THE RELEVANCE OF MATRIMONIAL

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THE STUDY

OF MATE SELECTION IN INDIA

T he matrimonial advertisements that appear in English-language

Indian newspapers have attracted scholarly attention in recent

years, and quite justifiably, for these items provide an abundance of
factual information admirably adapted to statistical analysis of some
of the variables determining mate selection. Yet the limitations of this
material are also obvious. There is, first, the impassibility of verifying
the accuracy of the contents. This is not necessarily a disadvantage,
however, because sociologists are interested not in individual exaggerations
and omissions but in the prevailing value system which causes
such inaccuracies. The recurrent mention, for instance, of the beauty
of a girl or the earnings of a boy may often be factual exaggeration,
and therefore misleading to those who search the columns of matrimonials
for an attractive candidate. To the sociologist, such frequent
mention conveys the social importance of these attributes. His problem
is not to find out whether or not the different attributes proffered are
factually true, but to evaluate them in their context.
A more valid limitation is the anonymity of the persons who insert
the ads, for this precludes additional inquiry into their background. It
is possible, however, to infer this background from the data provided
by the matrimonials concerning caste, education, profession and income.
Clearly, the great majority of the advertisers belong to an elite of
literates in English of high socio-economic status. Since only about
24 per cent of India's total population are literate, it is obvious that
the social group of the advertisers represents a still smaller fraction
of Indian society.
The reasons motivating the advertisers also require investigation.
From the contents of the matrimonials, it is clear that people do not
turn to them as a 'last resort' for difficult cases after the customary
channels have failed. To a growing extent the usual channels of
104 CORA VREEDE-DE STUERS
matchmaking through the mediation of the traditional go-between are
indeed failing for all those who have had to adjust to the anonymity
of city life and the constant transfers of government servants. For that
very reason this set of people is increasingly making use of matrimonials
as a modern adaptation of the traditional means.
Yet these, advertisers do not represent a progressive category of
'modernists' who, in bypassing the traditional go-between, ignore the
standards set by their society. The general content of the matrimonials,
which precludes the idea of 'last resort', at the same time excludes
the potentiality of modernists.
The conclusion to be drawn from the content analysis set forth below
is that the majority of. the advertisers conform completely to the
prevailing value system of their status group, implying that the adjustments
of this group to changing situations are also reflected in the
matrimonials. This analysis has been tested by investigations on
changing family life and by inquiries into the views and attitudes of
youth from similar social strata towards caste, marriage, family life,
and the opposite sex — that is, by directly questioning the generation
which matrimonial advertising is intended to benefit.
This leads to the question, by whom are these matrimonials inserted —
by the parents or by their children ? Such a question may seem- irrelevant
and superfluous to outsiders conversant with similar items only in
European or American publications. In France, for instance, matrimonials
are quite popular in the provinces, where contacts are scarcer
than in the larger towns and cities. The French situation is the reverse
of that in India, where social isolation arises from and within city life.
The content of the French matrimonials clearly indicates that in the
majority of cases the candidate himself or herself has advertised.
Rarely do the parents take this step and in such cases it is stated
explicitly. Some periodicals classify such ads according to age. If an
analysis were to be made of them — especially of those placed by
persons belonging to the higher age groups — it would undoubtedly
show a far from negligible number of 'last resort' cases among both
male and female advertisers.
To illustrate the differences between French and Indian matrimonial
advertising, I reproduce in translation a few typical examples from
the columns of the monthly he Chasseur Frangdis (1960), which has
regular sections on shooting, fishing, agriculture and sports, and a
special section for women. The matrimonials are an important part
of the advertisements.
THE RELEVANCE OF MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS 105
1. inserted by the woman:
Teacher, 42, 1 child, property, widow, would marry reliable civil servant,
preferably teaching profession, 45-50, region immaterial.
2. inserted by the parents of the girl:
Parents liberal profession want to give in marriage daughter, 27, Roman
Catholic, attractive, tall, sportswoman, morally irreproachable, dower and
expectations, to serious young man, position and excellent milieu.
3. inserted by the man:
Young man, 26, 1 m. 65, reliable workman, with property, would like to
correspond with a view to marriage, girl 22-25, agriculturist or workwoman,
serious, loving country life.
4. inserted by the man's parents:
Parents, with a view to son's marriage, Roman Catholic, healthy, serious,
educated, would like to correspond with parents girl, about 30, finished notarial
studies. All qualities regarding liberal profession and country life.
These matrimonials leave no doubt as to the identity of the inserters.
But this cannot be said of the Indian matrimonials, which are generally
quite vague and lend themselves to conjecture. In my first analysis
of Indian matrimonials, I myself took it for granted that parents had
placed them and stated so accordingly in two articles which appeared,
in 1961 and 1966, in the Dutch sociological journal Mens en Maatschappij
(Man and Society). This analysis was based on two sets of
advertisements, one from1 the January and February, 1957 issues of
The Hindu Weekly (hereafter HW) and the other from the Hindustan
Times Weekly (1959) (hereafter HTW). A few casual remarks on
the identity of inserters, made in articles on the same subject in the
Sociological Bulletin which came to my notice afterwards, cautioned
me and induced me to reconsider my opinion. In his 1965 article,
K. Anand writes: "The sample consists of a total number of 1,000
advertisements out of which 500 are from bachelors or their parents
and another 500 from girls or their parents" (my italics). And Amelia
Reyes-Hockings states in her 1966 article: "Both males and females
advertise for partners, and in most instances, the parents for either
the bride or the groom plate the advertisements" (italics again mine).
It seems to me of decisive importance to know whether the ads are
placed by those immediately concerned or not, in other words, whether
the contents of the ads express the views and anticipations of the
generation of the brides- and bridegrooms-to-be, or of the generation
of their parents. I have therefore worked through yet a third sample,
106 CORA VREEDE-DE STUERS
consisting of 569 items, the total number of maitrimonials published
in HTW during the month of February 1964. Except in a few cases,
I have found it impossible to 'prove1 from the content of these ads
that they were placed by the parents. The following examples may
elucidate my dilemma:
1. inserters not identified:
a. man's side:
Beautiful girl for Gaur Brahmin, handsome, graduate boy, 25. Government
job 2S0.—.
