Why do you care if I do or I don't?

What is marriage? For me it is a union not only between my husband and I, but a union between our two families. I had an arranged marriage. Yes! 12 years ago I met my husband in an arranged setting. As my sister puts it, we were “set up.” We did the whole being left alone to discuss marriage on the first awkward meeting. After my father and mother asked him what they felt important, we were left alone to ask each other our questions. Once we decided that there might be something there worth exploring, we spoke on the phone for a few months before we decided we were a fit. One and half years later were married. When people hear arranged marriage, they must think there is no romance involved. We were both in university when we met. We spent some late nights helping each other on presentations and papers during finals. We gave each other gifts that have left us both with sweet memories from those days.

I was first approached by my mother when I was only 19 years old. I don't know whether it was because I was their first born and they were excited or what, but my parents started asking me about marriage way too early! I remember feeling quite scared and a tremendous amount of pressure being placed on me. I was only a Sophomore at Sonoma State University. Still trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to major in and who I was as a person!

Flash forward… 4 years later I gave in and said, “okay, find me someone!” I had graduated with my undergraduate degree and felt ready to get to know someone. Getting to know my future husband meant phone calls that were unlimited and supervised visits. We had our first “50 dates” after we got married. Throughout the time that my parents spent looking for a husband for me, the importance of the caste system kept coming up. In my generation we don't care much about caste, but in my parents generation it is apart of small talk. After asking many questions to get to know someone new, the last one is always, “what is your surname?” The surname usually indicative of one’s caste status. The caste system is a class structure that determines a person's place in society. This is based on birth. In many places if you are born into a poor family, you will remain poor. In the Indian culture whatever job your family has held for generations is what you are identified with. We have the priestly caste, warrior and royalty caste, artisan, merchant, trader, and farmer caste and lastly the laboring caste. I have always wondered, why does it all even matter? I can understand asking about the name to make sure the two parties getting married aren’t related in any way, but who the hell really cares about their caste? We are all human! I went to India for the second time in 2007, and was shocked at how the caste system plays out in everyday life.

As times are progressing, people of all different castes hold professional jobs. In many homes people from lower castes that are used to do the “dirty” housework. This is true in rural villages as well as big progressive cities. After cleaning their employers toilets and washing their laundry (just to mention a couple), sometimes they are called horrible names. This isn't the case for everyone, but it did happen in front of me. Witnessing this treatment of people from lower caste by those I respected and loved surprised me. Yelling and calling names was okay because they are of a lower caste and not considered to be human. God forbid anyone of a higher caste marry someone of this standing! It is a huge no no to marry someone of a lower caste, but it is fine to marry up … double standards! I have heard stories of parents and grandparents disowning their children for doing so. I personally had my nose in the books, so decided it was best my parents did the “hard work”! This way I also did not have to worry about caste. It was their problem not mine.

As a teenager, I was told to stop growing, it will be hard to find a boy for me if I am 6ft tall! Now do you suppose I had any control over that? Anyhow, the people who told me that got their wish, I only made it to 5’8”! After that became old, and I became “of age,” people started to tell me to not become so educated otherwise we may not be able to find someone suitable for you. So I should hold back my dreams (permanently) to study further and advance my career for a person I hadn’t even met yet? As I think back, after all this fuss about my studies, I married a man who did not go to graduate school like myself. He earned a B.A. in business. Did that make a difference in the end? We have been married for over 10 years and known one another for over 12. All the things people worried about were superficial things; what I looked like, my level of education, and caste. What was the point in all that? I thought love was blind and saw no bounds. This shows how society puts a lot of pressure on beauty. If he wasn’t as tall as me or as educated, did that make him any less human? Until this day I wonder what all that even means to people. Perhaps it is because my education does not define me, I didn't care about the level of education the person I was going to marry had or didn’t have.

In retrospect I now understand why this was happening. As the oldest daughter of the family, I was always told that I did not have the family name legally because I did not “belong” to the family. My last name was Kaur for most of my life. Kaur (Princess) is a name given to every Sikh woman and Singh (Lion) to every Sikh man. In the Sikh religion, surnames are not supposed to be used because they wanted to eliminate the caste system. Women and men have the same last names because surnames are an extension of the caste system. I have never felt as though I belonged to a family because I did not share the same last name. I was a lone nomad waiting to fit in. I only changed it to Soor (my husband’s surname) three years ago after my son was born. Even though having a surname is not a practice encouraged in our religion, it was important to me. My husband understood that and we both took legal action to change our names. Why did I have to wait this long to feel like I belonged to a family? I would be married off some day and then I would have a name to call my own.

Marrying me off would also be the last thing my parents needed to do for me before their responsibility was “fulfilled.” This is the case in the Indian culture. When a girl is born, she already bears the burden of her marriage. Parents start preparing right away for that day! That is why many fear having a baby girl. This is the main reason behind many abortions and female infanticide in my ancestral land of Punjab. I wanted to get married, but as I think about it, I embraced the expectations that were placed on me by society. I got married a couple years later than the desired time, but still good enough to satisfy the requirements. I used furthering my education as a way to buy myself a little more time. Society looks at girls not married before 30 as, “there must be something wrong with her.” A lot of thoughts run through the minds of the older generation like, “she is mentally or physically ill,” “she must be out of control,” or that “she probably has a boyfriend already,” just to name a few. Why does something have to be wrong with her just because marriage might not be for her?

Before I got married, there was an instance of a similar nature where an elder male relative was making up a story about me. My father was speaking to a family friend about the fact that he had a daughter of marriageable age and asked him to keep an eye for a potential match. My relative then chimed in and said something about my horoscope, which was not particularly positive, but more importantly was not even true. Later my dad told us the story and then commented, ”how the hell would he know about MY daughter’s horoscope, when I do not even know this information?” Our religion is against horoscopes, although some people choose to do it anyway. Who knows why he made that up. Looks like he took the time and money to make my horoscope and then didn’t bother sharing it with me … RUDE!!!!

There is extreme pressure on anyone who is in their 20s to get married, especially young ladies. My sister is in that age range and she gets quite tired of people always asking her about her marital status. At this point in time she doesn’t care to entertain the idea. She wants to become more independent, more able to support herself. People often times see that as something must be wrong with her, but who are we to make that judgement upon anyone? We do not know what chapter of their life we walked in on. If anyone chooses to remain single, first off, it is not our business. Second, it is a choice that should be respected. We as a society feel that it is our right to know these things, but the fact of the matter is, what is the point? What will one do with knowing? How will this better your life?