I Will Never Marry Another Indian: Arranged Marriages and Double Standards

In my phone, there is currently a growing list of love letters and quotes of powerful romantic literature that I keep for myself. Some quotes include lines like, “If I loved you less, then I might be able to talk about it more, ”(Jane Austen’s Emma); “It is better to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not be able to love at all” (William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair); and “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same” (Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights). In real life, this all seems normal—the prospect of searching for love is nothing out of the ordinary—but for my family, going back in my family tree as far as one can remember, that has never been the case.

Arranged marriages have been done in my family for generations. My parents were arranged, both of their parents had an arranged marriage, and both of their parents’ parents had one, and then every couple before them. A “love marriage,” as it’s often called, is simply not something that’s done in my family. Arranged marriage is a tradition long held in Indian culture. But once many Indians moved to America, the ideas surrounding arranged marriages created a new set of challenges as a whole new perspective was brought in. Suddenly, not getting an arranged marriage started to become the norm for less traditional families.

The type of arranged marriage my parents had is completely different than how most arranged marriages happen today. My parents met because my grandparents knew of a friend who knew my dad and suggested for him to be my mom’s husband. My mom went to India and met with countless other men as potential suitors, and said no to all of them. My dad went on a “date” with my mom and asked her to get married—she said no. They got married anyway, and it’s been almost 25 years now that they’ve been together. My parents had to learn about each other while on their honeymoon, as they started to have my elder sister and myself, and as they moved to Long Island for my dad’s hospital residency.

Modern arranged marriages still happen, albeit slightly different. Some of the most common ways it occurs are with parents looking alongside their children at a matchmaking service called shaadi.com, or through family friends. Other ways of potentially meeting a match include the Indian dating service Dil Mil, which is basically Tinder. There is also a Facebook group called Subtle Curry Dating, which currently has over 100,000 members worldwide. In most traditional households, the other person the children start dating is pretty much going to be the person they marry. While the idea of marriage may be far off, the families will have final approval of the match in order for the marriage to go through.

The prospect of marrying well is something most Indians think about and are reminded of constantly. For many, including myself, my siblings, cousins, and family friends, there has always been a looming sense around getting married—but, it was only after we were deemed the appropriate age to think about marrying the other sex.

Nevermind that most of us were told that thinking of (or dating) the other sex was not going to be tolerated throughout middle school or high school, since getting into a good college is the number one priority. Then college or post-grad comes around, and everyone is expected to start thinking about marriage immediately. However, dating was somewhat more relaxed and hushed up with my family friends who were guys. That never would’ve been done, even in secret, as a girl. Just recently, at the age of 21, I started to talk with my mom about my failure in my are we/aren’t we “relationship” at my previous college, but I could still only tell her bits and pieces.

Without a doubt, Indians tend to want their kids to marry someone who share the same religious views, socioeconomic standing, level of education (or higher), ethnolinguistic group, etc. In my case, my family is almost nonreligious, both of my parents and their parents have been college-educated (my maternal grandfather has his master’s degree and my dad has both an MD and MBA), and both sides of my family come from Punjab, the northernmost area of India.

In most cases, we are brought up to think that marrying another Indian is the ideal scenario. In the BravoTV show Family Karma, one of the cast members states he doesn’t take a dating relationship seriously unless the girl is Indian. This is the type of mentality most guys and girls are taught from a young age, and it is something I see get in the way of how my family friends and their parents act. Their sons can mess around with non-Indians as much as they want until it’s time to get serious and marry an Indian. Some of my family friends would never allow their son to marry someone who was not Indian.

Over the years, it’s become clear to me that getting an Indian marriage is not something that I want, modernly arranged or not—which is not shocking to my family. With marriage to an Indian man, there are certain expectations that my family and I don’t check off, and never have. Many of my traits are considered undesirable by most Indians; I’m not religious, I don’t belong to a temple, I don’t care about dietary rules (yes I eat beef, the cardinal sin), I don’t celebrate any of our countless holidays, I only understand Punjabi or Hindi at the beginner level, I don’t like Indian food, I don’t cook Indian food, I don’t watch Indian movies, I have only visited India twice, and I have almost no Indian friends that are not children of my parents’ friends.

My family and I, for the most part, have distanced ourselves from the Indian community—with good reason. Often times, Indians (especially older people, like my parents’ age) spread false rumors, constantly try to one-up each other, and are mainly concerned with their image. My family has never done any of these things, probably because my mother was raised in America since she was four years old, and never had an interest in partaking in any of the high-school pettiness that still surrounds the community.

As such, I’ve never had an interest in dating Indian men. Indian women, more often than not, are expected by Indian men to not partake in messing around with non-Indians, which is a huge double standard. The women are almost groomed to wait for the men to finish with their playboy lifestyle and settle down. In our culture, being an Indian guy who does whatever he wants to is normal—even if he ends up marrying a non-Indian. But, it’s usually a large point of gossip if a girl is even thought to be dating at all, Indian or not; forget the gossip of a marriage to a non-Indian.

More often than not, the arranged marriage scenario ends up miserable, whether it be modern or traditional. As much as it is swept under the rug, I know of countless relationships that have ended in disaster, divorce, or just simply years wasted in a marriage where there is no compromise.

The way I grew up seeing how arranged marriages unfold, and the unhappiness I associate with Indian marriages, has influenced my current views on dating and marriage. I don’t even know if I will ever get married, which is something that remains to be one of the main pillars of being the perfect Indian child, but if I do, it certainly will not be arranged in any capacity or to another Indian.