! Wow.... that’s materialistic to say the least. Does he smoke or drink? Does he beat? Does he get angry for no reason? Is he a chauvinist? Does he have a previous lover who he can't leave out? Will he let me wear jeans? Similarly questions for the strange girl! How can parents know these unless they know the boy close for sometime?
Currently among us, we want to marry a person we love! We want our parents to understand us! Will they be able to understand that we want to only marry a girl who we know for sometime, who we fell in love with? How can they understand when they themselves got married without seeing the other person? They wont be able to digest it! Why? If my daughter or son came out telling that she is in love with a guy, wont we accept it. To a large extend we will provided he has the capacity to give her a good life. Then why cant they think in the same line? I will tell you why. These are things which is natural to us and accepted by our circle! We can accept this! But consider the condition where my daughter comes up and tell that she loves a person but she also want to be sure she will be able to live with him, so she is going to move in with him!! My god my daughter is going for a live-in relation with someone!!! What will the society say? What will my friends say? Maybe that is the in thing with her circle but it is not acceptable in mine!!! I cant dare to imagine such a thing!
Maybe this is the scenario which is going in our parents head! Maybe we need to find a way to satisfy our needs without hurting our parents! After all for what ever we do, they are indirectly responsible! So what can be this midway which will satisfy both us and our parents? Or is there no such thing as a midway for this crisis?
19 comments:
Being a Christian ( though my fist name alone may suggest differently) , I’ve heard all through my live
Sermons and extracts and quotes and teachings and whatnot saying the basic principle of Christianity is based on love. But the moment a someone heard the word “love” they flip tops and go on a rampage, trampling you underfoot ( if u happened to be the one mentioning the before said word .. even if u’re not, but u just happened to over hear the conversation also u’ll be trampled, so no use thinking it ok as long as u don’t say that word first) .
Never could understand it. I have tried to , and wanted to debate it out with some pedantic dilettante ( make u go running for the lexicon, doesn’t it ? I always wanted to do that) that the love the Holy Book says is not just to be preached but also to be practiced. That the love and tolerance is not just a topic for sunday morning sermons. But never got a chance to do that.
Love has always been a topic of controversy. How do you love someone? Not for any of the reason that you marry a person in an arranged marriage, certainly. What do you look for when u go n marry someone who comes out of the blue, just coz your aunty’s cousin’s sister’s brother-in-law knows her ( feminists can also read this as his, I’m writing from my point of view so please replace him with her, wherever u want to do so ) father’s brother. I’d have quoted a simile for arranged marriage, but I restrain myself. But I think it is just like taking a lottery ticket and ur parents telling you that “Son, don’t worry we’ve bought u the winning ticket , we know the winning ticket by sight alone. So just go ahead any but it”. Seems sorta foolish, if u put it this way doesn’t it?. And It’s foolish too.
I am not just supporting one side of the argument, Love too has it’s pit falls, but u know that It’s worth all the pit falls. What happens when your arranged marriage fails? You pay the price for someone elses’s choice ? To me it dosen’t seem fair, that your mom n dad (mostly mom ) gets to choose who you have to marry, just coz she didn’t get to choose when it was her time. I mean she can choose some one who’s appealing to her, but what about u? ( I have nothing against mothers mind u, I love mine just as much as anyone of u would or even more) . Wait for your chance to exercise your rights, when it time for your children to marry? ( A Note of warning, don’t think your children at their time will let u choose.. I’m sure the world will have seen the light by then. I mean we cant be in the dark ages for ever, can we? )
Well. I’d have liked to go on an on.. but I’m saving the rest for my own blog (:D Yeah, thai.. inspired by u )
Le Jaayenge Le Jaayenge Dilwaale Dulhania Le Jaayenge
Reh Jaayenge Reh Jaayenge Duniyawale Dekhte Reh Jaayenge !!
Best Regards,
The Kothaguda Family :)
to play the devils advocate...love is just a chemical reaction in your brain.
To quote the hairy guy ....everything is relative....no absolute good or no absolute bad...if you feel its morally bad to hurt ur parents u better play by the "rules" if you think its your life and its ur choice , fair enough....
depends on your mode...and with no absolutes..its just upto the individual....
Call me conservative, retrograde, traditional..but I would still be happy to be termed pro-arranged marriage. As a child, when I used to cry for an expensive toy, my dad would not get it for me. He could not afford it. But I love my dad who made sure he got the best available gift within his budgetary constraints. I would still cherish and treasure the gift, though it was not my choice. Now I have grown up, become an adult, and if I bring somebody who is absolutely not acceptable to my parents as my wife, don’t they have the privilege and authority to reject her. They would have certainly made sure that I got the best available match. Now you might say that I am not given the freedom to choose my partner. But so is the case with many other things in life. I don’t get to choose how my kids should be. If I don’t like their character, I can’t just discard them. Can I? When in so many other things in life, I limit my freedom within certain boundaries, why not in marriage? Is it not the child in me who craves for the best toy that is pushing me to defy my parents?
Arranged marriage for me, is a marriage that happens with the parents’ consent. It could also mean that I fall in love with somebody and marry her with their acceptance. Love marriage henceforth, will mean a marriage against their will.
