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Oh absolutely. No one should be the judge of what kind of relationship works. And you are right, to pin failure on "arrangement" would be inaccurate.
Similarly to expect guaranteed marital success purely on the basis on arrangement is equally illogical.
Well said!!

you knew that any girl arranged by your parents will not work for you? How?

reminds me of saif and sonali kulkarni episode in "dil chahta hai"

LOL. No thats not what i meant. I was a bit of a romantic right from childhood :D . An arranged marriage did not fit into my view of my future.

Absolutely.

Didn't know coastal Karnataka had traditionally matrilineal communities. Kerala certainly has, though in matters of inheritance the rules of the land have changed over the last few decades.

I still find it amusing to see people's bewilderment when I tell them that I belong to my mother's family, and hence have her family name, not my father's. My children belong to my wife's family, not mine (more shock..). These days, though, most people do away with the family names and just have the father's name or caste/community name (Nair, Menon etc) as surname.

However there are many communities in Kerala that are not matrilineal.

Many communities in the north eastern part of the country are also matrilineal.

It certainly has, I can speak for what I have heard from my parents. When my parents were growing up, it was common for a married man to stay with his wife at her home. Usually the woman is the head of the family, and her daughters would take over after her.
At present however as people move to cities, nuclear families are more common.

That blame goes to a German.:)

In 19th century, the coastal area south of Kundapur (roughly) was a close cousin of Kerala. The language was mainly Tulu, it was known then as Tulunad. The culture was very similar to northern Kerala, food, rituals, festivals, traditions, etc. But most people could understand/speak Kannada.

But in late 19th century, Ferdinand Kittel, a German Missionary who worked in Basel Mission in Mangalore wrote the first Kannada-English dictionary. As a result of this, the Mangalore-Udupi area could be now administered using Kannada which most people could understand unlike English. Soon Kannada became the official language of coastal area until Kasargodu. Until 1956, Kerala and present Mangalore-Udupi area were all part of Madras state. In 1956, Udupi/Mangalore become part of Karnataka.

Now you know why coastal Karnataka has traditions similar to Kerala.

Yes indeed.. and I have noted a lot of similarities with fascination over the last couple of years. Thanks for the piece of history, Samurai.

By the way, to all those who think all this dating-shating is not an indian thing and its aping the western world, do the following names ring a bell?
Heer - Ranjha
Sassi - Punnu
Sohni - Mahiwal
Mirza - Sahiban
Laila - Majnu
??

You forgot to mention one thing. All of them died, and none of them had a happy ending.
BTW did you know why does the females name come first in all except for Mirza Sahiban?
Because Sahiban betrayed Mirza to her brothers. She was afraid Mirza will kill her brothers, and thought that by betraying Mirza they would spare his life. In the end due to her betrayel, Mirza was killed by her brothers... BTW this is way way :OT

I disagree.

If they had not died. They would have gotten married.
Then had children.

Life would have become a mundane battle between doing the dishes and sweeping the floors.

Do you know that story of a boy who proposed to a girl.
She refused.

He lived happily ever after.

I think the community who follows matriarchy in tulunad is called bunts(hindus and jains).they are in good numbers in kasaragode district of kerala as well.their language(tulu) is now subsided due to kannada influence.same with kodava,beary languages as well?

After reading all these posts - all of a sudden I seem to have lost the original argument here. Is it about arranged v/s love marraige? Indian v/s Western culture? Divorces v/s forced living? Virginity v/s Intimacy before marriage?

What is the thread all about?

FYI - I have an arranged marriage and am absolutely happy after 6 yrs and a son. We do have our share of disagreements and at times even major fights but we still love each other and get back together stronger than before. Damn - I'm in the middle of a disagreement with my wife since a few days but nothing in the world is going to be serious enough for me to even comprehend a divorce.

Still, its interesting! Harbhajan Mann's version of Mirza is really heartbreaking.

LOL

That's correct. Although the mention of Hindu & Jain may confuse a lot of people. That's a strange practice which I find surprising. Tulunad was mostly ruled by Jain kings who were non-violent and vegeterians. That explains all the Jain temples in Mudubidri and Gomateshwara statues in Karkala and Dharmasthala.

But their wars were fought by Bunts, that name basically means soldier. And Bunts are non-vegeterians and generally aggressive kind.

Now here is the surprising part. Marriage alliance between Bunt and Jain families was a common affair, and also adoptions. Issueless Jain families often adopted Bunt kids and vice-versa. In these two communities, where inter-caste marriage is heavily discouraged, alliances between Bunt and Jain, whose traditions/practices are very different was never discouraged. It was a rare example of symbiotic relationship between two communities. Now it has become quite rare though.