desi wedding culture is toxic
where does Indian Matchmaking end and reality begin?
I’m going to find him for myself even if I have to grow old doing it.
—Ru Freeman, A Disobedient Girl: A Novel
The first time my mother asked me about a boy, I was twenty years old. She had seen a picture of me and a guy friend on Facebook and wanted to know if we were having an “affair.” Prior to this, we had existed in a dimension where she never asked me about boys because she assumed I had no interest in them. I preferred it this way because what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
Little did I know that as soon as I turned twenty, I had crossed an invisible threshold. One that catapulted me from being a girl with no ability to attract the opposite sex to a young woman that could be courted. In the eyes of the aunties, I was now an eligible bachelorette. The time had come: I was now at the “right” age to start thinking about marriage. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing to think about. I’d start thinking about when I was in love.
A year later, on a call with my grandmother, she mentions her cousin’s twenty year old granddaughter is getting married. That she had received a rishta1 from a guy in London and was dropping out of art school for it. “How does that make you feel?” I ask. “Jealous.” “Why?” “Because I wish I was the one telling people my granddaughter was getting married.” I was on the cusp of finishing my bachelor’s degree and had a job lined up after graduation; I paled in comparison.
At 23, things started to get unhinged. A phone call with my aunt, she tells me I’ve wasted another year not finding someone. On another call with my grandmother, I tell her I’m too young to get married. She tells me I’m not. It’s not that I don’t want to get married, I just wanted to find him on my own.
December: I go back home for the holidays. Mom has a surprise for me. She’s handpicked three “biodatas.”2 Let’s give it a chance, I think. It’s not like I’m having much luck in the city anyways. Three mediocre men, each on a different continent, all looking for someone “willing to relocate.” “I don’t want to move for a man,” I object. “I don’t want to commit myself to one place just yet.” Somewhat jokingly, I add, “I want someone that would be willing to move around with me.” “It doesn’t work like that,” she replies dismissively.
She wants me to settle for something “stable.” But stable isn’t marrying a stranger with a “good” job and moving half way around the world. I didn’t want to leave everything behind to fit in someone else’s life; I already had a full life. I wasn’t born just to be some random man’s wife.
But, no, mom wants me to settle. She’s in a rush as the seconds count down to my twenty fourth birthday. “You have to start getting serious about marriage now, otherwise you’re gonna get stuck choosing between the weird ones.” I don’t have to get stuck with anyone, I think. And the ones she was showing me were already weird. Why does marriage have to be a punishment for women?
It was then I decided that I’d find him myself, even if I grew old trying. I knew then that this rishta thing wasn’t going to work for me. And when I did find him (thankfully, before I grew old), he surpassed so many of the low expectations my mother had tried to get me to accept. He even agreed to move around with me until we decided to commit to one place.
Desi rishta culture is toxic because it so often dehumanizes women. It’s a system that asks women to leave behind their communities, aspirations, and desires, in the service of men. One moment you’re a girl with a life of your own and the next you’re being assessed on whether you’re suitable to marry a man you barely know. And, let’s be honest, more often than not, it’s some aunty’s painfully average son. There’s no shortage of mediocre men in rishta culture.
The more educated and independent women become, the harder it is to accept this standard. Often, if you’re not ready to give up your life, and everything you’ve worked for, then you’re not deemed suitable for marriage. You see this misogyny firsthand in Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking, where the show’s Sima Aunty frequently encourages women to settle for less, calling them “inflexible” and “difficult” when they refuse.
I think rishta aunties and our mothers have the biggest hand in perpetuating this toxic cycle, but men—or, should I say, boys— are no better. They all want a woman who can do all the above and is “slim” and “fair.” They want white beauty, without saying they want white beauty. The aunties want to put you through what they went through. The boys want you to endure what their mothers have endured.
If you’re lucky enough to survive the rishta process, there’s still the whole ordeal of the actual wedding. And Desi weddings are notorious for their ostentation. Our weddings are so over the top that many families spend them whole lives saving for them—an expense equal in value only to education. I’ve always found this concept eerie. Why such an elaborate party for two people that often don’t even know each other very well? Is it wishful thinking? Is the idea that, by throwing the party of a lifetime, you can ensure a lifetime of happiness for the newly wed couple? I don’t know, but you’re a fool to equate consumption with stability.
