INDIA Culture Guide, Friday January 27, 2012

In my efforts to be able to understand Indian culture from a very general point of view (since I am not there yet and don't know much right now) I decided to read a culture guide travel book that my mom bought me when I told her that I would be going to India this summer. Despite the fact that this book was meant for tourists who are sight seeing, rather than students doing international development, I still thought it might be useful to read a general culture description. I opened to "Family Values" and was surprised at what I had learned.

Obviously, I knew that India was a traditional society, and therefore it would be mostly male-oriented. However, the culture guide explained that in a household, the oldest man is the patriarch, but the wife and mother is also a central figure. She holds it up with the cooking and the cleaning and she oversees what other women in the house, daughters, and maids do. I thought it was so interesting because I knew that the woman was in charge of the domestic chores, but never had I expected that along with the male head of the house, the woman would be right beside him. I thought it was so fascinating that she has a great deal to say in the arranged marriage of her son, since her new daughter-in-law would be the one taking care of her and her husband once they reached old age. I immediately thought of my project and how the women I will be interviewing will be the "head ladies" of their homes. I have thought about interviewing younger, unmarried girls too. I wonder if their responses to their self-perception will be very different from that of their mothers. In pondering about this, I anticipate some differences because a young, unmarried girl will be doing a lot of studying, or perhaps "training" to be a wife, with the help of her mother at home. She probably has not developed a solid identity yet as a woman in a rural village because, unlike her mother, she does not own a house with a husband, she does not have children whom she cares for and are undeniably dependent on her, and she has not reached that milestone in her life where she can even call herself a woman in her mind. I think that these factor will play a very interesting role in the lives of the women I will be around, and these factors will definitely change the responses I will receive from them.

Something else I read that I found interesting and pertinent to my project, was the fact that there is a culture shift happening in India in their current situation. I read that teenagers, if they have the opportunity to study and go to school, they are pressured to do well and succeed, so that they can be admitted to a university and further their education. It seems pretty clear that education is a extremely important in the minds of Indians. During these crucial years, girls and boys are usually separated in schools to "protect" them from each other. Romance is usually associated with promiscuity and would spoil the chances of a young woman or man to marry someone with whom they seem most compatible with. Because of the success that arranged marriages have proven, India has boasted of low divorce rates in the past. However, recent polls have shown that the divorce rates have increased to a 7%...and this is due to the culture shift that India is facing. New opportunities for women to be independent and receive an education, makes them less interested in an arranged marriage. If they can go to a prestigious university and make a life of themselves, why would they want to spend energy and time looking for a husband?
As I read that, I thought about the perceptions of women have changed recently within India. I wonder if the women in the village of Chavadi will be aware of this shift, and how they feel about it. Perhaps this may appeal to the younger girls, while the mothers and granddaughters will find it barbaric.
I am very curious to see what the women I will be around are thinking, as I bring up the subject of this culture shift in India. How I will bring it up is still something I am constantly working on.