b. girl's side:
Match for beautiful Bisa Agarwal Tayal gotra girl, twenty, graduate Delhi
University. Father industrialist, well-known family. Details first instance.
2. inserters identified as family:
a. man's side:
A pretty girl for Agarwal rich family. Boy intermediate. Settled in business,
Meerut. Main consideration girl's merits.
b. girl's side:
Wanted well-settled Punjabi Brahman match for my sister's daughter
settled in Delhi, age 21, matriculate, holding sewing diploma.
3. inserters identified as male candidate:
a. Brahmin bachelor of 26 years, from U.P., working as a welfare officer
in private concern, seeks a bride.
b. Punjabi Arora, foreign qualified engineer, aged 28, drawing four figure
salary, employed in reputed concern. Interested in simple early marriage.
Of these various categories I have found the first to be by far the
largest, with 531 items. The second category produced 26 items, while
the third contained only 12, all coming from the man's side. I could
not detect a single matrimonial explicitly placed by a girl.
If, then, we assume that the majority of advertisers are parents of
the candidates and not the candidates themselves, we shall have to
validate this assumption with the help of other studies and investigations.
It may be remarked in passing, however, that the 1964 sample reveals
a trend for male — but not female — candidates to advertise personally.
For when I compared this sample with that of 1959 from the same
HTW, I found that in the latter only one out of 374 ads was explicitly
placed by a male candidate.
Before proceeding to the content analysis proper, there is one further
remark to be made about the distribution of matrimonials according
to the sex of the candidates offered. Amelia Reyes-Hockings' sample
from The Hindu covered a span of twenty-five years on a one-day THE
RELEVANCE OF MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS 107
per-month basis for six years, with an interval of five years between
each sample year. This yielded 512 advertisements, of which those
"placed for males and for females... were almost equal in number."
This outcome corresponds with mine in my sample of 305 HW matrimonials,
representing the total of two consecutive months (January
and February) of 1957. There were 156 offers placed on behalf of
girls and 153 on behalf of men. A much larger discrepancy existed
between the two categories in my 1959 and 1964 samples from the
HTW, comprising 374 and 569 matrimonials, respectively. The category
of girls offered consisted of 136 and 220 items, that of men offered
268 and 351, respectively.1
K. Anand's sample, consisting, as noted above, of 1000 matrimonials
from North Indian papers, shows no such discrepancy, balancing out
evenly at 500 each for boys and girls. Most probably, therefore, our
process of selection differed. I presume that Anand selected with the
intention of comparing equal numbers of the two categories, whereas
my concern was to collect all the matrimonials of a particular period.
Our outcomes, therefore, are not comparable in this respect. I have
no explanation for the discrepancy in my two HTW samples.
To return to the question, by whom are these matrimonials inserted.
In answering this, one factor of importance is the age of the candidates.
Amelia Reyes-Hockings' analysis, permitting chronological comparison
over a period of twenty-five years, makes it clear that the median age
at which marriage takes place has risen. In pre-Independence years
(that is before 1947) the median age of girls to be married was 16-19,
whereas since Independence it has climbed to 20-23-age level corresponding
with the male preference in both periods. Her figures and
statements for post-Independence accord with my findings for the
1957 HW sample. The same is true of the male median age of her
sample, which in the post-Independence periode had risen to 28-31
(from 24-27 before), roughly corresponding with the male median
age of 26-31 of my sample.
The median age groups in my 1959 and 1964 HTW samples, namely
21-25 for girls and 26-31 for men, again correspond roughly with those
mentioned by Anand. In my samples the age level of girls offered was,
however, slightly higher than desired by the men.
1 The total of the combined offers of 309 in HW 1957, 404 in HTW 1959, and
571 in HTW 1964, exceeding the respective totals of matrimonials, is explained
by the fact that some advertisers include more than one candidate (up to three,
brothers and sisters) in the matrimonials they place.
108 CORA VREEDE-DE STUERS
Quite evidently there is no question of 'child marriage' in these
matrimonials, and the trend is toward later marriage for both males
and females.
This trend in the rise of age at marriage, especially of girls, has
previously been mentioned in several studies on marriage in changing
India. For the purpose of this article I shall compare the results given
above with those obtained by K. M. Kapadia from his inquiries in
various parts of former Bombay State, published in 1955 (page 150).
The recent marriages of some of his samples (1941 and thereafter)
drawn from educated women and graduate teachers, show a gradual
rise in (the age of girls as compared with earlier studies. Three-quarters
of the marriages occurred after the girl was seventeen. This upward
trend in the age of marriage has been supported by the figures given
by Aileen D. Ross in her 1961 study of educated high-caste urban
families. At least 59 per cent of the older women had been married
before they were sixteen, whereas this percentage had fallen to 21 for
the younger recently married women, 36 per cent of whom had married
between sixteen and eighteen, and 42 per cent at nineteen or later.
The rise in the age at marriage has been rightly attributed to the
increasing spread of education. Many more children are now receiving
education than did their parents, and their education is far more advanced
than was deemed necessary for the older generation when it
was young. The trend is especially marked for women, in the sense
that the education of the generation of mothers had often been informal
or neglected, whereas the number of the daughters receiving formal
education, often advancing to vocational training or university study,
is increasing rapidly in these higher status groups.
This phenomenon has far-reaching effects on- the whole pattern of
family relationships and mate selection. In reconsidering the question
to what extent young people may be expected to place their own
matrimonial advertisement, it seems more than unlikely that girls below
the age of eighteen with little or no schooling would ever take this
initiative. But there is some ground for expecting highly educated girls
and men above eighteen to take their marriage arrangements in their
own hands. The evidence of the matrimonial advertisements, however,
indicates that this assumption is more theoretical than actual.
The ever-recurring mention of traditional attributes — such as caste
and gotra, virginity and horoscope — strongly indicate that the customary
pattern of selection has not been discarded. For the attention
paid to these ascriptive attributes, pertaining to a closed marriage
THE RELEVANCE OF MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS 109
system, implies that parents are expected to arrange the marriages
of their children.
All the analyses of matrimonials show that caste and gotra are
mentioned frequently as prerequisites of a marriage arrangement. Of
my HW sample and my two HTW samples, 96, 83, and 72 per cent
respectively mentioned caste with or without gotra. Amelia Reyes-
Hockings gives a percentage of 78.9 for the whole period of her sample,
while Anand qualifies by stating that 63 per cent of ads from girls
