One woman told of her family refusing to meet her husband because she had married someone from another part of India, a foreigner, without the blessing of her family. Chitra knows those problems all too well, and she is working to create a safe place to give a voice to women who are afraid to speak out. She was instrumental in opening Maitri, the first help line for South Asian women in the Bay Area. But the problem, she says, is not arranged marriages themselves but the inequalities between men and women in Indian society. In Indian culture, the man has greater freedom.
Society supports what the man wants.
In the old days the man ruled and had things his way. The woman made it work. Now, many women are highly educated and many have entered the workforce. And with economic empowerment comes increased control over their own destiny-and over their marriages, arranged or not. There are successful arranged marriages and failed ones.