I have always wondered why love marriages fail. If you have understood your prospective life partner so well prior to marriage, then why should that alliance fail? It could be because you always try to project the best image to your lover. Love can sometimes become a fantasy when everything about your lover is positive and there are absolutely no complaints. But once married, the real world, with its complexities, may paint your picture differently to your partner. The result is chaos and a possible separation. I know there can be many theories against this argument, but let’s not go into them; because my objective here is not to prove that love marriages are equally susceptible to failure as arranged marriages; What I am against is the concept of a marriage contrary to my parents’ consent.
Let’s say I fall in love and marry a girl of my choice. When on some day, my son comes with a partner of his choice, would I be ready to accept that even though his choice is against my traditional cultural moorings. I would not. Are we so modern that we can ridicule the traditions our parents adhere to as outdated? Or are we mature enough to condemn the society they live in as too conservative? Remember our parents lived in this society for their entire life. Is it an offence if they stand by the same society when they are being blamed by their relatives and friends? I fail to undersatnd how they can ignore their parents or relatives just because their son or daughter chose somebody not in sync with their beliefs.
Now let’s address the freedom element which is the most talked about. Parents these days are more liberal than their predecessors, atleast in educated families. Children are given the chance to interact with their prospective spouse before marriage. This allows them to know each other better and decide if they can live together or not. This is something that our parents did not enjoy at the time of their marriage.So, is arranged marriage a victory only for parents? Is it not a win-win for both sides?
One last question…should I break the gift that my parents gave me when I am capable of buying a new one on my own? Should I break the bond with my parents which I enjoyed since birth, when today, I find somebody more attractive? Some call it a sacrifice. But if you know that your parents would not accept the partner of your choice because of some reasons which are obvious, why not nip that thought in the bud? What I mean is don’t get into a relationship which you know would be rejected. That is not a sacrifice, but a compromise you make so that your relationship stays intact. And still if you fell that it is a tough decision, who else in life will you make compromises for, other than your parents?
Hi all,
Though I dont compeletely agree with Iyas view point, I do agree on one point. Everything we do in this world is about control. When I mean control, I do mean prison! We all do something which we like but there are somethings which we cant do because it not only affects us but also others. This can range from killing others to humiliating people on the bases of caste, creed etc. So we need to have control over these actions.
This control doesnt come to us when we are born. We cultivate them as we grow. The more we grow, the more we learn to have self control! Sometimes we learn this control too late for it to have an effect. Eg: We may have taken drugs before we actually know what it can do to our life. But by the time we know it is bad for us, we are not in a position to control it.
Most of this 'love' happens during the age of 18-24 in which age we are learning to live. We are understanding what life is away from the protection of our parents! We are learning to live in a society as social beings! During this time we have yet to understand these things. Things like responsiblity, money, social responsiblity, relationships are new to us! And that time when we start on our own it is actually a big relief that a certain someone comes to our life to be with us and support us as we move ahead. This is a major reason for falling in love. And before we know we are in love with this person who knows you like noone else before. And before we know we become committed to them.
When I got out of college I had that feeling that if I do good work and have a certain capacity, I will progress in life. Within one year, I saw life is not as clear cut as I thought! For every 100m I travel I saw a bump on the road and I dont know what I am going to find later on when I have travelled further. During this age of 18-24 we have a false sense of adulthood without actually become adults. Our bloods are boiling with the vigour of the new found freedom. Here we think of idealistic world.
When we fall in love, we are ready for everything! We are ready to sacrifice everything later for this!!!! Unfortunately by the time I release that life is not straight I am actually in a way trapped in the relation! I am not saying trapped in a bad way, but in a way we like but again nevertheless trapped. For a love of 2-4 years we are sacrificing 20 years of unconditional love! I am not comparing both the love but telling we are sacrificing something which was not neccessary if we had thought about it earlier!
And we will actually think more as we grow older. The process of becoming wise!
Love - first we will come to know abt the gal then their family..
Arranged- the family first then the gal....
second option is always good just bcse we will have our family support.... were as in the first one (love)we will know the gal well.... all we have to ensure is abt the gal to make a happier living...
"Mom, I love her! Can I bring her home?"
If this the situation for me...
Then my question from ma mom...
The reaction of my family members are as follows :
Sister : ROTFL!!!!!!!!! ;)
Dad : Smile + some decent questions... :D
MOM :
1st quest: whts that gal doing??
2nd : do u know everything abt her??
3rd: Whts her character????
4th : Do u think that u will be happy throught out ur life?? if u marry her???
5th : abt her family....
6th : is she hindu or a christian or a muslim??? [this also not an issue for them... as in ma caste there are christians and hindus also]...
7th : when can i see her??? [ wanna see ma moms reaction :) ]
this is how it looks....
its the way we project it...
when we approach our parents we should say this "I need her..... bcse i love her... never say "i love her i need her".....
Love come arranged - 50% thrill
arranged come love - 100% thrill (adventurous)
For me anything is ok (obviously for ma parents too)....
S.N.Rajganapathy
Love should be felt...... not dealt... (only then u can have a successful married life)
@anon
In a way you are lucky to have so much options in your community.
My parents would have asked the same question expect that she should be a muslim because anything else is not accepted in our community!
Again the questions asked by the parents are ruled by the community!
You have been TAGGED!
Tag is Human Nature....find the questions at http://olympusmons.blogsome.com/2007/09/19/human-nature/
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