“Somewhere, someone is made for you.”

“Marriage is made in heaven.”

Poulami Chakraborty.

Marriage or “Vivaah”, in Indian concept, is the most celebrated and important event in one’s life. The pomp and grandeur associated with the occasion has been the same since time immemorial. But unfortunately the core essence of marriage has changed with the changing times.

While conducting a survey, where questions both to men and women, were asked on the priority and criteria for marrying a person, it is found that 60% of boys prefer girls with better career while marital proposals come. 95% of girls say that they will go for boys with secured and better careers. 70% of the youngsters of this generation, irrespective of gender, want partners with good career options for a secured life. This trend of selection of potential partners was not prevalent in the previous generation. “In the generation before, the bride or groom hardly could put their opinion for rejection and especially the brides had no choice but to stick to their parents’decision” says Deepal Adhikary, an eligible bachelor working as an Operation Executive at TCS, Guwahati.

Getting into relation has become easier and breaking it easier than that, and the reasons vary from career to compatibility; from looks to books; from insecurity to immorality; from suspicion to adaptation, there are as many reasons as you can name them.
Sritama Das, an engineering student in NIIT, Kolkata, comments that, “Trusting someone has become so difficult that relationships don’t sustain the stress of the suspicion of the partners. Marriages in early ages were more strongly bonded as nobody thought of getting divorced”. Marriage was a lifetime commitment for both the partners.

Time changes both for good and bad, where girls have got the freedom to have both their voices and choices heard, it has given the opportunity to the groom’s family a choice to seek for better career oriented girls. Arco Chakraborty, an employee at Convergys, Delhi says, “The previous generation were more concerned about the boy that he should be a government employee and that he should be non-drinker, non-smoker and person with a good family background and good character.

For a girl to be chosen she would have to be good homemaker or a good cook and it doesn’t matter if she was educated or not but it was an added advantage. The concept has changed in the last 20-25 yrs where people are more inclined to choose a bride who is educated irrespective of whether she knows how to cook or not.

However, education, career and independent outlook has changed the conditions of women as compared to the generation before; women, now, can take active part in the family decisions and economic planning and can also contribute in the expenditure through their earnings.

“Women were subject to sufferings owing to the moral pressure that family and society poised on the women”, adds the TCS employee. Be it for good or bad the changes will be there with the passing time, where marriages were and would be as important as they were just that few modifications have veiled the marriage process.

Men and women together are responsible for a successful married life keeping aside the financial part, the moral value should be stressed for long term, sustainable and bonded relationship. In this age, where divorces or break-ups are increasing, the materialistic factors affecting a relation should be avoided. Money can buy everything except a peaceful mind which a true companionship can get it to you.

“Jadidang Hridayang Mama; Tadidang Hridayang Taba.”