From: msanghvi@cs.ulowell.edu (Mehul Sanghvi)
Subject: Re: Desi friends
Reply-To: msanghvi@cs.ulowell.edu
Organization: UMass-Lowell CS Dept.
	<MSANGHVI.92Jul28185204@cs.ulowell.edu>
	<1992Jul30.204520.17510@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 07:11:41 GMT


In article <1992Jul30.204520.17510@midway.uchicago.edu> moh2@quads.uchicago.edu (Kateri/Mary Anne) writes:

[extract from my posting deleted]

   You know, this sounds good.  My only problem lies in the gray areas,
   where nobody is physically forcing you to do anything, but you get
   pressured into something nonetheless.

Thanks for bringing that point up explicitly. I had meant both, where you get
preasured physically and where you get preasured mentally or through 
manipulation of emotions (aka EB) when I used "forced into it"

   To be more specific, a close friend of mine has been living in the US
   for over 8 years now.  She still wants to marry an Indian, but mainly
   because she doesn't want to upset her family.  Okay, I can deal with
   that, there are a lot of Indians for her to choose from, and I'm sure
   she could be happy with one of them.

That really is her perrogative to decide whether she wants to marry an Indian
or someone else, but I dont think doing it to prevent hurting her family is
a good reason to get into marriage. She will have to live with the person for
the rest of her life (assuming nothing goes wrong) not her parents.

   However, she is terrified by the prospect of an arranged marriage
   (having seen some pretty awful ones) and yet doesn't have the heart to
   tell her family that she doesn't want one because she thinks it will
   hurt them too much.

I guess the only thing to do is work up the courage to talk to her folks
about what she wants. Agreed it is not a easy thing to do, but there is a 
possibility that her parents will understand her point of view and support
her. On the other hand they might not. But it is better to find out now
then find out later, say after she gets married, that her parents would not
have opposed her finding her own mate.

   I think a marriage she has to live with the rest of her life is more
   important than the possible hurt feelings of her family, but she has a
   much stronger sense of duty to them, and has difficulty withstanding
   the pressure they've started placing on her to get married quickly,
   before she becomes an old maid (she's 21).

Sense of duty towards ones parents is well and good but then you must know
when to start fulfilling your duty towards yourself. You can live your 
whole life doing your duty towards your parents but there are times when 
ones duty towards oneself and ones duty towards ones parents clash and 
one has to decide which of those clashes goes in whose favour. The fact that
she is 21 makes it kinda hard within our society even here in the US 'cause
the belief that a girl should be married and out of the house by the time 
she is 21-23 is alive and kicking here as well. 

   What do you think?  I don't feel their emotional manipulation is
   unfair...she thinks it's just the way they try to take care of her.
   (Never mind the fact that she is perfectly capable of taking care of
   herself).

Parents will always "try to take care" of you no matter how old you are. It
is just that their "trying to take care" of you becomes less as you grow 
older but it still exists and I dont blame them for it. No matter how old
you are you are still their "child".  From what you have written it seems 
that the parents have assumed the fact that she is willing to go for an 
arranged marriage. If thats true then their emotional manipulation is very
unfair. If that isnt true, and they have sat down with her and discussed it
with her and she indicated she wanted an arranged marriage, then it is not
emotional manipulation but just parents doing what heir daughter asked them to 
do.

If she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself she should try and find
someone on her own and introduce him to her parents. Of course she should
have discussed her views beforehand with her parents. Wouldn't want her to 
get involved and then be really forced to leave the guy.


   The autumn leaves are falling like rain.
   Although my neighbors are all barbarians,
   And you, you are a thousand miles away,
   There are always two cups at my table.		 - A T'ang Dynasty poem

Nice touch with the poem. 



peace.


P.S your other article regarding pretences and "flaws" was interesting. I 
    totally agree with you on the point that we are human as well and far from
    perfect ourselves.


--
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Mehul "raja lakhan" Sanghvi    | University of Massachusets at Lowell, CS Dept.
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