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So. I am 29 years old, educated, employed, from India, and single. It’s time to move on to phase 3 of life – marriage. Time to settle down, to start a family. Time to marry a nice girl – a nice, homely, proper South Indian Brahmin girl. Time for my mom to swing into action and bring forth just such a girl. Time to set aside two months. Two months to find the girl of my dreams (and of my parents’ dreams). Two months to go from single to settled. Except, that more than two years into this journey, I’m still right smack where I started. Square One. How? Or perhaps more importantly, why?

While I see no harm in allowing the process of an arranged marriage to run in the background while I go about attempting, in my own ways, to reach the common objective, I have never exclusively resolved myself to opt for an arranged marriage, nor do I now intend to.  Allow me to explain.

Experiences
Two years at a task tends to give you knowledge, and perspective. You learn the tips and tricks, separate propriety from impropriety, filter the contenders from the pretenders. And thanks to this process I’ve met a few interesting people. I’ve met people from varied walks of life – I’ve met engineers, architects and scientists. I’ve met singers, dancers and do-gooders. I’ve met the jealous, the possessive and the free-loving. I’ve met the conservative and the liberal, the close-minded and the open-minded. Whatever its faults, this process has shown me things from varied perspectives, made me realize what I like and what I don’t, taught me who I can gel with and who I can’t, given me an experience invaluable in life and for all that I know I’m better off for it. But I have my complaints. And reservations. Reservations that convince me of the futility of the process, of the inevitability of its failure.

Arranged Marriages – Then and Now
1959 was 50 years ago. Policemen do not strut about in long-shorts, All India Radio does not monopolise cricket and bell-bottoms are not the hip thing to wear. Society has moved on, and so have traditions. “Arranged” marriages are no longer arranged. They are, more often than not, facilitated. Brides and grooms are no longer enchained by parents, they are now introduced. Alliances are no longer decreed, they are now opined. Compulsion is out, preference is in. And my case is no different. I have my parameters for search, and my parents have theirs. Where there is alignment of the parameters there is synergy, where there is not there is friction. Inevitable, although not unworkable. But, being as is my nature – my thought process being so different from that of those around me, I find myself at the gates of Sparta – at war, perpetually.

Arranged Marriages – Why they still ail
For all its change on the exterior, the institution of arranged marriage has remained unchanged on the interior. Alliances are now opined, but they are still opined based on archaic, enigmatic criteria with no particular practical relevance. Horoscopes are matched, familial connections are sought and professional antecedents insisted upon. Brides and grooms are now introduced, but they are only introduced contingent on the strict regulation of interactions, on the relay of instantaneous decisions. Yes or no. Tell me now. Preference is encouraged, but it is encouraged only when they preference is in alignment with the preference of society. Yes, the process works for some people, but there are others – like me – who find it inadequate, antiquated, unfruitful. And it does not require any quantum of superhuman capacity to intuit why. I find it inadequate because the process fails to address aspects of my life, ideas and expectations that are of essence to a relationship. I find it antiquated because it bases its judgements on norms, on rules, on ideologies that have long outlived their utility. I find it unfruitful because I have realized that the means it assumes have so wired it to ultimately fail in achieving its ends, to become an exercise in failure.

Inferences
If marriage is an arrangement, it should be an arrangement that is of benefit to its participants. Benefits that accrue from a mutual sense of attraction, from mutual fulfilment, mutual enrichment. Benefits that can only be accrued from active inclination not passive indifference. Benefits that can only be arrived upon by free interactions not restricted conversations, by alignment of thought not alignment of ancestry, by matches of personality not matches of horoscopes. If marriage is an institution, it should be an institution that sets out its existential reasons and works towards attaining those ends. For it to merely flap about aimlessly trying only to put on pretences for the sake of society is to do disservice to the cause it propounds. If the primary purpose of the institution of arranged marriage is the protection of culture, the course it has set for itself is destined to failure. When an institution claims to work for the interest of individuals, but refuses to respect the opinions of those individuals, the institution is destined to fall into disuse, into disrepair. For without the support of its people, the people who constitute it, an institution resigns itself to eventual decay. To survive in an evolving world, the institution must evolve with it. Or perish. There is much for India to be proud of. Much in its culture to learn from. And much about its society that needs to evolve.