Source

LONDON, ENGLAND, JUNE 21, 2003: Young Indians and Pakistanis are reshaping the tradition of arranged marriages in Britain. While couples were once introduced exclusively by relatives and friends, there is now a boom in Asian marriage web sites, chat rooms and personal advertisements. But South Asian “speed dating” — Hindus one night, Muslims the next — is the latest phenomenon to hit London, with men and women meeting each other for just three minutes at restaurants and bars before moving on to the next potential mate. Arranged marriages are still the norm within these communities in Britain, but the nature of the arrangement has evolved, mostly by necessity. What the young Indians and Pakistanis of Britain have done, in effect, is to modernize practices that had evolved among the urban middle class in India in recent decades, allowing the prospective bride and groom a little more than one fleeting meeting to make up their minds. “The term we use now is ‘assisted’ arranged marriage,” said Maha Khan, a 23-year-old London Muslim woman. “The whole concept has changed a lot. Parents have become more open and more liberal in their concept of marriage and courtship.” HPI adds: One wonders how open the parents will be when the UK catches up with the US, where one out of every three babies is born to an unwed mother, according to the most recent statistics.

Post Views: 260