Indian Culture and Geography
Location: India has an area of approximately 3,287,580 sq. kilometers. It serves as a border to the Bay of Bengal the Indian Ocean, and to the Arabian Sea located to its west. Directly north of India are the Himalayas, the world’s biggest mountain range. India also serves as a neighbor to several different countries. Myanmar and Bangladesh located to its east, China, Nepal and Bhutan to the north, Sri Lanka to the South, and finally Afghanistan and Pakistan on the northwest.
Topography: India is separated into 4 main regions, these are the Ganges, Indus Plains, Desert zone, and the Southern Peninsula. Physiologically India is divided ten times.
IV Social Institutions.
A Family
A senior male usually heads families in India. In the senior males household a family can be very large. The senior male’s family can include his unmarried children, married children alongside their wives and kids, unmarried younger brothers and sisters, and married brothers with their wives and children. It is common however for families to separate once the father dies. This idea of family is true for both nuclear family and extended family.
As already stated above the size of a typical Indian family is very large. The senior male is responsible for providing the financial assistance to the family while his wife takes care of the house. She assigns chores to all of the females in the household. The Elderly are taken care upon dearly by their family members.
The marriage traditions in India have been in existence for a very long time. The have a long and important set of rules that are carefully followed by most. A marriage arrangement is a big responsibility for the parents of both the female and male. A marriage is arranged based primarily on religion, family wealth, and the hope for a good biological reproduction.
Marriages in India are no different than in most of the countries around the world. It is a very special event for the bride and grooms family and friends. For both the male and the female marriage is a big change not only socially but mentally as well. Only once married is one truly considered to have made the transition to adulthood. Married couples display a strong for male children. Males are desired more because of financial contribution the may supply for the family. Girls on thew other hand are some times viewed as very big liabilities, The more one has the more liable one is.
In a scene the film Ravi goes to a wedding in India where a family member is being wedded. Ravi asked if he was happily marrying his wife, in love, and not having second doubts, all his family member expressed was no remorse, but it seemed as if it was something casual for him, it was necessary to marry, and that the bride he had chosen was approved from his parents, and the community of Patels. It seemed that throughout the film arrange marriage is viewed as normal in India, they don’t seem to ask their children if they’re happy about being arrangbeds into a marriage, it something that when you come of age you have to do. However in Indians living in America are challenging their parents and their cultures religion of arranged marriage. In America they are looking at the diverse cultures and falling love with people outside their culture, and making work, while others are still in the biodata and probably decided to marry into a Patel or other Indian name, yet still experienced dating other men before deciding. What was weird is that some Indian women don’t date until later in their college years when they are away because of the strict household their parents had and from fear of disappointing their family, and being
Naturally, to fulfill their dharma, people had to marry within their caste. Parents arranged proper unions for their children, sometimes at ages as young as eight or nine, before sexual attraction had a chance to complicate things.
In a tradition Nepali family, the male is considered the head and is responsible for family decisions. Likewise, women are supposed to stay at home and take care of the children. People live in a joint family and make contributions on household tasks and expenses. However, like the Mexican culture, these practices has been changing in Nepali culture too. As mentioned earlier, Mexican families had been modernized. While some families still follow the traditional family system, many others have changed the way they live. New families prefer to live in nuclear families and females have started being the head of the household. Even though the family structure has been modernized nowadays, family is the number one priority among many modern Mexicans. They still like to celebrate festivals and occasions with all of their relatives and still take care of their elderly parents. Family ties are strong in Mexican culture and have been for centuries, and they hope to keep it the same
A traditional extended family living in Northern India can become acquainted through the viewing of Dadi’s family. Dadi, meaning grandmother in Hindu, lets us explore her family up close and personal as we follow the trials and tribulations the family encounters through a daily basis. The family deals with the span of three generations and their conflicting interpretations of the ideal family life. Dadi lets us look at the family as a whole, but the film opens our eyes particularly on the women and the problems they face. The film inspects the women’s battle to secure their status in their family through dealing with a patriarchal mentality. The women also are seen attempting to exert their power, and through it all we are familiarized to
Therefore, American and Hindu weddings are very different from one another. From who picks their spouse and when the day of the wedding will be. American weddings don’t last as long as Hindu weddings do which would be a relieve for some people.
Despite people celebrating marriage in different ways it all comes back to one thing; marriage is a social ritual that by which two people affirms one abiding contracts between. The ceremonies are composed of rituals which symbolize facets of married life and the obligations being undertaken. In Hinduism the marriage celebration can start weeks before the actual ceremony depending on the preferences of the family. Once the day of the ceremony comes around the day starts with the brides’ family welcoming the groom into their home and both families are formally introduced. Both the bride and groom sit at the Mandap- tent where the ceremony is held under,-and are offered a drink. Gifts between the two families are generally exchanged at this point. The groom's mother gives an auspicious necklace to the bride, which is essentially an emblem of the married status in the Hindu religion. Then scared fire is lit and a pundit recites t...