as against 65 per cent from men mentioned caste requirements.
Those emphasizing that caste considerations were immaterial constituted
almost 4 per cent in my HW sample, compared with a percentage
of 6.8 given by Amelia Reyes-Hockings for the whole span
of her combined periods. It is regrettable that she includes no detailed
figures from which to detect a trend in her sample.
The same category is larger in the HTW: I found that 17 per cent
of my 1959 sample and 13 per cent of my 1964 sample had explicitly
stated that caste was immaterial. The statement that "girl's merits"
were the "main consideration" may imply that caste was no bar, but
the number of advertisers who made such a statement is negligible.
I have no explanation for the surprisingly low figure in the latter
sample, unless it be that fewer people than before find it necessary
to state explicitly that they are not opposed to intercaste marriage
(15 per cent). Anand's findings show higher figures, with 33 per cent
of the advertisements for men' and 13 per cent of those for women,
stating that caste is immaterial.
The conclusion must be that caste is still a prominent issue to those
who attempt to arrange marriages by means of advertisements. Whether
it reflects a similar attitude on the part of those directly concerned —
the young people themselves — is answered to some extent by the
various inquiries about the attitudes of educated youth towards caste
and caste marriage.
Progress in the legal sanction of intercaste marriage was achieved
with the Hindu Marriages Validity Act of 1949. The extent to which
intercaste marriage is being regarded favourably by society may be
inferred from the following studies.
When B. Kuppuswamy asked the South Indian male and female
college students of his 1956 sample (591 in total) their opinion of
whether they approved of intercaste marriage, about 22 per cent replied
that they wanted marriages to take place within the caste, while about
110 CORA VREEDE-DE STUERS
33 per cent approved of intercaste marriages, although they excluded
the scheduled castes, and nearly 45 per cent of marriages without
restriction of caste or religion (pages1 187 ff.).
In her 1961 study about changing urban family life, Aileen D. Ross
states that roughly two-thirds of the men and nearly half of the women
of her sample were in favour of intercaste marriage (page 270).
B. V. Shah (1964) interviewed two hundred Gujarati male college
students, 65 per cent of whom showed a tendency to adhere to caste
endogamy. While stating that the other 35 per cent said they might
marry outside their caste, Shah specifies that a large number (about
22 per cent) meant marrying only "in' case of similar or higher status
level than one's own", and that in most of these cases (17 per cent) they
would do so only if their parents gave their approval (pages 130 and 412).
As for girl students, let me take my own investigations in Jaipur.
Of a sample of 203 (undergraduate and post-graduate) girl students of
Rajasthan University that I interviewed in 1964, 28 per cent were
in favour of caste marriage, 43 per cent were not against intercaste
marriage, and 10 per cent made it clear that they were only against
marriages with members of the scheduled castes. The rest had no
pronounced opinion. Those girls who were in favour of caste marriage
rationalized their preference by saying they would find the same
atmosphere in their in-laws' family as in their own. In case of intercaste
marriage they feared adjustment difficulties and problems for
the children to be born'.
My case UG 97, for example, stated:
I don't say that intercaste marriage is a bad thing to do, but I don't believe that
it will be successful. Adjustment is difficult. The girl has to learn new habits
and the contacts with the older members of the in-laws' family will become
difficult. Then we have the problem of the children to be born. It will be difficult
to find a marriage partner for them. Their only choice will be from amongst
children of mixed marriages.
These are exactly the same reasons mentioned by Aileen D. Ross'
interviewees who were against intercaste marriage (page 271).
Now, Shah's study shows that few students would act against their
parent's wish, even if they personally were in favour of intercaste
marriage. And once it is accepted1 that parents have the final say in
the matter of the marriage arrangement of their children, all such
considerations as caste, dowry and social status inevitably will play
a decisive role.
When Shah observes that practically all the male students he
interviewed (199 out of 200) considered marriage a personal affair,
THE RELEVANCE OF MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS 111
he adds that this meant that "the boy's voice also must be considered".
On this basis a very large proportion (72 per cent) thought that greater
weight should be given to the boy's voice. But when it came to selecting
their own brides, Shah found that the number of those giving equal
weight to the parents' voice increased at the opinion level from 28 per
cent to 67 per cent, and that the number of those regarding their own
voice as more important decreased from 72 per cent to almost 33 per cent.
His observation is corroborated by those of Ross, who states that
of the nineteen unmarried girls she interviewed, more than one third
were in favour of "complete choice", while the same number thought
that "some choice" should be left to the young people in the conclusion
of marriages. For the 42 boys of her sample these figures amounted to
almost 43 percent and 50 per cent, respectively. She warns us, on
page 243, however, that
even though single men and women say they want complete choice in their marriage
partners, they may not be able to achieve it. Therefore Table VII should be seen
as an indication of a desire for more choice rather than being interpreted as a
trend to more actual freedom of choice.
Of my own sample of girl students in Jaipur, the majority, 64 per cent,
considered marriage arranged by the parents the best solution. Almost
16 per cent thought that marriage should be based on the choice of
those immediately concerned. Another 12 per cent were married or
engaged students who declared themselves satisfied with their parents'
choice within their own caste, saying that their consent had been asked
before definite steps had been taken. About 7 per cent had no pronounced
opinion on the subject. These figures reveal that at least three
quarters of these educated girls and young women declared themselves
in favour of marriage arranged by the parents, or had been willing to
accept their parents' choice.
How did these girls rationalize their attitude ? Half of the 64 per cent
in favour of arranged marriage qualified their option by adding that
parents should inform their children' before taking a final decision, and
that the children should be enabled to meet their prospective partners
before they were asked to give their consent. The reasons why they
saw no acceptable alternative for this type of marriage arrangement
were inspired by the fact that they felt entirely dependent on their
family with its strictly defined roles corresponding to the prevailing
hierarchical relationships. As my Case UG 51 put it:
Till we marry we are entirely dependent on our parents. So let them arrange
our marriages. They have experience. If I had to make my own choice, I would
fear an uncertain future.
112 CORA VREEDE-DE STUERS
This very anxiety about taking their fate into their own hands betrays
the subordinate position of these privileged girls, who in many other
respects were free to develop their own personalities. Case UG 44 said:
