From: pjn+@cs.cmu.edu (P J Narayanan)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.kerala
Subject: Dating Vs peNNukANal revisited
Date: 7 Nov 92 19:21:53 GMT
Followup-To: alt.culture.kerala
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <664> mchundat@essex.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mathai Chundattu) writes:
-This is very close to a feminist's view point. I don't think that the
-actual pennukaanals are this much biased in terms of the options available
-for girls and boys. It is true that usually the men takes the lead in
-visiting women but the opposite is not very uncommon.

	I don't agree. Tell me how many "aanukaanals" you have seen or
even heard of? I have heard of none. I mean a situation in which the
woman and her people visits the man's house, where the man is dressed
up, food is ready etc.? It is far from "the men taking a lead" in practice,
at least in the circles that I am aware of in Kerala (and elsewhere in
India).

-Another factor you
-missed at this context is that the woman also has right to accept or
-deny a particular suitor. In that case pennukaanal is more or less the
-'swayamvaram' of the earlies. The problems you mentioned occur when the
-girl wants a 'high funda' boy. It is true that in that case she will
-have to pray patiently for his 'kadaaksham'.

	This is mere sugar coating over the bitter truth. Sure the
woman (I think the word "girl" or "boy" does not reflect adequately on
the maturity of the parties involved! Feminist's view point, you say?
So what?) has the right to dismiss a man, but do you think the social
pressures on the man and the woman are anywhere near being symmetric
in our society? This social pressure is precisely the basis for my
objection to PK. If an arrangement similar to PK were taking place
between two Americans today, I would have very few objections.  They
could be making hasty, and possibly uninformed, decisions with their
lives, but then one has the freedom to be stupid, hasn't one? And if
the woman (or man) involved is willing to go through the charade of
dressing up and being judged, it is a purely personal choice of theirs
in today's society here.  The social pressure involved in India
changes the perspective and makes the whole thing one sided.

	In spite of the common glorifications, I don't think
Swayamvaram was THE BEST system either, when the woman's choice is
limited to the kings (or others) who attend the event.

-Only women of childish mentality would think this way. Is dressing up
-and hosting the guests so offensive?

	It seems most of the women I have talked to are of childish
mentality according to your yardstick! Isn't being EXPECTED to dress
up and be judged offensive? Especially if it happens repeatedly?
Again, the problem is with the one-sided nature of it. The man has all
the options in our society and the women -- in most cases -- very
little.

-I would think that to get
-'inflated' and to be thrown away after that is more shameful than
-anything else. Or should we change our society to accept them also? As a
-sad victim of glorious dating. Should we also have the 'woman's right
-for abortion'?

	I don't understand your (seemingly rhetorical) questions here.
The question of whether to date someone or not, and how far to go
under the word "dating" is a strictly personal choice. Things can go
wrong, and you learn from your mistakes. There is no shame involved in
all these.  And what do you mean by "Or should we change our society
to accept them also?" Seems like your answer is an obvious "NO"! What's
wrong with being involved in an affair that doesn't work out? Do you
think such people (though I think you meant only the women in the question
above) should be scorned for life? You mustn't be thinking very highly
of divorcees and widows!

	Again, you seem to be thinking that dating seems to mean
cohabitation and everything else. That doesn't have to be so. Similarly,
PKs don't have to be the way they are today. My objection is not to the
word "peNNukANal" but to the asymmetry involved in it.

-Regards,
-Mathai

In article <gevmTmm00WB9MFVK1g@andrew.cmu.edu> Sudha Neelakantan writes:
-I can think of one reason to support pennukanal, actually i must admit
-that I'm a "dating" type, but I think it ensures someone from a
-similar social and cultural background and also ensures the same
-"class" background as well.  These are definite plus points primarily
-because I can think of a huge number of people I wouldn't ever have
-dated had I known where they were coming from.

	This could be considered a positive point. But then, as you
conceded later, PK is being reduced to a dating or a referral service.
And in that capacity, a modified PK has tremendous potential in Indian
context. I think that is what should be presented as an alternative to
the current system.

-things that you wouldn't be able to
-figure out, but you *could* figure out what their **value system** was
-likely to be if they were going along with their family's agenda and
-things like that.

	The "likely" is one of deep hope. I am sure we can all give
umpteen cases of how the nice and goodly guy who went along with the
family's agenda turned out to be a real monster. I know of cases in
which the guys were put under tremendous pressure (including the
threat to commit suicide from a parent) to go along with the family's
agenda! I am not suggesting that the extremes should guide our
evaluation of the system.

-Like anyway, maybe I'm suggesting the use of
-pennukanal as a dating service -- in a modified fashion.
-
-Sudha

	This could be a reasonable situation. In my personal opinion,
the situation of the man and woman finding each other themselves,
followed by a duration of dating -- which involves whatever the two
individuals of their own accord chose to include -- is the best
system. For those unable to find their partners this way (due to the
lack of social opportunities or skills -- a situation, I think, most
Indians find themselves in), a modified PK system, where the parties
are introduced by the families and is followed by a form of dating
that the two individuals (with the possible help of the families)
agree upon, could be an alternative that isn't biased against one side
or another. The bottom line, I reiterate, is that the decision to get
married or not to get married should be based on adequate direct
personal contact between the two people involved and without
social/familial pressures. Whether you call it dating or peNNukANal is
a mere question of nomenclature.

PJN

-- 
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Robotics Institute, CMU			pjn@cs.cmu.edu
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
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Newsgroups: alt.culture.kerala