Love is Blind Marriage is Not

by CEDRIC SILVEIRA
Posted on 2009-06-11
When Violet from Tivim had reached the marriageable age in 1975 and had not yet managed to find a suitable groom, her parents were distraught.
High and low they searched for a prospective match, but without luck. They finally turned to their friends abroad to look out for a groom for their daughter.
Luck came almost immediately, as a groom was found in London for the girl. During that time, people hardly even travelled abroad, and phoning was difficult.
Moreover, letters which were the chief means of communication woud take almost a month to reach. All the same, she decided to take the plunge and go ahead to London. Her parents, both not keeping too well, declined to go, and she was left to go all by herself to an unknown land and to meet an unknown person whom she perhaps would spend the rest of her life. Imagine the risk that poor Violet had taken.
Similar stories can be heard even today, with many educated girls going abroad to get married.
Points out Ms Sarita Mehndanha, counsellor from Porvorim, “At least if the boy is in the Gulf or on the ship, some degree of security is obtained as they come down regularly and more can be known about them.
Yet, going to London or Canada has always fascinated people from Goa as one can see the stream of applications to migrate abroad.”
On the other hand Ms Lucy Azavedo from Margao had the fascination of only getting married to a boy from abroad, and that too either from England or the US.
No Goan was good enough for her and so finally, it was decided that she search for herself for a boy. Through the internet, she found a prospective husband. But to her bad fortune, not only was he married, but also had two kids.
Such stories of woe certainly call for a lot of investigation when going for a match from abroad.
Adds Ms Agustina Fernandes, another counsellor , “What our girls nowadays are influenced by are foreign movies, songs, western lifestyle and the like, which automatically make them want a boy from abroad. Goan fish curry and rice no longer appeals to them which automatically makes them search for grooms outside Goa or India.”
Certainly, the television and other media are responsible to a large extent for girls leaving Indian shores. It may not be in every case that a girl going abroad will find an infidel partner. However, care must be taken to find out about the boy that the girl wishes to marry before jumping into a disastrous matrimony.