If something goes wrong in an arranged marriage, the family is responsible for
it. But in case the girl has made her own choice, her family is no longer responsible
for what happens.
The most solid argument adduced by them' in support of their preference
for marriage arranged by the parents, however, was the fact that
they were not allowed free social intercourse with boys — other than
brothers and near cousins — of their own age. Here we arrive at the
crux of the problem.
In 1935 K.T. Merchant stated that more than 75 per cent of his sample
of 598 male and female college students in Bombay and surroundings
were in favour of self-choice (page 88). On the basis of this high
percentage, Merchant concluded optimistically:
If the views given by the Modern Hindu Youth are sincere and are going to be put
into practice, marriages in future will mostly be 'self-choice' marriages (page 90).
Today it has to be acknowledged that his optimism is belied by
subsequent studies showing that the measure of individual freedom,
necessary to put such views into practice, has not increased.
Merchant tempered his optimism by a condition in predicting the
future trend, thereby pointing to circumstances that might prevent
youth from 'putting their views into practice'. In his conclusion
(page 228), he is more explicit, mentioning as one of the problems
impeding 'self-choice' this very lack of social contact:
Real "self-choice" is not possible without a wide field of choice and "personal
contact", and these are dependent upon the freedom of "free social intercourse"
between men and women.
His solution is co-education, a matter of much controversy at the time
of his research. Since then co-education has made large strides. But
one may doubt whether it has also improved in quality and effectiveness
since one of Merchant's female interviewees qualified the kind of
co-education found in many institutions as
no co-education, merely co-existence with separate places and differentiations
between the two sexes (page 232).
Restrictions preventing free social intercourse were acutely felt by the
girl students I interviewed in Jaipur. Although their college education
not only postponed their marriage to a later age but also widened their
intellectual horizons, these girls had little contact with boys, and then
only in a chaperoned form. The position of the post-graduate students,
THE RELEVANCE OF MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS 113
who sat with members of the opposite sex on the same benches in
lecture halls and libraries on the university campus, was even' more
ambiguous than that of the undergraduates who went to girls' colleges.
Besides occasional group contacts at picnics, debating evenings, sports
and the like — all chaperoned by members of the teaching staff — the
members of the two sexes had no liberty of mixing freely and openly.
It is precisely to (this persistent segregation of the sexes that Amelia
Reyes-Hockings attributes the frequency of arranged marriages in
present-day India, and the increased use of matrimonial advertisements
as a modern adaptation to traditional match-making. She writes:
There are few avenues open to social interaction between the sexes, the widest
being those found while in school. There is little co-education before college, and
even in college it is not always in evidence. Outside school, contacts with proper
marital prospects become even more restricted.
A far from imaginary fear of a ruined reputation if they did not conform
to the prevailing mores prevented the girl students in Jaipur from
regarding their freedom to study and therefore to marry at a later
age, as a means to decide for themselves whom they would marry.
Segregation of the sexes seems to be the main factor causing grown-up,
highly-educated young people (especially girls) still to prefer their
parents to select their marriage partners.
The persistent segregation of the sexes in institutions where the
two 'co-exist' and have numerous formal contacts often engenders an
unhealthy sex-consciousness. Only genuine co-education would enable
real companionship, which in its turn would be the channel to selfchoice
in marriage matters. Here a distinction must be made between
self-choice marriage and love marriage. Students are more concerned
with the former than with the latter. Falling in love before marriage
is discredited in a society where love is connected with feelings that
are born of the union of a man and his wife in wedlock, and deepened
by their common experience of joys and afflictions.
Films, songs, novels and magazines have contributed greatly to equate
love before marriage with flirtation and cheap erotic attraction, thus
stimulating in the minds of boys and girls an' awakening awareness
of feelings and longings that go with their growing into adulthood, but
that cannot find a natural outlet. This kind of sentimental daydreaming
among the girl students in Jaipur did not interfere with their marriage
expectations. As one girl put it: "Marriage is no dove courting; it is
a life problem of vital importance."
As long as romantic love and marriage are still being separated in
114 CORA VREEDE-DE STUERS
the minds of the educated youth, they will more readily accept their
parents' choice, and herewith the criteria their parents apply in the
selection of a marriage partner. From the various studies on the attitudes
of educating young people towards marriage, it is in fact evident
that qualities and attributes expected in. the future partner are in
concordance with those mentioned in the matrimonials.
Which qualities do these matrimonials stress as most desirable ? Like
Amelia Reyes-Hockings and K. Anand, I have noticed that, apart from
those pertaining to the ascribed status (caste, gotra); the qualities most
frequently proffered by male advertisers are education, remunerative
job or well-settled existence and good looks. These male advertisers
expect the girl to be beautiful, accomplished and educated. The rise
in the level of education for girls denotes a departure from the usual
criteria of traditional accomplishments. Once school education was
recognized as the main channel to well-paid, prestigious jobs for men,
it logically developed that educational achievements of girls would be
rewarded with better marriage chances, with a concomitant rise in the
level of education for girls in order to compete successfully in the
marriage market. Amelia Reyes-Hockings has noticed a' gradual rise
in the number of girl graduates and in the level of degrees. In my
1957 HW sample, 16 per cent of all the matrimonials mentioned
educated girls, as against 41 per cent in the 1959 HTW sample, and
81 per cent in Anand's 1965 sample.
The marked difference in percentages between HW and HTW may
be due to the difference in cultural background of the subscribers to
these papers. The advertisers of HTW give the impression of being
less caste conscious and more status conscious. This would also explain
that, in the HTW, for men high qualifications are becoming so selfevident
that they are often omitted. But the frequent mention (desired
or proffered) of the man's occupation or function, implying a high
level of specialized education, with the necessary information about
income or salary, is indicative of\the importance attached on the girl's
part not only to his education but^to the way in which he makes use
of it. The following examples from the February 1964 issues of HTW
illustrate this trend.
Proffered qualities on the part of male advertisers:
For handsome Khatri Engineer 27, Government service Delhi 800.— p.m. Well
educated, accomplished match from respectable, well connected families.
THE RELEVANCE OF MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS 115