Personally, I absolved myself of much of this insanity by marrying someone non-Desi. But after rishta culture comes Desi marriage culture, with expectations you can’t absolve yourself from unless you cease to be Desi. Like how aunties started suggesting I have a baby the day after my wedding. The seriousness of this suggestion was ludicrous; now that being sexually active was socially acceptable, my first act of business was to be conception. It felt like a sick joke, like I had been tricked into getting married just to procreate and devote my life to anything but myself. Is it too much to ask to just enjoy my marriage?
Marriage brings its own set of social expectations. But just like those of rishta culture, I will continue to reject those that don’t work for me. Because accepting them at face value is to erase so much of who I am. I can’t pretend like there wasn’t a life before marriage. And let’s be clear, I’m not against Desi marriages.
Ever since I was a child, I thought I’d marry someone that was also Pakistani. Because, before me, no one in my family had married outside our ethnicity. I sought out that familiarity for years, but never found what I needed from boys that looked like me, who spoke the same language and observed the same traditions. I would have love to be that brown girl, the one with her co-ethnic product manager husband who helps host dawats3 at her in-laws house. I think there is a universe where that is my life, just not this one. Instead, life gave me a man from a land I’d never stepped foot in before, who understood me in ways that go beyond a shared mother tongue.
And even though Desi marriage wasn’t meant for me, I still root for others. There’s a lot of beauty in Desi culture, in our traditions and way of life that have survived modernity. I would just like to see more of the good reflected in our marriages, and the more toxic aspects phased out overtime.
This goes back to rishta culture: can we accept that the concept of marriage has evolved with time, and that our rituals surrounding it need to change with it? Are we capable of treating women as individuals, with rich past lives and experiences, as opposed to objects destined to serve? But, more importantly, are we capable of viewing marriage as partnership, rather than a patriarchal structure that will be the undoing of us all?
If you enjoyed this piece, consider reading the following:
marrying a white man doesn't make you less cultured
Read if you’re interested in learning more about my personal life.
i think about divorce more than i’d like to admit
A related piece on the torture that is a bad marriage.
when are you getting married? and other irrelevant questions by
She captures the intricacies of the Desi marriage industrial complex in ways I cannot.
stop telling women to endure by
An inspired piece on how real love is never selfish.
romance as rizq: not everyone is going to have it by
A beautiful piece on the importance of holding onto faith when looking for love.
In this context, a rishta refers to a proposal you would get through the arranged marriage process. To learn more, I recommend the following article.
Biodatas are a cross between dating profiles and resumes that rishta aunties/moms share with each other over WhatsApp in the hopes of making a match.
A dawat is essentially a lunch or dinner party held at someone’s house.
Emma, this is my favorite post of yours. The point you bring up about how many men and their families expect you to relocate for them instead of the other way around is so important! Just last year, I was talking to a family friend my mom was trying to set me up with who lives in Edinburgh. He expected me to move there since he had a job there - even though he's not even a citizen in the UK. He also expected children, and was very angry when I said I didn't want any. I was upset by his reaction and decided I was not going to progress forward with getting to know him. My family members begged me to give him another chance. Thankfully, I did not.
There are honestly so many instances that happen with other girls where they don't like the suitors that their parents present them with, and are criticized for being "too picky". We now live in a world where desi women are expected to work full-time, perform domestic duties, raise children, and take care of their aging in-laws. It seems as if our laundry lists have increased while a lot of families continue to be ignorant when it comes to raising their sons and being advocates for their daughters. A lot of women are starting to see the trade off just isn't worth it unless it's for a genuine romantic connection. Sadly, a lot of parents continue to pressure their daughters into getting married as a way to prevent them from becoming independent.
I love how you’ve described the complexities of rishta and Desi wedding culture, especially the part about rejecting expectations that erase our individuality. There’s always been this pressure on women to conform, to settle, and to endure—as if our main purpose is to exist and wait around for some random dude. And it’s always the mediocre ones with the most ridiculous expectations. Expectations they don’t deserve. Love should liberate, not imprison.