Institutionalization!

I was planning leave for my friend's wedding and as it usually happens to me,some psychological undercurrents swept me to a my thoughts and I started recollecting all the discussions about marriage,of my friends,friends' friends,cousins of my age;everyone and anyone who had touched twenty three.Everyone discussed wedding.Longime boyfriend-girlfriend wanted to get married n 'settle down'!
Marry & Settle Down!
We in India tend to use these two words rather synonymously.For me they are two different words and mean two diametrcally opposite things.But as everything else marriage in India has been institutionalized.You are five you go to the school,twenty one you graduate and after that you marry(and settle down!).It is just another stage in your life.
Success Rate
It is not that this approach does not work,most of our parents did this and their parents too.But,I feel that this approach has been made to work.We have beaten this into the box and we are quite good at it,blame it on the adjust kar lo na attitude.
"Dad asked me to marry this girl,mom liked her too.They must ve chosen the right girl for me"
This applies even more to girls than guys.They solely rely on the decision taken by their parents and in most of the cases it is assumed that they must not go against their decision.What we donot undrstand is that parents are also humans like us and the margin of error is the same as it would be for any of us.The error in judgement might be because of scores of reasons,the short span of meeting being just one of then.Even the backgroud check that they might run(which extends to hiring private detectives in some cases) might prove to be inadequate.What we must understand is the fact that we ignore scores of things that we feel are not so important but the decison that we take might change a person's life completely.I am not even mentioning elders-are-experienced reason because noone and I mean no-one other than you can decide who you would be best with.
Why not?
Why can a person not chose the person he/she likes/wants to be with,marrying is a totally different thing,he may chose to marry or not.The lines of marriage and the person you would like to spend the rest of life with are skew symmetric often assumed to be interesecting by people whose vision lacks the ability to fathom depth.
If there is anything we donot know or cannot explain we take cover in our culture and/or tradition.Not chosing the right individual and spending the rest of our lives in the agony of incompatibility is not our culture,believing that others can make the right decision for you is definitely not our culture.
So what do we do?We should keep in mind that relationships are important but not everything in your life.I understand that people have their priorities but marking getting-married on the top of your list is something that still bewilders me,unless you are wedding planner or something.

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