Desired qualities from male candidates:
Wanted a suitable match, IAS, Class One Officer, engineer, doctor, businessman
for Saxena Dusra graduate pretty girl 20. Owns property in Delhi.
Proffered qualities on the part of female advertisers:
Match for beautiful post-graduate Bisa Agarwal 25 years girl. Decent early
marriage. Sub-caste no bar.
Desired qualities from female candidates:
Wanted suitable match preferably lady doctor or M.A. for Khatri Kapur engineer
working in reputed firm. Age twenty-seven. Emoluments one thousand.
Among the types of employment desired on the girl's part, officialdom
ranks highest (HW 1957: 21 per cent; HTW 1959: 26 per cent).
Anand has differentiated between the occupations offered on the man's
side and those preferred on the girl's side. Whereas 17 per cent of those
who gave their occupation were in government service, 32 per cent of
those advertising on the girl's part stated a preference for a civil servant.
The supply obviously does not meet the demand.
When we compare these outcomes with those of the several attitude
studies, we find that in her list of qualities desired in mates (page 258),
Aileen D. Ross does not mention occupation for men. Margaret L.
Cormack, on the contrary in her 1960 study, mentions fourth in the
sequence of most important factors preferred for a husband his job
(74 per cent), after character (94 per cent), education (90 per cent),
and age (74 per cent); good looks (30 per cent), rank far lower
(page 95, table 43). In her list of most important factors preferred for
a wife, character (94 per cent) and education (84 per cent) rank above
beauty (69 per cent) and age (68 per cent) (page 93, table 40).
These figures are roughly corroborated by my findings in Jaipur.
To the girl students of Rajasthan University a good character was
the most desired quality (almost 88 per cent), followed by occupation
(51 per cent) and education (41 per cent); good health (35 per cent)
and good looks (almost 33 per cent) ranked fourth and fifth.
I want a husband with good character, who has finished his university education
and has a well-paid job. He should be of my own caste and belong to a wellknown
family. (Case UG 84)
I would prefer a good character, but one should never expect an "ideal husband";
this is unrealistic. Consider his qualifications. He need not earn thousands, but
he should earn hundreds. (Case PG 46)
He should have a good character and be healthy. Any job will do, provided his
income is sufficient to lead a decent life. (Case UG 28)
116 CORA VREEDE-DE STUERS
From the various studies on the attitudes of educated young people —
belonging to a social stratum similar to that in which matrimonials
circulate — we are now able to conclude that the advertisers conform
to the prevalent value system of their status group. These matrimonials
may, therefore, be considered useful for comparative studies on mate
selection.Both the advertisers and the educated young people of an
urban middle and upper middle class give evidence of still adhering
to the criteria which pertain of a closed marriage system; both reflect
a changing society in so far as they show a shift from the former stress
on attributes of an ascriptive nature to a more equal distribution of
both ascriptive and achievement attributes, with a concomitant upward
trend in age and formal education, especially for girls. A preference
pattern thus becomes discernible within the over-all framework of the
normative system. With the rising age at marriage and higher education,
the young people have gained more assurance than had their parents,
married at an earlier age. The incidence of this new attitude is supported
by the various studies mentioned. Yet these studies reveal at
the same time that, even in the — relatively rare — cases when these
young people select their own spouses, they hardly deviate from the
general views prevailing in their family and in society.
The question, therefore, whether matrimonials are inserted by the
parents or by those directly concerned loses relevance in so far as both
parents and their children differ little as yet in their proclaimed ideals
and aspirations. This conformity may be more apparent than real.
Interviews reveal little more than verbal attitudes; but these may
express ideals that cannot yet be put into practice — as in the case
of Merchant's young advocates of self-choice in marriage. Verbal attitude
may also conceal ideals. Much depends on the social and historical
context. Merchant interviewed a generation of young people deeply
stirred by Gandhi's appeal to the youth and the women of India to
emancipate themselves from customs and habits unworthy of Hindu
society. Their juvenile and feminine frustrations in matters of family
and marriage could at last be openly expressed, because some one was
listening, was making others listen, and had made of Civil Disobedience
the touchstone of their ideals.
Today such idealism, if alive among the members of the younger
generation, finds no outlet; their frustrations have no soundboard.
Protest against marriage customs, so openly expressed in the thirties,
is now silent. Today's interviewees must be carefully cross-examined
and their verbal attitudes weighed in the balance before scholars can
THE RELEVANCE OF MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISEMENTS 117
detect the existence or nonexistence of even covert insurgence.
Most of the girl students I interviewed in Jaipur, for instance, were
realistic enough to prefer that their parents select a husband for them,
for, with their restricted freedom of movement, they were unable to
choose themselves. This realism did not prevent a few girls from
'obstructing-' when possible, by planning not to marry at all. But these
same girls were perfectly willing to enumerate their preferences for an
imaginary husband. Their stated intention not to marry may, therefore,
be regarded as a means of escaping a parent-arranged marriage. As
modern students, conscious that they could earn a living if necessary,
these girls — who lacked the courage to oppose their family's expectations
straightforwardly — took this roundabout way to express their
hidden protest against being married off to a stranger.
Likewise, in their answers about the kind of husband they would
prefer, itheir preference for a good character — a quality not mentioned
in the matrimonials — is significant of their conscious or unconscious
resistance against an exclusively rational matchmaking. Such instances
of concealed protest against prevailing values may be detected through
interviewing; they are not discernible in the matrimonial advertisements.
CORA VREEDE-DE STUERS
REFERENCES
Anand, K., "An Analysis of Matrimonial Advertisements", Sociological Bulletin,
14, 1; March 1965, 59-71.
Cormack, Margaret L., She Who Rides a Peacock: Indian Students and Social
Change. London, 1960.
Kapadia, K. M., Marriage and Family in India. Oxford, 1955.
Kuppuswamy, B., "A Statistical Study of Attitudes to the Caste System in South
India", Journal of Psychology, 42, 1956; 169-206.
Merchant, K. T., Changing Views on Marriage and Family (Hindu Youth).
Madras, 1935.
Reyes-Hockings, Amelia, "The Newspaper as Surrogate Marriage Broker in
India", Sociological Bulletin, 15, 1; March 1966, 25-39.
Ross, Aileen D., The Hindu Family in Its Urban Setting. Toronto, 1961.
Shah, B. V., Social Change and College Students of Gujarat. Baroda, 1964.
Vreede-de Stuers, Cora, "Huwelijksadvertenties in India" (Matrimonial Advertisements
in India), I and II, Mens en Maatschappij, Jan.-Febr. 1962, 11-23,
and Sept.-Oct. 1966, 378-385.
Vreede-de Stuers, Cora, Meisjesstudenten in Jaipur (Girl Students in Jaipur).
Universiteit van

