Love Laughs At Locksmiths And

Ancient Indian Traditions

From Vijendra Kumar in Lautoka

Krishna and Lila are in their early j 20s and have been married for about four years. The couple lives with Krishna’s elder brother on the family owned farmstead. Krishna works in the neighbouring town of Lautoka as a tailor. Lila, like thousands of young Indian wives, is content to stay home and keep herself busy in household chores. Like most young starry-eyed couples, they find life enjoyable.

Though Krishna and Lila are like any average, young Indian couple, they represent a new breed of men and women who are breaking away from the shackles of tradition ally-conservative marriage patterns.

Indentured labourers from India, who first came to Fiji in 1879, were mainly from backward rural areas.

Naturally, they brought with them strict religious and social norms pre valent in rural India.

One of these was the age-old marriage system which does not re cognise pre-marriage romantic con tact between a boy and a girl. The traditional Indian view is that love comes after marriage. Ridiculous as this sounds, the system has worked— both in India and in Fiji.

According to a social worker who is associated with marriage counsel ling among Fiji Indians, about 80 per cent of all marriages are still arranged by the couple’s parents.

“But recently there has begun a shift from the traditional system. The educated and sophisticated young Indian men and women are beginning to look for their partners in defiance of their parents and society,” he says.

The marriages and deaths registry in Suva reports that it is receiving a flood of applications for special marriage licences from young Indian men. It said it issued an average of 50 licences a week.

Special licences are issued without the consent of the parents (if those concerned are over 21) and permit the marriage to take place immediately. A regular marriage application requires public notice.

Young Indians have started a mild social revolution which is bound to shake the infrastructure of Indian society. . The bulwark of the Indian society is its closely-knit family unit. It has either a patriarch or matriarch at

the head who literally holds the family reins. Such major family events as marriages, mourning, celebration of a birth, are determined by the head. Sons in the family must live within the unit even after their marriage and contribute to a pool for expenses to support the entire family.

But, according to the social worker, the family unit is gradually disinte grating. Educated young wives, who often have a career of their own, just have no stomach for their in laws authoritarian supervision.

Husbands too want to lead their own independent lives and bring up their children as they want, and not as their parents would direct them.

“Sometimes, this sort of attitude creates a great deal of bitterness between a son and his parents, but most parents are beginning to accept it,” the social worker says.

Like Krishna and Lila, many young Indian men and women are search ing for, and finding fairy-tale romances leading to successful

marriages. The story of Krishna and Lila is like a chapter from a Vic torian romance. Krishna comes from rustic North Indian stock. Lila is a fragile and cloistered flower from an opulent and fiercely clannish Gujerati (merchant class) community. Their homes were a couple of chains apart and the inevitable happened. Cupid’s arrows found their marks and the two fell in love.

But, to Lila’s father, marriage to an “outsider” was unthinkable. While attempts were being made to end the romance by sending Lila away to another country, the couple eloped and lay hidden for a week. Frantic searches failed to unearth them. When the moonstruck pair emerged from hiding, Lila’s father felt he had no choice but to consent to the marriage, as in his eyes his daughter was defiled. Though the two families are on speaking terms, the marriage has not brought them any closer.

A marriage, according to the old order, is normally arranged through an intermediary or a “marriage broker”. He is usually the local priest or the village barber, both itinerant professionals. A girl’s father approaches him to look for a suitable groom. The priest may sometimes look up the girl’s horoscope to find out when and where a suitable groom may be found.

When he has found a likely prospect, the girl’s parents and relations call on the boy’s parents with a proposal. This is followed by a visit from the boy’s parents. The prospective groom also visits the girl’s house to view the “merchan dise.” If she is beautiful, he normally falls for her, if she is plain, he or his spokesman may drop a hint that a dowry—cash, a car or a piece of land—would make the girl more attractive. If the girl is ugly, it is unlikely that even a large dowry may appeal to him.

Plain girls usually end up old maids or as second wives to decrepit but lecherous widowers. To most Indian men, a girl is beautiful if she is light-skinned. Dark-skinned girls, even though they may have the classic features of Nefertiti, are just not attractive.

The new marriages, where love counts above all else, are cutting

across religious and sectarian barriers.

Modern young Indians, with their sophisticated education and awareness of social mores in Western countries, have scant regard for religious and social taboos. Several Hindu boys, some from Brahmin families, have “tarnished” the family honour by marrying Muslim or Christian girls.

True, some of them have bowed to fanatical demands from the girl’s parents by converting to either Islam or Christianity. But often, there are no such pressures.

Significantly, inter-racial marriages are very rare. There are some Indo- Fijian marriages which have turned out to be very happy relationships.

One of my Indian friends, who is married to a Fijian girl, is the proud father of three extremely beautiful children. They are a perfect example of eugenics. His wife is not only highly-educated but comes from a chiefly family. The couple is respected and accepted by both communities.

There are. on the other hand, examples of thwarted love. Maria, a young attractive Fijian girl, fell in

love with a Muslim boy. His parents reluctantly agreed to a marriage but the girl’s parents, who belong to an aristocratic family, objected. The girl had to bow to their wishes or face ostracism.

Together, with the new trends in marriage patterns, the Indian society faces a threat from another direction.

The Civil Courts are crammed with divorce or separation cases. Accord ing to one court officer, the com monest ground for divorce proceed ings is desertion by the husband, who often leaves his wife for another woman. In a large number of cases, the triangular relationship involves the husband’s sister-in-law. She could be his elder brother’s wife or his wife’s younger sister. In rare cases, the husband may accuse his wife of adultery and seek a divorce.

Another common practice among Indians is for a man to have one legal wife and one or more de facto wives. Some leading politicians are openly living in menage a trois and they still enjoy the confidence and respect of the public. Some of my

own friends have two or even three* wives. I know one man who i:i legally married to the elder sistei* and began a relationship with then younger sister soon after the marriages Both sisters live under the same roofl I don’t know if he has a ‘triple bed’l Because of the repressive sodas structure of the Indian society, it ha;i an unstable core. Social welfarr workers and civil courts sometimes get to hear of the seamier side oc life. Cases of incestuous relationship between father and daughter, mothes and son, brother and sister and th«i much more common uncle-niecc syndrome are not uncommon.

Corrupt priest and withdoctorr prey on innocent girls whose simpld and trusting parents take them to thu vultures for healing or exorcising evil spirits. Illicit pregnancies are comi mon and almost every Indian settle ment has a mid-wife abortionist.

Against this background, the ques for love and freedom by rebellious youth comes like a fresh breez« from Camelot.