‘Once upon a time, in
the far Nepal, there was a boy and a girl, let’s call them a prince and a
princess. They were young, the prince handsome, the princess beautiful, kind
and gentle both of them. They were living their life getting their degrees in
the capital. They liked each other a lot, more and more day by day, looking at
each other with secretive smile, laughing and playing sometimes. Although
luckily coming from the same cast, planning a future was not an option yet.
Time passed like that
until one day the prince announced: ‘I have shocking news. She is getting
married. No, not with me. Her family chose the husband, the wedding will take
place within a month...’ After moments of silence, he added: ‘Yes, I’m feeling
sad, but this is normal. This is how things happen here. It’s normal, we just
have to accept.’
And it was true:
within a month the girl was standing in her village dressed beautiful as a real
princess, but shaking with trembling legs, looking at the floor and scared from
the moment when she was going to see for the first time her mate for the rest
of her life.
Meanwhile our prince
also left the capital, going to live and work and start a new life in the countryside.
They did their best to
live happily ever after but their situation was a little bit harder than in
western fairy tales.’
I’m sorry, it is not my style to write a story
like this, but this is reality and the truth is that I cannot see any happy
ending here… All I can see is that here is something that is happening in the 21st
century, but you feel like in it as if we were decades back, with no consideration
of human rights, of the right to make own decisions about one’s life or to bring
free choices…
And I’m writing all this while of course I had
knowledge about it that arranged marriage still exists at some parts of the
world and also, I’m saying this after having been living in Nepal for more than
three month now, and experienced some of the culture and the traditions here. But
it’s one thing to hear about all this and it’s another thing when it’s
happening to people that you know, people who are your friends. And yes, the
word ‘happening’ describes the truth perfectly: It is something that is completely
out of the control of those, who are involved in it.
But to understand it a bit better, let’s look
at what happened exactly:
As you could guess this is the story of our
friends and it’s a good example of the mystery and chaos of the relationships in
this world. One day, our friend, the prince announced that the girl, who they
were almost dating with, was getting married very soon. After the first shock,
we almost forgot about the whole story, until one Thursday, we got a phonecall
from the girl saying that she was getting married on next Monday (!!!) at her
village at the other side of Nepal (!!!) and we were supposed to wear saree
(!!!). So this finally meant double challenges: buying a saree and getting it
sewed at the tailor for us in time, and then getting in time to the other side
of the world. Well, the challenges were completed – after buying about the
third saree that we tried on and taking a 7-hour-long bus, staying for
overnight just to take another 3,5-hour-long bus next morning at 5am, to be
picked up by the girl’s brothers and take another 1,5-hour-long walking trip,
we finally arrived to the marriage together with our saree just in time.
First, we found our friend in a tiny, dark
room, together with all the women, preparing her make-up and dressing her in
beautiful saree. We were also served tasty buff milk and cell roti while the
other women also helped us to dress our saree – no problem until this time:
beautiful bride, beautiful women getting ready for a ceremony.
Even though she was really scared and sad... It
was only later that we fully understood why. We got to know that this was the
very first time she was going to meet her husband, she told us she didn’t even
know how he looked like, she only knew that on that they she had to leave her
family and go to live with this unknown man in an even further village.
After the long waiting in the small room and
getting ready for the unknown, the bride was taken outside (where meanwhile,
being in the monsoon season, it was heavily raining) for the first part of the
ceremony: where different foods were sacrificed, the elders were reading
scripts and blessings were given to the bride. Then she was taken to small room
again. Later the groom, who came for the bride with the family, emerged, too
and several more rituals took place: the girl was taken to the groom, they were
walking around each other pouring some water around, they were given tikka,
later they were approached by several relatives who washed their feet, drank the
same water, put tikka on them again and gave money in envelops... During all
the rituals the girl was taken back to the small room several times – she was
sharing food there with all the women crowded in the room, while the men were
eating outside... But what was speaking a lot more than all the rituals and
events was the faces and reactions of the people: The bride crying, the sisters
as well... The groom laughing at the same time, not even caring for a moment to
look at her future wife who is sitting by him, shaking... No dance, hardly any
music... No smiles, no nothing... It was only then that we really started to
understand what it was all about: it was all a deal. Just a deal between the
families. And it was done: the girl was
sold out. From that day, she was going to live with a man, who is a stranger,
and with his family – even more strangers, trying to please them in every way
in the hope of this way being accepted. Meanwhile she is losing her family and going
to belong to another one. Against her will and choice... Not an easy situation,
even being there and associating to all this wasn’t easy.
But don’t think that this kind of arranged
marriage is a rare case. Did you know that in Nepal, still now more than 90% of
the marriage is arranged by the family??? Some of them are a bit luckier and at
least know the one chosen by the family. Some only meet a few days before and
are given the chance to accept or not. At least in theory. But some are not
this fortunate, like our princess. But either way, they are all the victim of
the same system, the deeply rooted traditions and the beliefs that arranged
marriages last longer than love marriages.
So where are free decisions of the 21st
century and the changing Nepal? Well, they say that they have the right to say
no to the family’s choice. But do they really have this option? I don’t really
see that. Because this is all about the respect to your family: if you have
respect, you accept their choice. That’s it. Also, true, you can refuse their
choice, but most of the time with this decision you are also risking losing
your family as well. So the truth is that even despite the loosening of the
cultural rules, as well as the government’s attempts to encourage inter-cast
marriage by providing funds for those marrying from lower cast, the roots of
the reality are somewhere way deeper, somewhere built in the stories of the
mothers and the grandmothers who lived through exactly the same process, finally
finding it ‘normal’.
I know that it is very dangerous to call
something normal and abnormal, especially coming from a different background
and different culture. I consider myself to be someone respecting and adapting
to different cultures, and you know even until a week ago I could cognitively
explain the advantages of arranged marriage as well: I would say that in
contrast with our western world where the variety of choices make you feel that
nothing is good enough and satisfactory, here this system teaches you how to be
committed to somebody and how to adapt to different situations.
But the truth is that after living through this
experience, the smile-less marriage where the eyes were talking the most, I
cannot take off the glass of my cultural background that says that the way I
feel about this system right now and the cramp in my stomach is right. I can
only hope that the people involved will truly learn to enjoy some of the
moments of the situation and the life created for them by others and I also
hope that someday the wind of change in the relationships will come to Nepal,
too.
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