When Marriages Were Playing Blind

Recently my uncle who is ten years olders than my father had come to our place for vacation.He is a lawyer who at age of 83 still does go to court. A intelligent man with great sense of humor , uncle is always delight to discuss things with.

During our discussions , we came across topic of marriage. Uncle narated how he got married and how things were 60 years back. He married at age 0f 20 to my aunt who he had never seen and met.

In those days meeting of prospective couple were considered to be not right thing and even seeing photos were rare things. Marriage were decided by parents (mainly father). Reputation of family was important aspect of deciding whether the boy or girl should be approached by marriage.

Only way to decide whether couple would be compatible or not was astrological charts (kundlis). The factors which were considered to be important were family values , education . Employment was important in case of man but it was third in list after family values and education.

For girls ,factors considered important were whether she knew how to cook and her looks. Her education was not considered to be important factor. Basically girl's primary role was considered to be her ability to take care of her husband , in laws and household.

My uncle calls his marriage as playing blind!!!!!!!!. He rates himself lucky to have found able partner in my aunt. But it could have been otherwise too. She and my uncle could have been incompatible too. When I asked him what he would have done if that would have been the case?. He replied that in those days, joint family was the norm and  male members mostly used to spend most of their time in their occupation and with other male members of the family while female members used to spend most of their time in their household activities and other female members. So if couple were incompatible they would find way to adjust with emotional support from the family.

Divorce was rarest thing and marriage was seven janam (seven lives ) relationship. It was considered to be god made and matter of fate.Love marriage was consider to be something which was good for movies only and was not considered to be right thing!!!!!!!!

Now times have changed . Even in arrange marriage , the to be couple meet and discuss before reaching the decision.If both feel that they have their aspiration , dreams , likings ,dislikings which are similar , they go ahead with marriage.

Ironically today divorce rate is high as compared to those days. May be since in those days as uncle says 'playing blind' was a norm , people were prepared for anything (good or worse) and adjusted accordingly.

May be marriages are really made in heaven , atleast my uncle believes so.