And I choose to put it in those terms on purpose (it’s clearly a bit more complicated than that). Sural just forwarded an article in the Washington Post about the wedding quandry of young Indian-Americans. Being a young Indian-American who will soon be past my prime marriage age, I can completely relate to some of the experiences of the various people described in the article. It’s worth taking a look at this, even though it’s quite long (I’m still reading it).

Update: So, I’ve finished reading it. It’s a little too happy for me. While I think that it does work out in many cases, there are stories of “semi-arranged” marriages failing as well, in part because the couple had different expectations for marriage. I really did enjoy the article, though. The article made several interesting points. One was that many Indian children still living in India are having better luck convincing their parents that they want a “love marriage” than the children of Indian immigrants in the U.S. The reason is that the Indian-American parents have a fixed sense of what is “Indian” which is tied to the time they left India. So, changes in tradition seem to be a “betrayal of Indian-ness” even though “Indians in India are happy to change and don’t have those hangups.”

Something to think about. Too bad my parents don’t read this. On second thought, I take that back… it’s probably a good thing.