Arrangements of arranged marriage III: Why (Indian) Women keep more fasts than men?

This all started when my friend (addressed here as b2) asked me (addressed here as Jaz) a question which was slightly angled towards gender bias. The answer that I gave her forms the theme of this blog.

B2: Saawan ka month jaz ...r u fasting?

Jaz: I don’t fast ever b2….

B2: Obviously, why will you fast, in the Indian tradition…only girls fast, (though) I never get the logic.

Jaz: It’s a very simple logic…girls have way higher demand than men…so they have to fast more.

So for my international readers, ‘Saawan’ is the month of monsoon rains in India. This month is traditionally dedicated to the worship of lord Shiva- the God of destruction. It is believed that if a girl fasts all the Mondays in this month and worships lord Shiva, she would get the groom of her choice. Similarly there are fasts for Tuesdays dedicated lord Hanuman, the God of strength. On Thursdays it is dedicated to lord Vrahaspati (Indian version of Jupiter planet). On Friday for Santoshi Mata, the goddess of power and she is deemed to fulfill all the wishes. On Saturday for lord Shani (or Indian version of planet Saturn), who seems to bring you a very bad luck if he is unhappy and a very good luck if he is happy with you. (I am not kidding, one of my ex room- mate believes that his recent attack of shingles was due to Lord Shani and he pleases lord Shani by having Jack Daniel’s every Saturday night). Sunday fasts are for the Sun God (wasn’t hard to guess, I know).

All of these fasts are mostly tailor-made for women. They hand pick one of the days of the week (some brave ones more than one) in some part of their lives and try to please that specific God. As the tale goes, Goddess Parvati won lord Shiva by keeping the Monday fasts; ladies today try to repeat the fact (not sure if they finally get Shiva). Apart from the fasts mentioned above I have seen the ladies going in for two more fasts: Karvachauth, which is for the long life of the husband (these days even fiancées and boyfriends) and Sakat, which is for the long life of the son.

Now, why are only women being pestered? Why do they need to keep all the fasts while men don’t? Well the answer is really very simple. The fact is the ladies demands are way higher than men’s. They need to go for the Monday fasts for getting a groom of their dreams; one who is handsome, smart, earns well, has a stable future (I don’t need to read the list- you already know it). For men, 2 pegs down, any woman is The woman of his dreams. For women once they get married, they generally don’t want their husbands to die (its not only about the money, but who wants to go through the trouble of more Mondays to find a new groom?). Hence, The ‘karvachauth’. Men do not need to fast on karvachauth, because once married, they pray every day for their women to leave them (here the demands are quite contrary to what can be fulfilled by keeping fasts).

A fact that most of the girls are forced by their moms to go through the fasting process shows that men are somehow disconnected and disassociated with this fasting process. Is there a data to support this fasting process? Like, did anyone (with the exception of Parvati) get the groom of her dreams?  The answer is who cares for that when so many people are getting fooled without looking at the data?

For us, we men look at the data actually. So we see people working out at the gym and building muscles, which leads often to the creation of huge impression on girls. Hence we take steroids, protein and work out daily at the gym. Often impress girls.

Conclusion: Statistical approach and result oriented exercises lead to finding better matches than blind faith.  

Arrangements for arranged marriage – Part II

Is there REAL love <3 in love marriages?

I always had this question on how old (or ancient) is the concept of an arranged marriage? Specially in India. Was the marriage between Ram and Sita entirely arranged? What about Shiva and Parvati? Do animals follow an arranged marriage tradition? I could finally find an answer to these questions. In those ages, (so it seems) it was the concept of more powerful. In those days, Sita had a ‘swayamvara’ and Ram had to show his power by correctly attaching the string of a bow, which other kings could hardly lift. Same was true for all the other renowned princesses. Also in case of animals, like the king of the jungle, the most powerful lion takes the ownership of the herd and marries (or whatever they call it in the jungle) the lioness. It actually trickles down from the need of the fairer sex and the kids to be protected. The fairer sex looks for more power and protection for her family. So ultimately, my point is that since it’s the nature of all the (let’s say) mammals to be with the strongest animal in their specie, we can’t really say that we actually have a tradition of love or arranged marriages.

