Of Love Marriages and Dowries

Jaime and Jenna with 'clean banana leaves' at the wedding Sunday. This was the remnants of the traditional sadya meal.

In a serious moment the other night, Shaheed asked me what dowry I received when I had married Jenna.

Shaheed is one of the young men who operates the Internet café on our street, along with Mustapha and Nahas—a trio of boyhood friends who have gone into business together. They are all Tirur natives in their early 20s and devout Muslims who attended the same school from a young age.

Each night Jenna and I come to the café, they pepper us with questions about life in America in their broken English.

“Lots of money in America, nain?”

“You like the dancing and singing of America?”

“Your houses in America: they are big?”

“Americans watch Bollywood movies?”

One of their favorite topics to prod us about is our marriage. They still find it hard to believe that Jenna and I have, what they call, a ‘love marriage’.

“What is that like: love marriage?”

“How you two find love?”

“Your parents no arranging marriage? It was love?”

A ‘love marriage’ to these young men seems—at least in the way they walk about it—like a grail, an impossibility, a mesmeric talisman from another universe.

Though giving a percentage is mere guesswork, it is easy to say that most marriages in Tirur whether they be Hindu, Muslim or Christian, are arranged marriages. The two marriages we attended Sunday were arranged. The co-workers we have spoken to at JM who have confided in us details about their marriages have all been betrothed at the strict behest of their parents. Nahas himself is in the process of having his marriage arranged by his father.

“We are searching all around Malappuram District,” he said one day at the Internet café.

“For who?” I asked.

“Different families. Different girls.”

“So you do not know the girl yet? You have not met her?”

“No. It is not confirmed yet.”

Though it is not ‘confirmed’, apparently the wedding is on for December. For several weeks now, Nahas has been pleading with Jenna and I to return to India for his wedding (his ‘marriage function’ as he calls it).

“Money is no problem, Kyle,” he says. “This is friendship. My friendship. I want you there at my marriage function,” goes a typical lament. “You must come. Money no object.”

“But Nahas…” I say, and launch into a very unsatisfactory explanation about the price of plane tickets that involves me stammering out the phrase, “…thousands and thousands of dollar.”

This time of year is a particularly auspicious time to get married. It is the dry season, so rain does not usually threaten the lavish outdoor celebrations Indians have for their weddings. It is also a festival season, when Hindus and Muslims and Christians all celebrate their version of a ‘new year’ with all the attendant themes of rebirth and spiritual awakening.

Nahas says even though six months of every year is taken up by the monsoon (when hardly any weddings are conducted) he will still attend nearly 100 marriages in a given year.

“Every Sunday for months,” he told me the other day, as he, Mustapha, Shaheed and I chatted outside the Internet café. “Sometimes, three or four in one Sunday.”

The conversation inevitably drifted to the topic of ‘love marriage’.

“How long you and Jenna together before marriage?” Shaheed asked. I told them about two years. They nodded thoughtfully.

“This is long time,” Nahas finally said. I was not surprised. Engagements and marriages seemed to pop up unexpectedly around Tirur like dandelions. The other day, a co-worker at our school offhandedly invited us to her wedding of which we had never heard mention until she said, “Good news: I am getting married next week. You should come.”

I asked the guys why nobody in Tirur ever had a ‘love marriage.’ They glanced around at each other for a few seconds, possibly gauging an appropriate response or formulating what little English they knew into an answer that would to justice to this deep topic.

Mustapha finally spoke up: “Love marriage is not accepted by parents. They not support love marriage. A love marriage going against the parents, against the family. Only arranged marriages are supported.”

“So, you trust your parents to arrange a good marriage?”

The men all nodded.

“Are people in arranged marriages happy?”

Again, the boys unflinchingly nodded their assent.

Then, Shaheed asked me about my dowry.

“You get dowry in marriage with Jenna?”

The question came up so unexpectedly and was so at odds with anything I had ever considered about my marriage that I laughed.

“No, only her,” I said.

“That is love marriage, nain?” Shaheed said with his eyebrows raised. I nodded.

“People get dowries here in Tirur when they marry?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” Shaheed said. “Our friend—very rich marriage—getting 8 lakh rupees (the equivalent of about $18,000) and one kilogram of gold.”

“Is 8 lakh common amount?”

“No, that amount very high. Another friend, he getting 2 lakh rupees (about $4,500). That is common.”

“The bride’s family always pays this?”

“Oh yes, every time. Every marriage. And the cost of the marriage function. Usually Rs. 10,000 itself.”

“The bride’s family pays all of it?” I asked. Shaheed nodded.

“So, you get no dowry?” he asked, his tone suggesting he still did no believe it. “No money? No gold? No bracelets or jewelry?”

His words conjured to my mind a bartered deal in some medieval marketplace or a bedouin tent.

“We gave each other rings. And our parents paid for the marriage together. But no money. No jewelry. No gold,” I said.

I thought my answers would disappoint them, but they retained a naïve curiosity about the whole matter. They seemed intrigued by my strange arrangement with Jenna. For we had been married only for love with no economic considerations—a truly odd concept in this part of the world.