How to Know If He/She is Husband/Wife Material in Arranged Marriages

Have your parents and relatives helped you choose your life partner or have you taken the help of some online matrimony sites to choose a life partner? If you have found the ONE you were looking for or are still looking for him/her, it is important to find out if the person is marriage material or not. Remember that you are not looking for someone to date, but you are looking for a life partner in the form of a husband or a wife and that needs commitment for life. So, this is serious business and you should do some analysis and observations to know whether the person you have in your mind is eligible to become a good wife or husband.

What to observe?

If possible meet the person frequently and observe his/her small habits. Minute details about a person’s behavior can let out whether the individual is marriage material or not.

Find out if the person is dedicated in his/her works; if he/she is willing to do a lot to make small things work, in all probability, he/she might go to great extents to make the relationship work too.

This goes out especially to the ladies. If you find that your chosen man is forcing you to get physical when you do not want to go ahead with it before marriage, it is better to stay away from the person. Such a demanding nature will not let him understand and value your feelings later.

The woman or the man in question should be able to open up to you. If you feel that the individual is maintaining too much privacy and being too secretive about his/her life, he/she might be having skeletons in the closet. So, think twice here before proceeding. In case, he/she is opening about some dark secret from their past, remember that honesty counts. These people are least likely to cheat on you post marriage.

Know his/her views on religion. Religion is a very sensitive issue and the views must match yours. Otherwise, there will loads of conflicts in the personal life after marriage.

Make sure your would-be life partner treats his/her family well. If he/she is a family person, the individual will be great as a life partner.

Can you think of other things to observe? If yes, share with us. 
 

A Low Budget Wedding Can Benefit You

It may be your dream to have a lavish wedding, but if you can control this urge and spend reasonably in your big day to have a smaller wedding, you can end up saving a lot of money for your new life together. Apart from the ‘save money’ factor, there are many other reasons to have a small wedding.

Inviting less people

In a small wedding you do not invite a lot of people, but only people who are closer to you and whom you want to be a part of your happiness. This allows the newly wedded couple to attend the guests personally and talk to them.

You are relaxed

If you are inviting less people and people who you are comfortable with, you will be very much relaxed on your wedding day. To top it all, you will not feel the need to put on an artificial smile on your face. You will enjoy everyone’s presence and enjoy your own wedding better.

Save money for your dream honeymoon

In case you save money in organizing a big fat Indian wedding, you can save a lot to go to a foreign destination, exotic or European location for your honeymoon later. It I not the wedding day that matters, it the life that follows after that matters a lot.

Planning a destination wedding

Having a low budget wedding will also enable you to plan for a destination wedding, which is quite in vogue today. You can save the money and plan for a beach wedding or a wedding in some hill station with only close friends and relatives as your guests.

Significance of Gotra in Hindu Marriages

Gotra/Gothra/Gotram is a concept that helps identify the families of a particular Hindu caste. This patrilineal classification is the base on which Hindu weddings usually occur. Brides and grooms belonging to a similar gotra are considered to be distantly related/brothers and sisters, and are forbidden from marrying each other.

The Gotra system originated among the Hindu Brahmins and is considered to be descents from Saptarishi or the seven sages, who were Angirasa, Atri, Gautam, Kashyapa, Bhrigu, Vasistha, and Bharadwaja.

Marriage between cousins can lead to deformed children; gotram can be a safe option

There is scientific evidence that marriage between blood relatives have chances of giving birth to abnormal offspring owing to hybrid DNA combinations and genetic mismatch. For maintaining the genetic distance in marriages, gotra is considered to be a safe bet. That is one of the major reasons why gotram has become such an important part of Hindu marriage traditions.

According to Hindu customs and vedic rituals, a marriage that takes place between a bride and a groom belonging to the same gotra is considered to be an impure union. It is believed that such a matrimony will bring upon doom on the family and clan; whereas, it is believed that marriage of people belonging to different gotras will bring happiness, progeny and prosperity to the family.

In a Hindu wedding, a bride belongs to her father’s gotra till the marriage is successful; post marriage she will belong to her husband’s gotra.

However, according to the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, marriage between members of the same gotra has been legalized. ‘A marriage solemnized between Hindus before the commencement of this Act, which is otherwise valid, shall not be deemed to be invalid or ever to have been invalid by reason only of the fact that the parties thereto belonged to the same gotra or pravara or belonged to different religions, castes or sub- divisions of the same caste.’

The Wedding Games

Indian weddings are all the more fun with the plethora of games that the bride and the groom have to take part in. Indian wedding customs require the bride and groom to participate in several games which are impregnated with significance and symbolism.

Hiding the groom’s shoe

According to several Hindu marriage traditions, the hiding of the shoes is a very common wedding game. In this game, probably the sister of the bride with the help of her friends and cousins hides the shoes of the groom when he is busy during the wedding. Later, money is asked from the groom in exchange for his shoes. The challenge is to get access to the groom’s shoes as the siblings and friends of the groom guard his shoes when he is busy getting married.

Finding the ring

In another fun wedding game, the rings of both the bride and the groom is thrown in a pot/vessel containing milk and rose petals. The newly-weds task is to put their hands in the container and retrieve their own ring. Whoever does it first is said to rule the marriage.

Find your name

If the bride is wearing mehendi on her hands, in all probability she will also be having the groom’s name mentioned somewhere within the mehendi design. The challenge for the groom is to find his own name in her hands. This game is not as simple as it seems; often the mehendi artists do a brilliant job and it gets really difficult to find one’s own name. In case the groom cannot find his name at all, the bride is believed to rule the marriage.

Antakshari

The bride with her siblings, cousins and friends make a team while the groom makes a team with his friends and cousins. They play the antakshari game and if the bride’s team wins, the bride is said to rule the marriage, and vice versa.

Tell us about some of the wedding games that you find interesting.