Arranged Marriages only in the same Caste and Sub-Caste – 27 Oct 09

City:
Vrindavan
Country:
India

Yesterday I wrote that parents who want to arrange their son’s or daughter’s marriage look for someone from the same caste. I wrote about arranged marriages already a few times in my diary but not about this aspect yet. It is often the whole family who tries to couple the young single women and men and they talk with others to find a girl or a boy who could be right. But it is not only the caste, there are even sub-castes which they consider.

If you have a closer look at the personal ad of which you saw a picture in yesterday’s diary, you see that the boy is specified as ‘Sanadhya-Vashisht Brahmin‘. Brahmin is the caste, so they are looking for a Brahmin girl. But she also has to be Sanadhya, which is the boy’s subcaste. And then the boy is also ‘Vashisht’ which is the branch of a family. There are a certain number of different families in the sub-caste and they marry among each other, not in the same family, to avoid any kind of incest. So the girl has to be Brahmin, Sanadhya and not Vashisht.

You see, depending on the attitude of the family there is a very narrow selection of possible partners. And what happens if the child wants to marry someone from another caste because they fell in love with each other?

I told you about the Arya Samaj and how they condemn the caste system. They have temples all over India and this is where those couples go, if they are really determined to marry, with the consent of their family or without. In the temples of the Arya Samaj they can marry regardless their caste and they get a certificate which is officially accepted.

It takes lots of courage to go against the wish of the family and the society, marrying someone from another caste but love has a strong power and I hope many young people will go with their love and not with the antiquated belief of different classes of people.

Arya samaj, Caste, Love, Marriage, Society, Temples

8 Replies to “Arranged Marriages only in the same Caste and Sub-Caste – 27 Oct 09”

  1. Great hat, Swami Ji … is the bare head a little too overexposed? I think it might be better to have a wool or cotton hat over time … shall I send you one?

  3. You look so cool Swamiji! Little furry face…maybe to keep you warmer? Getting cold here! Rainy, but both Su and I miss you all so much and we’re also doing well ourselves, but am still homesick!!! 🙂

  4. I so so agree. In todays world people often judge others by how much money they have, nationality, color, caste, status and more. This is refreshing. Its the character of the person and may love ALWAYS win. Thank you as always swami.

  8. Respected sir, i am a girl belong to bhuddhist by religion and want to get married with a boy of same community but we have a problem that we share a same subcaste we are tamang by caste n share subcaste yonzon, lopchan by subcaste and according to bhuddhist custom we are brothers sister, as much as i known we dont even share same DNA so how could be we are bro and sis, so if we married then whole bhuddhist community will be against us may be we will be throw out of town plez help sir