Finally, one becomes enlightened and discovers that it is still the most powerful guy who has the best chances. Whether you go for love or arrange, statistically speaking, the girl settles down with the most powerful (here in terms of wealth, career, future) amongst all the competing suitors. Now, some of the readers from the fairer sex might contest this fact saying that this is utter b.s. and that they would rather go for a guy with better nature/ stronger character and maybe even less bright future than with a guy who has a very bright future, but is a complete jerk. I totally agree with you, but you won’t settle down with a guy who is not earning a single penny but is an angel from the sky. In love marriages the female would look for the most powerful suitor and in arranged marriages the family of the female would look for same. For example, a guy having a degree from IIM-A will surely win ‘the’Sita when competing with the school dropouts who have no chance (until they are as successful as Bill Gates).Or let me put it the other way, statistically speaking, a lady graduating from IIM-A will not settle down with a jobless guy or one having no career. I conclude that the classification of marriages in love and arranged categories is essentially flawed when the only thing that one is looking for is the most powerful suitor. Because motive staying the same, love or arranged then just becomes a matter of whether you found your match or your parents did. Everyone knows of cases where people had breakups because the girl was moving to a different country, getting a ten times better job, getting a marriage offer from a very rich family. (Aish with Salman-Vivek- Abhishek) or to the more knowledgeable (Aish with Milind Soman- Salman- Vivek- Abhishek) in that order.

For me love marriage is (or should be) one in which people fall for one not because of their designation, physical strength, background etc. but only because they want to be with him and can’t do without him. To be more specific, you select the person because you like spending time with him. He cares for you, he wants to make you feel happy and he will go that extra mile for you. Every other thing (like career) should be figured out after the love happens. But that is a risk which people are not willing to take (again statistically speaking). Those who have taken that kind of risk and successfully stayed in love, are the true lovers. Others are just going with their animal instincts and are not wrong either. Just that I want to name all the marriages as "swayamvara" instead of love or arranged. Now to that reader, who is very much concerned about me, no I am not writing this because someone ditched me for the more powerful. I am perfectly fine. I am just making some observations.

 

arrangements for an arranged marriage (1)

(In response to : http://isiganesh.blogspot.in/2012/10/about-getting-married.html)

Being the only son in your family, has mostly good outcomes.... inheritance...for an example.... (Ganesh might disagree...because he has always done everything on his own... but in his subconscious he knows that there is a good amount of cash in his father's savings account...and so do I about my father)......apart from inheritance, being pampered and being TOLERATED by everyone in the family is a thing which we both agree....you enjoy ordering good meals.... and you know that good food will be ready for you...if you are at home... no matter what....your wishes are hardly overlooked.... and you do not really have to share anything with anyone else (because like me you might not have any siblings...or after a certain age your sisters will get married and go away...)...this much for being the only son....

Glorifying this status is not my intent for this article.... so I need to bring out the real issue.... marriage.... now my peers will contest...that marriage is a problem....for everyone...whether or not you are the only son.... but I claim that the problem .... becomes harder, difficult or even np-complete when you are the only son.... (google 'np-complete' if you don't know what it is!)

If I were to justify why...this problem is np-complete ....I would give a one-line statement- "because your parents (include siblings, cousins, family members close to you- if applicable) want to fulfill all there wishes in your marriage!!!!!  ALL- because no one else is going to do that for them if you are the only son!! As a consequence, you are left to choose from a very small group of people.... I am sure you begin to get my point……. Lets prove it with more concrete examples…

Note in the subsequent text I am going to address the set of {parents, siblings, cousins, family members close to you} as ‘THEY’ and its derivatives…..

