Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ut-ngp.UTEXAS Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!ganpaty From: ganpaty@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (S.Ganapathy) Newsgroups: net.women,net.nlang.india Subject: Re: Parents & Arranged Marriages Message-ID: <1893@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 17:31:45 EDT Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.1893 Posted: Mon Jun 24 17:31:45 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 27-Jun-85 05:41:51 EDT References: <1795@ut-ngp.UUCP> <27@ucbcad.UUCP> <1625@amdcad.UUCP> <1857@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> Organization: Petroleum Engineering Dept., UT-Austin Lines: 49 Xref: watmath net.women:6095 net.nlang.india:469 From: sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) <1857@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> > ... If she > wanted to pursue an even higher education, the liberal setting may > okay it, but like the conservative setting, it would have some res- > ervations. Excessive education may 'price' the girl out of most of > the marriage market. This situation (excessive education) would > make the parents scramble for marriage partners for their daughter. > The chances for these girls to find a 'perfect' match (one which is > in favor of the girl) is almost nil. They will be pushed on to the > first Tom-Dick-or-Harry who shows any interest and many times there > will be great incentives to have a guy take their girl (like bigger > dowries, expensive 'gifts'). This of course may make the parents of > the girl take a tremendous financial hit. Knowing the girl is limited > to knowing her 'Opportunity Costs for Marriage'. Consider how a class > of 'Bounty Hunters' who look for these 'deals' could easily exist. > In North America (USA & Canada), how many know of Indian colleagues > who have gone to India to get an Indian doctor as a wife? :-) > As one can see, education is always a plus for the guy, while for the > girl, education can be a minus. Is this why many 'highly-educated' > girls marry non-Indians? This is supposed to be a possible explanation to the questions thrown up by the above message from Sunil. I don't think that the above scenario applies to a Asian Indian setup here. The views expressed in the above letter seem obsolete and prepostorous to me. I think with education for both gender the only reason why arranged marriages still seem to holdout is the reason that in spite of education the psyche is still the same as back home since a major portion of the formative years have been spent in India under a different enviornment. Hence concepts such as dating take a while to take root. But neverthless love marriages would be on the rise hopefully for the good of the parties involved. One possible explanation why highly educated (Indian) girls marry non-Indians is the dating population that reaches the girl. Since more than 90% of dating requests come from non- Indians the (Indian) girls have less of a choice of getting to know Indian men. So for the above reasons an educated (Indian) girl is a self-sustaining,self-supporting entity and hence is not a burden (financial) to any one. S.Ganpaty ganpaty@ut-ngp.ARPA ...!ihnp4!ut-sally!ut-ngp!ganpaty ...!seismo!netword!ut-ngp!ganpaty