Today our topic of discussion is Selecting A Bride .
Selecting A Bride
Marriages would be arranged by guardians. Seldom if ever in sharif (or in later parlance, bhadro) society did girls and boys get a chance to meet each other prior to marriage. Individual preferences played a minor part and guardians generally went by a set of ‘standard’ conditions.
The ideal criteria for selecting spouses were laid down in manuals and contemporary periodicals. One of the Hadith that inspired the discourse on marriage set down in later manuals, dealt with the motivation behind selecting a woman as partner: “The Prophet said that the woman can be married for her religion, for her fortune or for her beauty.
Be motivated in your choice by her religion.” The Behesti Zewar was concerned with the construction of the dutiful and pious Muslim woman who would be equipped on the one hand to preserve religion and tradition and, on the other, to deal with the novel situation of a changed (colonial) social order.
It left no topic untouched– from marriage to mailing letters. Marriage, the text maintained, was an obligation in Islam and the family a building block of the social order. According to Thanawi, courtship was an abominable Christian custom which was being resorted to by contemporary Indian Muslims who fancied this made them ‘modern’.
Ismail Hussain Shirazi (1880-1931), social critic and reformist, lamented the fact that the new generation of educated young men emphasized the false criteria of beauty and wealth in selecting a spouse.
On the other hand, the wife’s side usually considered property, wealth or a well-paying. job as the criteria for a good bride-groom. Shirazi criticized these practices and lauded the norms prevalent in Europe and America and recognized the research done in the West on sexual pairing, suitability, compatibility, etc. Unfortunately, these aspects were neglected by Bengali youths.
The criteria for selection which Shirazi favoured were lineage, learning, refinement, character, health and finally beauty and accom- plishment. In setting down the ideal ages at marriage he apprehended the Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 and the Age of Consent Act of 1930.
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