Marriage Ceremonies

In India, virtually everybody gets married. Marriage is a religious duty for
twice-born men, satisfying one of their
Three Debts, in this case the debt to
their ancestors. Twice-born men are
householders born into one of the three
“twice-born” groups in Indian society,
brahmin, kshatriya, or vaishya. Such
men are eligible to receive the adolescent religious initiation known as the
“second birth.” For most Hindu women,
being wives and mothers defines their
identity. Marriage is also the event by
which families are formed and grow.
Since the family is considered the
bedrock of Hindu society, for most people, marriage is the single most important event in their lives.
The great significance of marriage
in Hindu culture means that this
life-changing event is attended with
potential peril because there is no
certainty of success. Other potential
dangers come from the inauspicious
nature of certain times, people, and
the belief that this inauspiciousness
may bring bad fortune for the future.
Finally, given that the bride and groom
are the center of attention in the days
before the marriage, there is the danger
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Marriage Ceremonies
In many traditional Hindu marriage ceremonies,
the groom’s turban is attached to the bride’s sari,
binding the couple together.
that other people’s ill will and envy may
unleash malevolent and unseen forces. As
with many of the other life transitions,
Hindu marriages are attended with considerable attention to discerning the
unseen forces that could have a negative
affect on the couple’s future life and protecting the bride and groom from them.
The wedding is always performed at an
astrologically auspicious time, to start the
marriage on the best possible note. In the
days before the wedding, the bride is often
secluded, keeping her from coming in
contact with people or things deemed
inauspicious. On their wedding day both
the bride and groom are anointed and
adorned similar to the deities in a temple—according to popular belief, on their
wedding day, the couple become Lakshmi
and Vishnu, god and goddess. This
heightened status puts them in ritual danger when they are outside in the world,
both from the legion of sources for ritual
impurity (ashaucha), and because they
are believed to be more susceptible to the
evil eye (nazar) and other forms of witchcraft. These dangers are countered by
amulets and various rites of protection
when the bride or groom must be in the
public eye, such as when the groom and
his group of friends travel in triumphal
procession to the wedding hall, as is common in northern India. Once inside, the
danger is less pressing, since they are in a
closed and ritually structured environment, surrounded by family and friends.
There is no single Hindu marriage
ceremony, as is clear from the eight classical forms of marriage recognized in
the dharma literature. Of these eight,
the two forms generally practiced today
are the Asura form, in which the groom’s
family gives money as a brideprice to
obtain the bride; and the Brahma form,
in which the bride’s family gives their
daughter to the groom, without making
any conditions on him at all (although
in contemporary times the groom’s
family can usually expect a dowry
with the bride). The Brahma marriage
carries much higher social status and
is the most popular form. Although in
such a marriage the wedding ceremonies have regional and sectarian
variation, certain common rites reveal
important cultural assumptions.
The two major themes in a Hindu marriage are the transfer of the bride from her
family to her husband’s family, and the
indissoluble merging of bride and groom
into a new entity, the married couple. The
transfer of the bride is done in the
kanyadan ritual, the “gift of the virgin”
performed by the bride’s father. The bride
and groom’s marital union is symbolized
by several common rites, including panigrahana, in which the groom takes the
bride’s hand as a sign of their union.
Another such rite, considered the defining
point of the marriage, is the saptapadi, the
“seven steps” which the bride and groom
take together. The seventh step completes
the bride’s transfer to the groom’s family; it
is at this point that the marriage becomes
indissoluble. In modern times the saptapadi is often performed in conjunction
with another ceremony, the agnipradakshinam (“circumambulating the fire”).
Instead of taking seven steps, the bride
and groom make seven revolutions
around a small fire. On one hand, the presence of fire shows that marriage is a yajna
or Vedic sacrifice. On the other, since the
fire is considered to be the Vedic god Agni,
he becomes the divine witness to the marriage. During the circumambulations the
bride and groom are often physically
joined by tying part of his turban to the
edge of her sari. This visible bond between
them is yet another sign of the inner union
that has just been formed.
As described, in marriage the wife’s
identity is “assimilated” to her husband’s, rather than some sort of mutual
transformation. In northern India, the
bride lives with her husband’s family
after the marriage; her new identity
stems solely from her relationship
with her husband, whereas his identity remains essentially unchanged,
although augmented by marriage. For
further information see Pandurang
Vaman Kane (trans.), A History of
Dharmasastra, 1968; and Raj Bali
Pandey, Hindu Samskaras, 1969.
For information on modern practice,
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Marriage Ceremonies
see Lawrence Babb, The Divine
Hierarchy, 1975. See also marriage,
eight classical forms.