The Portrayal of Indian Marriages in the Stories The Old...

The Portrayal of Indian Marriages in the Stories The Old Woman and The Bhorwani Marriage Culture is comprised of those things which we tend to cherish, and those things, which are important to us, being therefore the accepted and patterned ways of behaviour of a given people. India is one of the richest countries in the importance it gives to its culture and heritage. Marriage forms an important of Indian culture and traditions and is considered as one of the major pillars of society. A traditional Indian marriage is an arranged affair in which the decision of the perfect spouse is the parents, mostly the mothers, as is shown in the short story, The Bhorwani Marriage, written by Murli Das†¦show more content†¦This would justify parents wanting to choose a spouse for their children, especially for the daughters as they would need a man who would look after them and protect them, not just love them. As hard as it may be for us to imagine, love, in those days, did not play a very important part in marriages. Coming back to the freedom to marry out of choice, even in A Stench of Kerosene, written by Amrita Pritam and from her collection called, Land of Five Rivers - Stories from the Punjab, we see that although Guleri liked Manak, the decision of marriage was not hers and Manak would have to ask her father for permission, If you want me, go and ask my father for my hand. However, in The Old Woman, written by Manik Bandyopadhyay, one of Bengals most prolific writers, and from his collection of short stories called, Of women, outcasts, peasants and rebels - A selection of Bengali Short Stories, the boy Nanda has married a person of his own choice, who the whole family has found faults with, not because she was not a good person, but because her faults were considered bad according to Indian tradition, Nanda had chosen her, married her against the wishes of the family. Here we see, how not only was