Suitable Boy

Published in The Nation's Free magazine on August 17

If you come from one of those typical families, where every single relative has a say in your life, then you would have already heard them discuss your marriage. You can be 20, just starting university and with no intention of tying the knot anytime soon, but the females of your family won’t even care about that. It’s never too early to start looking, they firmly believe.

Girls are the first victims. At the family gatherings, those aunties and achchis will ask your age, whether you are studying or working and then, somehow bring in the topic of marriage. “Ammala oyata galapena kenek hoyala dewi,” they will say (your parents will find a suitable boy for you.) The suitable boy in their minds will most probably be related to you, a few years older, stocky and boring, but with a ‘good job’ and someone who is not at all interested in anything romantic. At first you ignore their banter, laughing along, but soon enough, you’ll realize that they are not joking. They are actually trying to set you up with that one male cousin you’ve always found annoying.

As you get older, the female relatives will start suggesting marriage in a more urgent manner. They will scare you with stories of old maids, ‘Remember Alice Nanda? She was my grandmother’s sister. Dark, like you. Stubborn too. Didn’t find a man on time and had to spend the rest of her life taking care of other’s  children. Not a life for a woman, no?’ they will go on and on. So your earliest memories are of ladies in too-rich-for-the-occasion saris saying you must find a suitable boy before it’s too late.

At some point, you wonder what exactly people mean by a suitable boy. Can you ever find someone you are totally compatible with?

Doing some observations, a suitable boy seems to be one with a good job, a house and vehicle, a good family (basically, a good surname) and an acceptable reputation. It is better if he went to a Colombo school and is fluent in English. Some grandmothers and mothers will also go as far to check if his nails are trimmed, what kind of perfume he uses, how he treats his parents and what kind of words he uses.

It may seem like the matter of marriage only concerns the unmarried females of the family. However, the love lives of males are also questioned by inquisitive relatives. If the boy is friends with some despised lady’s daughter, the entire family starts a lengthy investigation. The boys are also put through an interrogation at family gatherings. The relatives start with a question like, ‘now putha, you must be fancying one of these girls here, no? Marry a cousin, then no need to worry also.’

A girl is considered suitable if she is fair, smart and homely, has a good reputation and hasn’t mingled with many men. I’ve heard my grandmother talk about marrying off two unmarried relatives, saying that girl is smart. They’ll make a good couple. But she’s dark. So even if the boy looks like he fell in a jar of black ink, the girl must be fair.

One may wonder why we can’t find a partner and decide who is suitable and who isn’t. However, our female relatives and even some of the males have made it their life goals to marry us off to someone of their choice.

When we do find someone, when we do fall in love, our parents, especially our mothers, won’t be comfortable with the idea at first. They find fault in our choice of partner. We think this is because they don’t think we are capable of making such a decision, although the decision will directly affect our life and not theirs. However, the reason for their initial rejection is simple. They don’t want to lose us, and no matter how suitable or perfect-for-us this man/woman is, he/she will distance us from our parents. Our parents feel like they are losing us to someone who will never love us enough, who will never know us fully and who will never know what’s best for us.

Most of us end up getting married. Some of us choose husbands/wives who don’t fit the description of suitable boy/girl. Most marriages last, some don’t. No one’s to blame. We can’t blame our parents for finding a man or woman who we never got along with and our parents can’t blame us for choosing someone who didn’t suit us or our families. Marriage is complicated, it’s difficult to decide who suits us the most, and yet, our families will continue their searches for suitable boys and girls for the unmarried relatives.