Looking at the matrimonial page of a newspaper in India is a real eye-opener. Most of the ads are placed by the parents of the individual who is to be matched. The girl’s parents usually focus on education and career prospects of prospective husbands. They are often incredibly specific as to what type of career field and what type of education they insist upon. They sometimes specify which particular universities the guy must have attended. For our US readers, this would be like specifying Cal Tech or MIT (but not Georgia Tech). IT jobs have been highly regarded in India because offshoring provided so many well-paying jobs.
The girl’s parents do this because they want to maximize the chances that their daughter marries a guy who can provide financial security for her. Here is a snippet from a NY Times article that says girls’ parents aren’t as eager to have their daughters marry a guy in the IT field these days:
In a country where most marriages are arranged by parents, the downturn has even taken a toll on the matrimonial prospects of those in technology outsourcing. “Because there is no job guarantees for I.T. people, for the last six months brides’ families have not been accepting grooms from this background,” said Jagadeesh Angadi, a matchmaker in Bangalore.
Here in the US these sorts of decisions are, of course, made by the individual getting married rather than that individual’s parents. But, for women at least, the guy’s career is almost always an important consideration.
That makes sense. If you have the choice between marrying a guy who can provide financial security or marrying a guy who cannot, I’d suggest picking the former, all other things being roughly equal. After all, who wants to go through life worried about whether the bills will get paid this month, or whether her husband will lose his job and the couple will have to move in with the in-laws.
