Arranging a Marriage

Just wrote an email to my sister-in-law her father-in-law and thought i might as well share it with the rest of the world. I had been discussing the fact that in India it is very common to arrange a marriage with a lot of influence by the parents. Actually, the parents arrange it... Wouldn't go to well in the Dutch/Western context. He could not believe ha as a father could tell his sons who to marry and who not, as it is so foreign.

Regardless what is better or right ways or wrong ways (I lean towards parents having more influence by the way) it has been an eye opener to discover that arranging a mariage could easily be normal for MOST marriages in the world today. The population in India is about 2 times larger than Europe and the USA combined :).

For an office it's quite a shock when a staff persons wedding is being arranged as she might move within a few months to the place where her husband lives. A part of HR to take into consideration when hiring staff!

We are always making fun on how we would get our daugther and son marriaged in India by writing the add in the newspaper. It could go like this in a few years from now where Nicole and I would write the add for Justin, our son:

Business and Social Entrepreneur from Pune looking for a match for his VERY handsome son, CEO of an international design company, MBA Harvard. Girl has to be 22 years + and 5'5" tall and equally well educated. No divorcees apply; vegetarian oriented. Caste no bar. Prospects kindly mail to obviouslythispartisnotserious@geemail.com     (Justin our son is just 3 years old...)

For more information: http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/
(The Most Trusted Matrimonial Sites Over 20 Million Brides & Grooms)

We once joked at a birthday party of a friend of ours who has a daugther, not yet married. We joked right there that Theo, one of our Dutch singles would be a perfect match for his daughter... well, that was not really received as a joke at all... It took some cultural management from our wise friend Kshitij to explain that marriage was not an option and it was just a joke...
How easy mistakes are made in different cultures, ahum, thinking we are funny... Contextualization got a whole new meaning!