‘Caste no bar’? You’ve got to be joking

How much does caste matter to young urban Indians, as reflected in the preferences they post on the hugely popular matrimonial
websites? For almost everybody who hopes to find a life partner via the web matrimonial route, revealing one’s jati identity is a
prerequisite for getting enquiries. This is Part 1 of a 2-part article on caste in matrimonial portals
By Ashok Gopal

Recently, over several days and nights, I spent hours going through hundreds of profiles of women posted on some of India’s
largest matrimonial portals.  

I wasn’t looking for a partner for myself, or anyone I know. I was trying to find an answer to a question that raises its head every
now and then, as now, when people are debating the merits of enumerating OBCs through Census 2011:  

How much does caste matter today, especially among young urban Indians?

Profiles posted on matrimonial portals can provide an answer.  

Unlike matrimonial columns in newspapers, matrimonial portals offer free access, to advertisers and readers. Anyone can post a
profile for self, sibling or friend, and practically say anything in the space given for describing the profiled person, and the kind of
person she wants to get married to. And you can do it free, from any internet-connected computer.  

How many profiles of women posted in matrimonial portals strictly specify caste specifications is a good indication of how tough
the caste barrier continues to be, or whether it is disintegrating rapidly. Analysis of profiles can tell us how caste gets play across
different social groups.  

Riders

But some riders are needed; such a study has inherent limitations. 

Firstly, the world of matrimonials ads does not obviously include people who want to get married by falling in love, and people
who find partners through traditional routes like marriage brokers and relatives.  

Secondly, the content of matrimonial ads is evidence of preference, not action. It tells us about choices people want to make, not
what they eventually choose.  

Additionally, the web-matrimonial space is limited to:

people who have access to internet

people who know English, the language most commonly used in web matrimonials.

A combination of the above two limitations strongly suggests a third limitation: People who post on matrimonial portals are
largely from the big cities, where internet-access is easily available, and where there is a sizeable population of English-speaking
young people. 

Notwithstanding these limitations, in absolute terms, the world of web matrimonials is quite large. And as disaggregated analysis
of my basic sample showed, the world is not limited to big metros, or people who speak the Queen’s English. It includes people
from cities like Jammu, Jaipur, Lucknow, Raipur, Ernakulam and Coimbatore, as well as smaller towns like Valsad, Jhansi,
Samastipur and Bardhaman. 

Basic sample
My basic sample comprised profiles (ads) of women posted on two popular matrimonial portals, Bharat Matrimony and Jeevan
Saathi, which I will henceforth call Portal A and Portal B.  

The choice was not arbitrary. Both portals have a large number of profiles, are very user-friendly, and both provide data in a
manner well suited for analysis by age, religion, gender, caste, income, education and several other parameters.  

