Comments on "Love (and money) conquer caste"
Medium · Sociocultural Commentary · 2016 · 266 words
Visa comments on how economic factors are changing marriage norms in India, with love and money overcoming caste barriers.
Comments on "Love (and money) conquer caste"
Re: http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21663246-more-and-more-young-indians-are-choosing-their-own-spouses-love-and-money-conquer-caste
The important part of the equation here is money, or wealth.
Marriage is (or was) a fundamentally economic institution. This isn't obvious to middle-class folks living in generally stable, reliable political systems where the family's role is relatively minor. It's sort of faded into the background, the way the Church as an institution is now kind of a "backdrop" (when it was once the leading provider of pretty much everything).
Social norms crumble and reorganize along new rivers of economics. That was the big thing when people were first moving from villages to cities (Great Expectations and so on), and now it's playing out in India and the rest of the world.
You know what I think would be interesting… a lot of Indian movies in the 90s and 00s are about young people defying their parents' traditional beliefs in pursuit of true love. What would be interesting is a movie that helped me sympathize with how the parents developed those views in the first place.
Consider, say, Khabi Kushi Kabhie Gham. We're made to sympathize with SRK wanting to marry a charming, vivacious (and poor) girl. And Amitabh is this big bad strict daddy who's fiercely dominating and insists on controlling the lives of his family.
I'd like to watch a prequel that made me sympathize thoroughly with Amitabh's POV. He's rich– why, and how? What was his childhood like? What did he see that we're not seeing?
"Yet prosperity and technology are eroding tradition"
^ tradition attempts to codify the paths to prosperity but technology (agriculture, steam engines, electricity) changes the landscape.
Originally published at https://medium.com/@visakanv/comments-on-love-and-money-conquer-caste-b2196fd33e1.