WUNRN
India:
Online Marriage Sites Interest Young Working Women
By Anuradha Bhasin
New Delhi (Women's Feature Service) - New technologies and globalisation of
business are having their own impact on the ways young Indians are finding life
partners. In the last decade, the innovative harnessing of the Internet to perform
a traditional matchmaking role has spawned a multitude of marriage websites,
with millions of members. At the same time, the entry of new forms of global
business into the country in the form of call centres and export garment
businesses have lured women into the workplace causing a deep impact on
marriage expectations and alliances.
This was one of the themes that emerged from a recent conference on
globalisation and marriage in South Asia. In fact, at least three papers in the
conference dealt with this subject: 'E-Kanyadaan: Impact of Online Marriage
Portals on Indian Matrimony' by Ravinder Kaur and Priti Dhanda; 'Love in the
Shadow of the Sewing Machine' by Johanna Lessinger; and 'Western Work Worlds
and Altering Approaches to Marriage: An Empirical Study of Women Employees of
Call Centres in India' by Shelly Tara and P. Vigneshwara Ilavarasan.
Matrimony portals, which began as fledgling enterprises a decade ago, have
blossomed into a multi-million dollar industry (in 2005, the 'Economist' estimated
the industry at $250 million), with the major portals - 'shaadi.com',
'bharatmatrimony.com' and 'jeevansaathi.com' - claiming 10 million registered
users each. It is difficult to assess their 'success' rate, although judging
merely from the website, 'shaadi.com' has successfully matched 8,00,000
couples. What began as a brisk business in the large metros has now made firm
inroads into the small town matrimony market with the rapid spread of the
Internet. Today, for instance, non-metro users form 60 per cent of the total
membership of one of the major websites.
Looking for partners at marriage websites has instant appeal for a tech-savvy
generation, which is used to turning to the Internet for a variety of social
needs. The study of 2,300 members at one of the major portals revealed some
interesting demographic and sociological insights. Not surprisingly, the
population is mainly young (more than half were below 27 years), and most of
the those posting profiles are men; still, in what could be an interesting
trend, almost 30 per cent of the postings were by women for themselves.
Further, unlike the print media where parents tend to initiate the matchmaking
process, most of the web-based postings (65 per cent) were by the
spouse-seekers themselves.
However, while wreathed in the modern trappings of cyberspace, these Internet
marriage advertisements by no means represent a break with tradition. On the
contrary, the proliferation of community- and caste-based sites -
'chennaimatrimony.com', 'sindhimatrimony.com', 'brahminmatrimony.com', and
'jatland.com' - allows for more exact caste and community-based matches from
the entire universe of the World Wide Web. Web postings continue the print
version's open bias towards fair, slim girls, and the portals provide facilities
for horoscope matching thus reinforcing traditional marriage practices. And
while the family may not be directly involved in introducing the main
protagonists, their qualifications and achievements are significantly included
in most web-based ads, as if seeking to root the individual firmly in a social
setting.
While marriage based portals still remain essentially 'arranged marriages'
albeit with modern trappings, a marriage revolution of sorts has been taking
place in the new factories of global business. These modern workspaces - call
centres, export garment businesses and so on - have effectively lured
traditional women out to work and, in the process, given them greater say in
their marriage prospects and futures. Studies were carried out of two such
forms of global business outsourcing that have successfully attracted a number
of women workers. In Tamil Nadu in the 1970s, the first significant formal jobs
for working class women came from the export garment manufacturing business;
more recently, a similar movement is seen among middle- and lower-middle class
women in the metros with the blooming of the call-centre industry in the
country.
Interestingly, the two studies arrive at a similar conclusion: The desire and
ability of these working women to take charge of their marital future derives
not only from their financial independence, but also from the other
'independencies' they experience while working away from home and through
exposure to a modern work space. A reluctance to give up these new
independencies has an impact on how they act to seek marriage alliances, and
even on their post-marital expectations.
Many women who enter the BPO world from the middle- and lower-middle classes,
have a modicum of education and come from fairly traditional homes, where
working in a call centre seems to have gained some cache. Typically, they would
have had traditional marriages, arranged by their parents, with few options of
working after marriage. But as the study of call-centre women workers in Delhi
and Jaipur - 'Western Work Worlds and Altering Approaches to Marriage: An
Empirical Study of Women Employees of Call Centres in India' - shows, once they
enter the work space, the often-nocturnal timings at work and the superficial
reality created by functioning in another 'modern' culture and time zone,
introduces a 'distance' from their own families. This very often precipitates
relationships between colleagues, as young women search for security among the
large youthful employee pool, the trademark of most call centres.
With increasing independence, one thing emerges clearly from all the
respondents: they want to continue to work after they marry. Many delay
marriage, and many still begin actively to look for life partners among their
colleagues, knowing that if they were to go the traditional route, their work
choices would be severely curtailed, even if they were allowed to work. A
husband working in the same profession is often preferred as likely to be most
supportive of their choice of work, even if it involves night shift work.
Besides, he may also be persuaded to consider a nuclear family, which is fast
emerging as the family of choice for women.
Thus, even though their educational levels and social backgrounds would
typically have meant traditional marriage and post-marriage roles, the advent
of call centre employment has given women greater influence over their marriage
in the new global technological scenario.
Going out to work has had somewhat similar effect on the marriage decisions of women
working in the export garment business in Tamil Nadu. While their earnings play
an important role in their gaining independence from the family, the
non-financial freedoms they experience have influenced their marital decisions.
The very act of going to work, forming friendships outside the family with
co-workers, being exposed to new ideas, especially concepts of modernity, have
had a tremendous influence on the behaviour and self-identity of these women.
They begin to play a far more active role in determining their matrimonial
alliances than they would have had they not been working. They tend to delay
their marriages or, conversely, begin to accumulate their own dowry where
previously they would have been considered ineligible for marriage for not having
the requisite dowry. And some, by looking for partners among their co-workers,
defy tradition and parental authority by marrying across castes and
communities.
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.