On January 25, 2010, the two portals together had around 22.15 lakh profiles. Portal A had over twice the number of profiles (16.3
lakhs) as Portal B.  

The numbers keep increasing or decreasing every hour, so I will henceforth refer to percentages derived from absolute numbers at
the time a particular calculation was done. The assumption is that though numbers may change, the percentages largely remain
constant, as underlying trends do not change over weeks or months.  

Some of the basic trends are as follows:

Over 90% of the profiles posted are of men and women living in India.

Around 80% of the profiles are of Hindu men or women.

Over 90% of the profiles are of people who have never married before.

Over 95% of the profiles are of people between the ages of 18 and 40.

Hence, at the gross level, the basic sample adequately represents the universe of people in India wanting to get married through
matrimonial ads.  

However, when one looks only at profiles of women, there is an important deviation: The number of profiles of women is only
around a third of profiles of men.  
This could be because of the nature of the medium and traditional gender mores. A profile of a woman posted in a portal is
apublic way of seeking a life partner. The woman’s name need not be disclosed, but profiles without names are not common. In
fact, around half the profiles of women are with photos. A matrimonial portal does not offer the privacy of a newspaper ad, in
which identity is completely covered as a matter of routine.  

Another reason for fewer profiles of women could simply be that more men than women have access to the internet.  

However, among profiles of women, there is a significant deviation from traditional mores. Around 40% of these are posted by
the women themselves—not by their parents, siblings or friends. This is much less than the percentage of self-posted profiles of
men (75%), but it is still a sizeable proportion. 

Such ‘forward-thinking’ behaviour could be co-related to education and independent source of income. In Portal A and B, among
all profiles of women under-40 and residing in India, only around 10% are not graduates and less than 30% are not working.  

Expectedly, there are variations by religion and caste. In Portal B, among profiles of Muslim women below the age of 40, around
40% report no income, and the proportion of non-graduates is also higher than the average, at 14%. On the other hand, in Portal A,
among profiles of Brahmin Iyer women, only 2% are non-graduates.  

Nevertheless, the basic sample is largely composed of women who are young, educated, earning. One would expect a large
number of them to say “caste no bar”, when they search for a marriage partner. Do they? 

The answer is quite complex. 

‘Caste no bar’

Portal A gives advertisers the option to specify ‘caste no bar’, and it also displays the term as a search category in the profiles
categorised according to religious groups.  

Among around 3 lakh profiles for Hindu never-married women under-40, ‘caste no bar’ appears in around 20% cases. Among
around 8.6 lakh profiles for men meeting the same criteria, the percentage is higher, at around 27%. 

This is a high proportion if one looks at prevalence of inter-caste marriages. Data on this is available in Portal A itself. It gives
advertisers the option to specify their caste, among a large number of choices. Advertisers have the option of not specifying caste,
or specifying ‘inter-caste’ (marriage of parents). Among profiles of Hindu women, less than 0.5% of advertisers report belonging
to that category. 

Thus, it seems, Indian society is vastly different today than it was 20-30 years ago, when the parents of these women got married.  

However, a close look at profiles under the ‘caste no bar’ category quickly dispels this notion.  

It is evident that when they state ‘caste no bar’ most advertisers do not mean exactly that.  

Consider the profile of a 27-year-old woman from the Nair caste, posted by her parents, and specifying `caste no bar’. In the space
given for specifying the preferred socio-religious background of the partner, the parents have listed a number of subcastes.  

Another example: In a profile of a 27-year-old woman software engineer from Pune, posted by herself, her socio-religious
background is described by the terms ‘Hindu’ and ‘96K Maratha’, which means ‘Shyanav (96) Kuli Maratha’, name of the
highest-ranked among Maratha subcastes. In the same field, the woman has added: caste no bar.  

However, on scrolling down to the section for specifying the socio-religious background of the desired partner, the woman plainly
states she wants to get married only to another 96K Maratha, or Brahmin of Konkanastha Chitpavan or Deshashta subcastes.  

So what do these people mean when they say ‘caste no bar’? 

Simply this: They are okay about marrying outside their caste or subcaste, within specified subcastes. In that sense, ‘caste’ is no
‘bar’. In many cases, ‘caste no bar’ actually means ‘gotra no bar’. 

Going through 100 randomly picked out profiles under the ‘caste no bar’ category, I found that no castes or subcastes are specified
under partner preferences in only 20% of the profiles. Even among these, there could be instances of oversight, as some
advertisers have entirely bypassed the section for setting partner preferences. In only a handful of profiles does one find an
explicit ‘caste no bar’ statement like (caste) “does not matter”.

Hence it can be reasonably assumed that no more than 15% of the advertisers who say “caste no bar” actually mean that. Calculate
this as a percentage of all profiles of Hindu women, and the figure of people who really mean “caste no bar” is only 3%.  

Thus, no major social change has taken place within the world of web matrimonials (a world that excludes love marriages). What
has probably changed in this world is willingness to marry outside a specific subcaste or gotra. That is all that is generally meant
by ‘caste no bar’.  

Advertisers who use the term in that narrow sense cannot be blamed for causing confusion; the confusion arises because of loose
and incorrect use of the word ‘caste’ in the matrimonial portals. 

Terminology problem
As several social scientists have stressed, on the ground, there is generally no such thing as caste in India. What exists, and
becomes particularly visible during marriage negotiations, is jaat or jati, which is loosely translated in English as ‘subcaste’, and
will henceforward be used without italics.  

‘Caste’ can be said to be a higher order of classification, akin to ‘genus’ in biology. Every organism belongs to a genus but cannot
be meaningfully identified by genus alone; one has to name its species, or jati. Likewise, in Hindu society, a person necessarily
belongs to a jati, which is always linked to a caste category.  

