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| Home > Features
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| | Features of Wedding
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 Indian Culture though now looks predominantly favoring arranged marriages restricted to the parents of the groom and the bride to choose and decide the right match, it is also seen that love marriages and arranged love marriages prevail in India since ancient times. Nearly all Indian epics talk of love at first sight and love marriages where a bride herself chooses a match for herself. Also there prevail arranged love marriages in those stories where the man and the woman fall in love with each other by listening to mere references or stories of each other. However, these unions have been called separate names in Indian history like `swayamwara`, it is believed that love marriages have started taking place in India only after British rule which is predominantly featured in Indian movie cultures.
However, in  Victorian age, kings and Queens always had arranged marriages. In fact, arranged marriages had been predominant in India due to child marriage practices and caste system. Also in later days due to education and industrialization more and more men and women started getting exposed to new world and newer thoughts, acquired financial, emotional freedom and love marriages rooted in Indian Culture as an acceptable part of the new society. However, these cases are still looked upon as less common and are restricted mainly in the urban India rather than villages. Let us now look at each different facet of marriages prevailing in India with its roots from ancient times till today.
The elaborate rituals and customs give a special touch to the celebration of Indian marriages. Today wedding receptions have gained significance in celebrating marriages and have become more impressive. The reception parties are celebrated in different fashion in different regions of the country. In fact, reception parties are highly influenced by the television soaps and Hindi movies. In recent times people are organizing theme reception parties with beautiful theme dιcor and menu. The reception party is mainly celebrated one day after the wedding ceremony and it is on the groom`s family. On this occasion the bride is mostly dressed in traditional Indian dress like sari or lehenga with heavy ethnic jewelry and the groom is dressed in either ethnic Indian wear or western suit. The ceremony ends with a lavish feast. In fact, Indians have the most flamboyant and colorful weddings, they are never boring. The whle wedding streches to many days and goes like one big party full of songs, colors and dance.
According to the scriptures, a Hindu marriage is indissolvable in life. Still polygamy was rampantly practised in ancient Hindu society. An address by Bhishma to King Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata, succinctly endorses this fact: "A Brahmana can take three wives. A Kshatriya can take two wives. As regards the Vaishya, he should take a wife from only his own order. The children born of these wives should be regarded as equal." But now that polygamy has been completely gutted out by law, monogamy is the only option for Hindus.
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