Marriage practices vary across cultures. Every culture has its own way of conducting marriage according to their traditions and customs. Most cultures share common customs and practices, while some cultures have unique practices. Marriage refers to a social union agreed upon by the couples to unit as spouses. The union of couples implies sexual relations, permanence in union, and procreation. This research paper focuses on comparing marriage practices in American and Indian culture. There is significant difference between the two cultures in marriage practices.
2017). In the Northern Indian culture, women have more than one spouse which are often made up of a group of brothers. The oldest brother is the one chosen by the women’s parents and the other brothers don’t have to join but often do. Although in the nuclear family the woman has many husbands, she is still expected to do equal work, including physical tasks and often even does more work than each of her husbands. Work is more easily spread because there are four members and some men are able to work away while the others work at home. The wife will take turns each night and sleep with a different brother to avoid jealousy and conflict among them (Slater-Jones
On one hand, in arranged marriages the family of the person chooses the best candidature for marriage because the family wants to create a good couple which will match and the families of men and women are making their choice according to number of benefits it can give. “Many Indians look at marrying a person they don’t know, gives one “a lifetime to learn to love them”, as opposed to the American ideal of learning a person inside and out before entering into marriage. It can be said that an arranged marriage in India is not based on feelings, but rather on commitment” (Debashish, 2013). So this king of building the relations is also taking the feelings into account but the rat...
One of the main arguments for arranged marriages is that parents, being older and more experienced, are better able to find a suitable match for their children. This belief relies on the trust the offspring has that their parents understand what would be best choice or most suitable for their children. This trust is often discouraged by the individualist ideal and rebel teen mentality sponsored by American mass-media. However, in India trust between parent and child are common. When Nanda tried helping arrange a marriage, we see that parents in India weigh many considerations when choosing partners for their children including the statuses of the individuals (including their caste and career path), the social dynamics between the members of both households, and what resources the other family and potential partner have. At least in the case given in the reading, this process can be though and produce a good marriage with stable family ties. Another argument made for arranged marriage is that since the parents are handling the marriage, the children are free to enjoy life and not worry about the details. To a lesser degree in our country, people delegate part of the relationship forming process to others by allowing friends, family, and dating sites or shows to play matchmaker. Though in general, in America the person who would be in the relationship is more involved, and has to worry about handling some of the details. In India, culture is more dependent on family structure so marriage is just as much about forming ties between families as the couple itself, which is part of the reason why the family is so involved in these
Every culture has several similarities and differences that impact the way they do things. Several of these cultures have distinct traits and traditions that make them differently from other cultures. I believe these differences make each culture different and unique. The two cultures that I have chosen to compare and contrast with each other is Kenya and India. In this paper I will discuss the similarities and differences in each of the culture’s families in context, marital relationships, and families and aging. These are important aspects of these cultures and to examine them will give me a better knowledge of both of these cultures.
In general, arranged marriage has provided people fundamental principles about the importance of marriage and how a person can find happiness. Arranged marriage defines marriage between a man and a woman, which arranged by the couple 's parents and relatives based on family ties and traditions. Although marriage is described as the oldest and enduring human institution, the reasons for marrying have differed from culture to culture. In common circumstances, cultural, religious, economic, age, educational level, and racial factors play a role in determining who the person can marry and form which marriage takes. Some statistics find that the rate of divorce is low in arranged marriages and high in love marriages. For years,
A Hindu wedding process can take several days depending on the economic and social standing of the bride and the groom’s families. The actual ceremony can be short like an hour to three hours. The ceremony itself is more for the couple and their parents having little guest involvement. Some guests skip the ceremony all together and come later for the celebration time of the
Arranged marriage in India is the traditional and well respected way of getting married. Majority of the elderly were married through someone, some not even being able to see each other till after the wedding ceremony. Now a day families are a bit more lenient about getting the approvals of both bride and groom before setting a wedding a day. In some parts of India, arrange marriages are still a business transaction or marrying of little children due to poverty. Arranged marriages are still very common in royalties and high caste people to practice maintaining their status.
To thoroughly elaborate on the institution of family we most look at the family as it was before and how much it has changed over time. Throughout the years we are recognizing that the family is slowly being replaced by other agents of socialization. Families in the past consisted of a mother and a father and most times children. We are, as many societies a patriarchal society; men are usually the head of the households. This has always been considered the norm.