You know how in India people tend to get set up for marrying someone by their family? What if we told you that on average, a marriage in India lasts much, much longer than one in the USA? Yes, this is exactly the case, and here’s the scoop of how and why this happens.
Priorities And Social Standards
In case you didn’t know, the subcontinent known as India is one of the countries that have the lowest divorce rating in the world. While this number goes up to 50% in the United States, India boasts with the fact that a mere one percent of marriages end with a divorce.
Now, there are quite a few reasons for this. As you probably already know, arranged marriages are a common concept in India, which means a lot young men and women become a part of joint families thanks to being set up for marriage by their parents.
Getting into an arranged marriage as a citizen of India is easy, but getting out of one is damn near impossible. Once the deed is done and the contract has been signed, you’ve basically thrown away any potential option you had so far – or in other words, you’re stuck.
An arranged marriage is a phenomenon in which two families merge rather than just the bride and groom. Breaking off an arranged marriage brings dishonor, shame, and disgrace to both families involved, which is unacceptable considering how much value family and caste honor possess in India.
The second big factor that causes such a low divorce rate in India is social standards. A divorce is considered as a stain on your character (as well as your family’s reputation and honor), which causes the concept to be almost completely disregarded, while many won’t even acknowledge the idea. In fact, there’s a good number of people in India that believe a divorce is illegal, even though it’s actually not.
Even when a couple marries out of love, their relationship is still considered as a lifetime-lasting bond between two families. So in the case of two people being able to avoid an arranged marriage (which is very hard to do), they still have to consider their families if one day they realize they’ve made a mistake.
Finally, we’ve got the patriarchal stigma Indian society was largely built upon. Although considerable progress has been made, women have a hard time finding a job in this country, so they’re not really used to earning money or handling finances. Once she becomes divorced, she risks the chance of her family disowning her, which leads her to having to work to survive. And since girls mostly do housework and raise children in India, you can see why this can be a problem.
In any case, we can easily conclude that marriages (both arranged and love-induced) in India last longer than those in western countries mostly because a divorce is a taboo. People will stick together no matter what, so the phrase “Till death do us part” actually takes a literal meaning when it comes to Indian marriages.