(a)    THEY want that your marriage should take place with all the customs and rituals of the traditional (in our case Brahmin) Hindu society. Hence, this rules out the possibility of marrying someone outside your traditional society…..  If you had a brother or two, THEY could have enjoyed all the traditional stuff in those marriages and left you alone even if you wanted to marry in court with a Latina per se….. but not an option here!!  (I am living in the US for past 2+ years….. and subsequently this leaves me with an option of dating from a very dire minority…. You have the same troubles… if you are south Indian living in North or vice versa…..)

(b)   THEY might want that the family of the girl should be having similar (actual same) traditions, values, customs. Plus that family should be able to gel in smoothly with yours.  This is as good as telling you that you must know about the family even before the girl herself.

(c)    In the traditional Indian procedure, the horrorscopes (read as horoscopes) and the pictures are exchanged before anything else. So you would be able to find a girl who matches you intellectually, after she has surpassed the cruel test of horrorscope and facevalue.  The problem with this? You leave out a big set of individuals who might have matched intellectually, even though the horrorscope or pictures weren’t up to THEIR expectations.  AND EVEN bigger trouble…. None of the girls with correct horrorscopes and pictures might match u intellectually……

You can take a small instant off and decide for yourself that THEY have reduced the set of possible brides to a very low minority, and there is more to come. Another thing you might wonder is, where the fudge are you (the person who is getting married- the only son) getting involved? Correct, you are not supposed to get involved in the initial filtering process!

(d)   After THEY have actually filtered out someone and you feel that she is matching you intellectually, the next thing is will she accept or reject you? If you are accepted, like my friend Harish recently, you are a winner! 

 

(e)   If you are rejected, then you go back to the step (a) and repeat the loop until it converges to some finite value. Never mind the age or the time it takes, just because you drastically reduced your options because of THEM.

But what if you are not as lucky as Harish, and what if after marrying a complete stranger the marriage doesn’t go the way you wanted it to (read as: your marriage is unsuccessful)? That’s a question that THEY don’t have an answer for or might not even care for.

When I tried to tell THEM about all these problems, THEY came up with a nice solution, “Then why don’t you go and find someone for yourself. We don’t have any problems till qualifications (a) to (d) match!” What? Are you kidding me? The data set is so damn reduced that it is almost sure that it will take infinite steps for the loop to converge. Then THEY might be sometimes able to relax certain constraints, but I am not sure that a girl from outside will be able to adjust with THEM!

So either stay unmarried, or give in to THEIR whims and desires. Or run away and get married (which you will not do since you are the responsible son, and you will be held responsible if something happens to THEM).  A cute question that my friends (specially non-Indians, mostly Americans) ask me, “What if, you come across someone who does match all or some of the other requirements and THEY are able to accept her?” my answer is “Will she accept THEM?”. Moreover, since we were mostly engaged in becoming great sons till now, were dedicating all our lives in studies, and jobs to the extent that the dictionary definition of people like us is nerds, we didn’t come across anyone like that. Is it too late? Yes, girls whom I knew of are already married or committed and I don’t have the time/ capacity/ patience/ smartness (read as guts) for finding a different person.

 Am I blaming someone (read as THEM)? No not at all, the only person that is to be blamed is me because I couldn’t guess beforehand that such a situation will come one day and I must be prepared for it. As one of my friends says, “You were being casual, not working as hard to find a girl as you were in your career! Because you thought that THEY will take care of it!”  So finally I will let THEM take care of all these things!!!!!  When? Not now….because like Ganesh, haven’t made up my mind yet whether this life (alone) is better than the one which is impending?

I must say you are the luckiest, if you met someone, fell in love and then got married. You are the second luckiest if you got married to a person whom you knew for a long time, even if you weren’t in love. You are the third luckiest if you were able to choose amongst a large group, you dated the girls for some time (at least some months) and then decided. Then comes the category of my friends like Harish (although he might claim that he is the first luckiest); and if you are amongst the sacred (read as scared) class of people like Ganesh and I then decide for yourself…..