run away, bride

Yesterday was pretty much uneventful. It’s been like that for the past few weeks, so my stress level has stabilized somewhat. I had some time to sit on the couch and watch some tv.

I was watching the Discovery channel or one of their channels (or maybe it was the National Geographic channel). I turned onto a program about Indian women in arranged marriages. The program followed about four different women living in India, in I think the low to middle class range. All of them were matched to an Indian man who was living and working in the West – the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. In all the cases, the bride’s family had to pay a dowry to the groom’s family, which was at least $10,000 or more, depending how much was demanded and agreed upon.

The brides had never met the husbands until a week or a few days before the wedding. In one case, the bride’s grandfather wanted to see her married before he died, however, the groom could not get to India sooner. To please her grandfather, they held a ceremony in which she got married to the groom’s photograph. When the groom arrived a week later, they held another ceremony which the bride’s family also paid.

Each of the weddings and marriages seemed to start off well. The brides were happy with their new husbands and the promising life in the West. However, after fifteen days, each of the grooms went back to the West with promises the wives would join them at a later date. In the meantime, the wives would stay with their new in-laws.

However, the groom and/or the groom’s family would demand even more money from the wife in order to join the husband abroad. Then the wives waited to hear from their husbands when to join them, but essentially, they don’t hear from them again. According to the program, it seems to be a common situation – Indian men living and working in the West who take a bride from India and their money, only to abandon them or get a divorce, while the wife remains in India. For a traditional Indian woman, that divorce is also a huge social stigma.

In high school, there was a girl of Indian descent. I remember her telling how lucky she felt that she was born in the United States. I didn’t fully appreciate what she said until I saw this show.

Now, keep in mind that not all Indian marriages are like this, not at all. I’m sure that the show wanted to highlight this particular situation and abuse. Not all Indian men are like this at all. Perhaps part of it is pressure from the family or something. I don’t know.

So of course, the next program they show was about bride kidnapping. It seems there is a small country, a former soviet state, somewhere near China where this is present. The show starts off with an old man trying to open a bottle of wine. The family was celebrating the son’s upcoming marriage, except that A) the girl didn’t know she was getting married, and B) the groom had no idea what her name was.

Apparently he saw her one day and thought she would make a good wife. When asked why he liked her, he could only smile and struggle with his answer. “She can milk.” The rest of the family went on to say how they were happy he was getting married (about time) and how they needed someone to milk the cows, clean the dishes, and all other chore-like stuff.

So they went into town to kidnap her, but they could not find her. No surprise, considering they didn’t know her name. They knew the girl’s friend, though, who worked at a vodka store. They asked the friend for the girl’s address, but she wouldn’t give it to them. So instead the groom-to-be decides, after looking some more, that he will kidnap and marry the girl from the vodka store. They talked to the vodka girl’s parents – and they agreed to the kidnapping. And so did the sister. (I think they were worried they couldn’t pay a dowry or something.) Of course, the vodka girl herself had no clue this was going on. I can’t make this stuff up.

Apparently, it is a practice that is present in that country, especially among the rural areas. In most cases, the guy knows the girl and vice versa, however, it could be anyone that catches the guy’s eye, even for a fleeting moment. I can’t imagine how a woman could walk down a street knowing this in the back of her mind. This practice, though, doesn’t seem to be prevalent in more urban areas of the country.

In the end, I think that’s what made the vodka girl refuse the kidnapping and the subsequent marriage. She was independent and had her own job – they needed her more than she needed them.

Anyway, it was a bizarre day of tv.