Marriage in India Vocable

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Marriage in lndia
Marriage in lndia
[e mariage en lnde :
une institution en pleine évolution
to gothero::embler, .eu- r / Mumboi Bonoov /
to check corsuiter / vonguord ovont-qorde / stiffnecked roller rnonte, gurnde / to pick cro s r, sélectiorner / old-foshioned rrodit ionnel / peculior
étro nge.
2. witness the... en remoig.e(rt), poLlr preuve ..
/ wedding (ceren onie de) mo'ioge / lovish somptueux/ jewelleryoi,oux/spouse epou^(se) /od
peI te or-once / confusing deroutonr, rro.lol0nt.
,.
in their lote 20s ô l'opprocne oe to tre"toine /
out of wedlock Lors mor'oge / vonishingly ir i,
ext,èmemenl (to vonish dispor0.tret / dowry dor
/ widespreod orgere"t repondu, très Louront
10
V0tABLE t]u 15 au 28 octobre 2015
dozen young technology workers are gathered arouncl a table in
south Mumbai. hr between checking
their smartphones, they describe an Indian
social revohition ofwhich they are in the
vanguard. Marriage, one woman explains,
a1f a
is becoming freer and easier*"less stiffnecked", as she puts it. All have far more
choice when it comes to picking a marriage
partner than their parents knew: two of
the women have even married men from
another religion. The old-fashioned marriages that they see on television and in
films seern deeply peculiar. "It's a different wor1d," one says.
. Marriage is a central instltution in
all societies. In India it often seems more
inlportant than anything else. \Vitness the
extravagant, days-iong r,r.eddings, the lav-
ish gifts of saris and jerr'e1iery, and the
columns of spouse-u,anted ads in newspapers-or just watch any Bol1),.lvood rotrrântic comedy. Yet marriage in India is also
changing, in ways that are liberating and
exciting but also often confusing.
Nearly all Indian women marry by their
late 20s, and births out ofwedlock are vanishingly rare. Marriages are almost always
arrangecl. Dowry paynnents are widespread.
About 90-95% of the time Hindus marrv
within their broad caste group. But if the
basic rules of the game are flxed, the style
ofplay is different these days.
L Gourav Rakshit, the chiefexecutive of
a popular website for seeking marriage
partners, Shaadi.com, spies a subtle but
momentous change. It used to be that par-
ents and older siblings drove the matchmaking process, he says, lining up potential partners whom the spouse-to-be might
veto. These days the offspring tend to be
in charge of finding their own partners,
but parents mayveto them. "What has not
changed is that marriage is a family decision," he explains. "What has changed is
who is driving the process."
i. Fully 73% of tloe profiles on Shaadi.com
have been put there by people who are
seeldng partners for themselves, not by
their parents or brothers. These days most
new users access the website via smartphones. Those phones are themselves
changing the matchmaking process. Tech-
sawy Indians can
now find out all
about potential part-
ners by tracking
their digital traces
through social media, or just by texting and telephoning. Parents need
never know.
si
i'i:$Pflrffiffil.
6. If small numbers of highly educated
urbanites were becoming more individualistic, it would be little more than an interesting wrinkle in Indian life. However,
the change is much more widespread than
that. To begin with, this group is no longer
smal1. Fully a quarter of young Indians
were in tertiary education in 2013, according to the World Bank, up from 11% a
decade earlier. Education and control over
marriage go together.
L Although caste is still powerful in Dharavi, it is gradually giving way to the money
god. Teenage boys insist that goodjobsgovernment jobs especially-are now more
important, both for snagging good partners and for asserting control over marriage decisions. One ofthe boys, an orphan, has a girlfriend and wants to maffy
Blind dotes
A rhiefexecutive directeur générol / to
Wife's pre-monioge contoct with husbond
soug[t, sought (re)chercher / to spy discerner,
lndio, by educotion,
2011-12,
oÂ
/ momentous copitol, décisif / sibling
/ to drive, drove, driven mener,
conduire / motchmoking recherche d'un conioint
entrevôir
, None ffi Only sow photogroph
I Phone/e-moilexchonge ffi Met
o 20 40 50 80
Seek,
frère ou sæur
100
/ to
line up oligner, ici trouver
/
spouse-to-be
No educotion
rci, personne à morier
1"4 yeors
niture, enfont(s) / to tend to ovoir tendonce ù.
/
offspring (inv.) progé-
5-9 yeors
a fully ici ou moins / techsowy
10-11 yeors
fompu oux nou-
/ to trock pider,
/
digi-
some college
tol troces troces numériques (ensemble
des
Degree
données loissées p0r un utilisoteur sur lnternet)
Source: lndio Hum0n Development Survey
/ to text
velles technologies
12yeorsl
her. Her parents object to his caste, but he
reckons he can wear down tfieir objections
by finishing his education and getting a
better j ob.
suivre
envoyer des textos.
G urbonite citodin / wrinkle ride, pli ici,
phé-
nomène onecdotique /tertiory educotion enseignement supérieur
/to
go, went, gone together
oller de poir.
8. Dipankar Gupta,
a sociologist at Shiv
Nadar University, says that caste is crumbling as India urbanises. Nearly a third of
Indians no\M live in cities or towns, while
villages are tied increasingly to urban
economies. The vil-
L to givg gove, given woy to perdre
du terroin
government ici, fonction publique
/ to
snog s'emporer de, ottroper ici, dénicher
/ to
foce à
/
ossert control over ovoir lo moinmise suI contrô-
ler
/ orphon orphelin / to
obiect to désopprou-
ver / to reckon estimer, penser
/ to
weor, wore,
lage bosses who en-
worn sb/sthg down ovoir à l'usure, voincre à lo
force caste rules
longue.
have less power than
they did. Some north
Indian village elders
have chosen to relax
the rules anylvay, because so many single
men are in search ofwives-a consequence
ofsex-selective abortions. Caste is now less
an institution than a mess of prejudices
about the superiority of one's o\ in group.
9. One big thing stands in the way of further change, says Sonal Desai, another academic. Indian parents still assume they
will live with their sons. That explains why
they exert so much control over marriage:
they are in effect choosing a cook and a fu-
& to crumble s'effondrer / to be tied to être lié
à, dépendont de / to enforce foire oppliquer /
elder oîné; oncien
/ to
relox ossouplir
/
obor-
tion ovortement / mess méli-mélo, multitude
prejudice préjugé.
I
/
to stond, stood, slood in the woy offoire obs-
tocle ù
/
ocodemic universitoirg chercheur, expert
/ to ossume supposer, s'imoginer / to exert
cer
/
exer-
corer ici, personne qui prendro soin d'eux
to weoken foiblir, diminuer
contres, rendez-vous
/
/
/
doting (de) ren-
opp = opplicotion
/ to
tske, took, token off décoller ici, devenir populoire
/
guy gors, gorçon
/
keen enthousioste.
ture carer. Yet this too is beginning to
'vÿeaken. Indian marriage still looks very
different from the Western kind (which is
changing too). Yet prosperity and technology are eroding tradition. People Group,
which owns Shaadi.com, even invested in
a dating app earlier this year. Such apps,
which were unimaginable in India until
recently, have not taken offyet. "The guys
are all keen," says Mr Rakshit, "but the girls
aren't there yet."
#
Du 15 au
28 oaobre 2015 V0ClllE ,
ll