The analogy is far from perfect. At times, ‘caste’ acquires real shape and size, as when Mayawati reportedly ‘swung’ the ‘Brahmin
vote’ in the last UP elections. Also, jati is not the last level of classification. There are jatis within jatis, and within some of those
sub-jatis there are sub-sub-jatis…  

Further, jatis are not always clearly defined or categorised. Some jatis are attached to a particular caste category in one region, and
to a lower or higher caste category in another region. Sometimes, the jati-name used depends on the user: A person of a jati linked
to a high-ranked caste may identify a person belonging to a scheduled caste (SC) by her jati, such as ‘Mahar’, but the latter may
identify herself as an ‘SC’, a group of jatis. 

Even so, jati, more than ‘caste’, is a concrete sociological unit, a unit “of thousands or sometimes millions of people with whom
one may identify for such purposes as marriage” (Susan Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in India, Cambridge).  

However, matrimonial portals use ‘caste’ as a synonym for ‘jati’, and sometimes even for what many would say is a ‘sect’. For
example, in the ‘caste’ listing under the religious group ‘Muslim’, Portal A lists Bohra, which many would say is a sect, as also
Qureishi, which is a jati.    

One way out of all this confusion is to use terms like ‘community’ or ‘group’, but these do not connote the hierarchy that defines
relations between the groups—a hierarchy based not on economic status or numerical strength, but ancient notions of pollution
and purity.  

The term ‘jati’, found in all major Indian languages, is used daily with that connotation, which is often also spelt out (‘neech jati’).
And though the argument for jati hierarchy may be found only in Hinduism, jati is not unique to Hindus. As noted in several
studies and evinced in profiles posted on matrimonial portals, jatis exist in other major Indian religious groups also.  

With this clarity, let us see how jatis get play in the web matrimonial space.

Jatis in the web matrimonial space

All Indian matrimonial portals give much importance to jati, in the way they allow advertisers to describe themselves and specify
partners, and in the way descriptions are categorised and displayed.  

But not all jatis are represented, and some jatis are represented much more than others. 

Under its ‘People of India’ project, launched in 1985, the Anthropological Survey of India (ASI) identified 4,635 ‘communities’
across India. Of these over 3,000 are Hindu jatis.  

But going by the listing in Portal A and Portal B, and in Shaadi.com, which claims to be [the] “world’s largest matrimonial
service”, there are only around 380 jatis in the web matrimonial space. Of these around 350 are Hindu jatis, and as many as 50 are
Brahmin jatis.  

Listing of jatis in the portals shows that they follow a system of jati-grouping. Hence you can search under a broad category called
‘all Brahmin’ (jatis). Grouping is also done at a lower level: You can search among ‘all Patel’ or ‘all Nair’ jatis.  

The grouping is based on number of profiles per jati. Brahmin jatis with very few profiles get lumped in a category like ‘Brahmin-
Others’. Grouping also appears to be demand-driven, and demand varies by portal.  

For example, Portal A has greater demand than Portal B among South Indians—45% of all persons whose profiles have been
posted in Portal A specify a south Indian language as their mothertongue, as against 16% in Portal B.  

Perhaps for this reason, Portal A does not list ‘all Brahmin’ jatis as a search category, whereas Portal B does—in the matrimonial
arena, ‘any Brahmin’ does not make much sense in south India, not at any rate as much sense as it makes in the north. 

Looking at jati-wise distribution of profiles, one sees that hardly any jati accounts for more than 5% of all profiles and most
account for less than 1%. However, when one looks at jati-groups, the picture changes. Also, numbers per jati are not directly
related to numerical strength of the jati. Some jatis enjoy a disproportionate share. It is a reflection of their clout or standing in the
world defined by the web matrimonial space—a world largely limited to educated people in urban India.  

In Portal A, which has a south-tilt, jatis and jati groups with relatively high numbers include Kayastha, SC, Nair, Ezahava, Iyer,
Maratha, Rajput, Vishwakarma, Agarwal, Yadav, Arya Vysya, Naidu, Arora, Reddy, Nadar, Saraswat, Vana Kula Kshatriyar,
Lingayat, Vaishnav, Bania, Pillai, Chettiar, Christian-Roman Catholic, Christian-Born Again, Christian-Church of South India,
Kamma, Mudaliyar and Muslim-Sheikh. 

There are no surprises there, except perhaps the presence of SC. It should be viewed against the long history of reservation in
south India. And qualifications are necessary.  

Profiles of women who chose the ‘SC’ jati-group to define their social identity account for only 2.5% of all profiles of women
under-40 in Portal A; in the north-tilted Portal B, the share is less than 1.5%. In contrast, while Brahmins account for only 3-5% of
India’s population, in both portals, the share of profiles of women from the Brahmin jati-group is around 15%. 
Jati as marriage-choice determinant

How much does identification of the self and desired partner by jati matter in the web matrimonial arena?  And how does it get
play across jatis and jati-groups? 

As explained earlier, use of the term ‘caste no bar’ is not a good indicator of indifference or opposition to jati considerations. A
better indicator is the number of persons who choose not to specify jati in their profiles—some portals give you that option.  

The number of people who exercise that option is insignificant, across religious groups. In Portal A, among profiles for never-
married Hindu, Muslim and Christian women below 40, caste/jati is not specified in 0.36% , 4% and 1.5% of profiles respectively.

Clearly, for almost everybody who hopes to find a life partner via the web matrimonial ad route, revealing one’s jati identity is a
prerequisite for getting enquiries. However, importance of jati as a criterion for selecting a life partner varies across groups, as we
will see from a disaggregated sample, to be discussed in the second part of this study. 

Infochange News & Features, June 2010