Love and Marriage

So in India, an arranged marriage works like this. Your parents will go back to your home town to find parents of girls of the same caste (and let's not get too snooty about this, substitute caste for class and we're pretty similar). If both sets of parents agree, a meeting is organised where the man and woman get to go off and have a bit of a chat for 10 minutes or so. You don't discuss personal matters, just favourite movies, books etc... (and let's not get too snooty about this, either, how deep is the average conversation in a bar?)

If both partners like the other, the wedding is on. If one of them doesn't like the other, they tell their parents and it's off. Women get as much of a say as men in this. The person who told me this went through 20 prospective partners before finding the one he married (who is very nice). Indian marriages, on the whole, work. Perhaps because they're relieved of the burden of being what they call 'love matches'.

At least, this is how it was described to me by a moderately wealthy and higher caste jewellery store owner.