Writing started Feb 20th 2012
Its weird to many cultures Why Indian’s marry their cousins ?
Its wooed upon …ewww’ed upon and laughed upon !!!!Having lived in America myself for too long the concept of people marrying their cousins weirded me out until I came across this passage of scripture and it spoke to me and here are my thoughts about it.
Its very prominent in South India , I say this as I can speak for south Indians and its a significant part of the culture in the entire country and has been in practise for at least the last100 years.
Evidently Hindu culture seems to follow the Holy Bible (Old testament ) more closely that any other culture’s especially in this aspect.
From the Holy Bible Genesis 28:2 —
verse 2Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughter’s of Laban thy mother’s brother.
Who is saying verse 2 —> Issac
Who is supposed to arise and go –> Jacob
Who is the mother –> Rebekah
What is House of Bethuel –> Rebekah’s father’s house
Who is mother’s brother –> Laban
Who should he take as wife —> Daughter’s of Laban
Who is Laban to Jacob –> Uncle
Who are Laban’s daughters to Jacob –> cousins
Who is Jacob to take as wife –> cousin—
Wallah !!!!!!!!!!!!
Clearly this is an arranged match not e-harmony or e-chemistry , arranged marriage concept also takes it root from this.This one verse addresses the concept of
1. Marring the cousins ( Mom’s brothers kids ) and 2. the concept of Arranged marriage.
Marrying the cousins follows a certain logic ——Mom’s daughters can marry her brothers sons , mothers sons can marry brother’s daughter.Doesnot apply to Mom’s sisters kids , Brother’s brother….why may be because Jacob didnt mention it as it had no relevant in Jacob’s situation.
seems confusing : here’s an example
Father has 2 daughters and 2 sons .
lets call the Daughtes — D1 and D2 and sons –S1 and S2 —Marriage between cousins can happen as established above.
now D1′s and D2′s daughters can marry S1 and S2′s sons
D1 and D2′s sons can marry S1 and S2′s daughter.
but S1′s daughters cannot marry S2′s sons and viceversa and D1′s sons cannot marry D2′s daughters and vice versa.
Part 2 :
A huge blessings follows verse 2. do the marriage and be blessed is part of the blessing …
verse 3And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;
In reality here in India ….millions of people have married their cousins , back in the day it was much more prevalent and the same blessing that Issac gave to Jacob is also relevant or applied here to these people…
a.make thee fruitful
b.Multiple thee
c.mayest be a multitude of people
a,b,c holds true for our culture with a population of 1.21 billion in 2011 .
come to think of it …it also happens in the southern regions of United States , may be because its the bible belt and they follow the word closely again in this concept than the rest of the country.
so before you feel its weird or laugh at it …think again its a deep rooted tradition back from the days of Issac !!!!!!!
—–Sucharitha
