There are a couple of reasons why Valerie and I decided to buy cheap bands before I left NYC. Not only would it otherwise be completely unacceptable for the two of us to travel and stay together, but apparently – as a bachelor living alone – I’d be regularly propositioned by acquaintances looking to marry off relatives and pimps looking to hook me up for a night.
When talking about my “wife” Valerie, I often get asked the following interesting question: “Well, was it a love marriage?!” The alternative, of course, is an arranged marriage, which is still the norm in Bangladesh.
On Sunday evening I attended my first Bangladeshi wedding. Not only was it an arranged marriage, but the bride and groom never met face-to-face until AFTER the official ceremony was over and the papers were signed.
As a sign of the times though, the couple did become “friends” on Facebook shortly after becoming engaged!
In Bangladesh, there is a reverse dowry system whereby the groom has to pay the bride’s family a significant sum up front and then agree to pay even more if the couple gets a divorce. In many cases, I’ve heard that the woman’s family will demand a new refrigerator or a color tv – basic stuff for the house. (Hey, a wedding registry for parents!) Unfortunately, after the wedding has already been planned, the “negotiations” will often break down, sometimes at the last second during the ceremony itself. While this isn’t very common anymore, women in such circumstances have been known to commit suicide, knowing they’d have no hope of getting married again. As an outsider, this of course seems both silly and sad…
In the wedding I went to, the negotiations were taken care of well in advance and everything went smoothly. The groom studied at the Univ of Nebraska and has been living in Abu Dhabi for the past several years, while the bride has spent her entire life in a tiny village four hours from Dhaka. As soon as her visa is processed, she will say goodbye to her family and board a plane with this stranger (err … her husband) and head off to her new life in the Middle East. Talk about rolling the dice!!
Thinking about the matchmaking process, I’m so curious to know how many gossipy aunts were involved…
When I arrived at the ceremony, I thought (and hoped) I’d be the most random and least important person at the party. Upon arrival, however, the film crew (i.e. a guy with a fancy HD video camera and two lighting/sound technicians) spotted me coming in the door and raced across the room to film me as I entered the party. As I've experienced many times now, people often act quite strange when a (white) foreigner enters the room.
Within minutes, they had me posed up on stage (against my wishes) with the wedding party for formal pictures. That was nothing though compared to their intrigue when I sat down to have dinner. I haven’t written about this yet, but in Bangladesh you don’t use any cutlery to eat but rather use your right hand. (I specify right because the left hand is used for an entirely different purpose, but I’ll get to that at another time.) I’ve enjoyed adopting this local custom, but judging from the camera guy who hovered over my table while I ate, my technique of mashing meat and rice between my fingers must have been completely wrong!
As I walked out of the party with my half-Bangladeshi friend, I remarked at just how nervous the couple must be starting a new life together without going on a single date.
His reply, “Well, all marriages eventually result in bickering and zero sex, so who cares whether you pick the person or not!”
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