Fair, Beautiful, Well-Mannered: What Matrimonial Ads Reveal About Indian Attitude For Brides And Grooms

“Seeking simple, clean habits, vegetarian bride willing to be homemaker of our son: MS (CS) USA, Iyer Vegetarian,” reads one of the advertisements on a classified page of a leading English daily of the country. 

Another advertisement reads, “Fair, handsome, athletic physique, no vices, marketing executive, parents well-qualified, NRIs, siblings US citizen, marriage broken in one month (innocent victim) looking for a bride.”

The matrimonial advertisements in one of the dailies on Sunday, August 6, 2023, featured various sections based on caste and professions. 

The sequence of sections was as follows: Saini, Sood, and Rajput, followed by defence personnel, doctors, and engineers grouped together. Next were the scheduled castes, non-resident Indians (NRIs), divorcees, Ahluwalia, Jat, Tonk-Kshatriya, Kamboj, and Manglik.

What’s their in name and face? Everything. 

Most of the matrimonial advertisements focused on physical appearance and a person’s background — caste.

The matrimonial advertisements emphasise on beauty and fair complexion for the to-be brides and grooms. 

Here are a few examples: “Preferably a doctor, for charming 26-year-old, tall with exceptional beauty and a fair complexion”, “suitable match for our fair, beautiful girl”, “beautiful architect girl”, “beautiful Brahmin girl”, “beautiful, well-mannered convent educated”, and “seeking a handsome and well-educated boy for our beautiful and slim daughter”. 

Other examples in a Punjab-based paper include: “beautiful Punjabi Brahmin girl”, “looking for a handsome, NRI match for our slim, fair, and beautiful daughter”, “match for slim, smart, good-looking Hindu Arora girl”, and “status match for slim, fair, and beautiful Khatri girl”. “Suitable match for PhD Brahmin girl, presently not working, upper caste welcome”.

In the classified matrimonial section from another newspaper published in Kolkata, the content includes: “seeks Brahmin Mangalik bride, fair and musical”, “seeks a pretty and suitable bride”, “homely and fair, pretty”, “wants a beautiful, educated, and working bride with values”, and “alliance invited for fair, pretty, and social”. Some of the advertisements feature a “good-looking fair girl seeking an established doctor groom”.

The pattern seems to be the same in Delhi-based newspapers. “Upper caste status for very pretty US educated girl”, “for divorcee, fair, beautiful”, “invites proposal for beautiful, cultured, slim and tall”, “veg smart fair girl”,  and “well-established Sunni Muslim seeks alliance from well-educated, beautiful, homely daughter” — these are just some of the ads in the papers. 

Advertisers say it seems nothing has changed in ‘Groom Wanted’ and ‘Bride Wanted’ sections of newspapers over the years.

When matrimonial ad reached High Court

In 1994, the Punjab and Haryana High Court heard a case where an advertisement was issued looking for a groom for a woman. The ad claimed she was a virgin and divorced soon after her first marriage. It was also claimed she was a graduate. However, it was later found that she was not legally divorced on the date of the advertisement. The fact about graduation was also challenged.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court accepted the husband's case and held: “Had the appellant known at the time of his engagement that the respondent was not a legally divorced woman he would not have given his consent. Similarly, the respondent did not possess the educational qualification mentioned in the advertisement and a husband who is looking for a graduate as his wife would not have consented to the marriage if the misrepresentation had not been made. In the result, it must be held that the consent of the appellant was obtained by fraud on 1-11-1986 when the formal engagement ceremony was held.”

The High Court eventually annulled the wedding. 

The Press Council of India (PCI) has asked newspapers to carry caution notice with matrimonial advertisements carrying the text: “Readers are advised to make appropriate thorough inquiries before acting upon any advertisement, and this newspaper does not vouch or subscribe to claim and representation made by the advertiser regarding the particulars of status, age, income of the bride/bridegroom.” 

Such caution notes seldom figure in the classified advertisement columns.

In 2014, PCI in response to a Right to Information (RTI) query stated that it does not approve of matrimonial advertisements that highlight race, caste, and religion. However, the PCI clarified that it lacks the authority to enforce compliance.

The PCI said it has no jurisdiction over matrimonial advertisements published by newspapers based on race, caste, and religion. The PCI stated that its authority is limited to issuing warnings, admonishments, or censures to newspapers for breaches in the journalistic code of conduct.

The rare matrimonial ad

A rare assertive matrimonial advertisement came to the fore earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic when a woman sought “independent, patient, humorous, and an avid reader of books” and it generated a lot of hope. But it turned out to be fake. 

Amid the Covid pandemic, a matrimonial advertisement clip tweeted by Congress leader and MP Shashi Tharoor caused a stir when a woman, instead of seeking a handsome groom and describing herself as pretty and charming, expressed her desire for someone who had received both doses of the Covishield vaccine. The ad, supposedly appearing in a newspaper’s matrimonial column on Friday, June 4, 2021, said: “Roman Catholic girl, 24/5'4", M.Sc (Maths), self-employed, Covishield-vaccinated (both doses), seeking an alliance with a Roman Catholic boy, 28-30 years old, post-graduate, independent, patient, humorous, and an avid reader of books, also Covishield-vaccinated (both doses)”.

As people appreciated and praised it, calling the ad, ‘the wonder that is Bharat’, fact-checkers later pricked the balloon as they discovered that the advertisement clip was fake, generated through a website called fodey.com. The ad was created by a 58-year-old resident of Goa with the intention to “encourage people to take the vaccine”.

Evolution of matrimonial ads

Ambi M.G. Parameswaran, a brand strategist and founder of Brand-Building.com, tells Outlook, “If you look at one or two year content, there is no change in the matrimonial advertisement content. But if you look at a 20 to 15 years period, there is a clear change in what is written in the matrimonial ads. We only analysed English ads which belong to the upper-class society, considered more educated and more evolved. In these ads, there is a significant change, but it is not a dramatic change.”

Parameswaran, whose research of matrimonial ads in English papers with Prof. Ashita Agarwal spans almost 20 years, says, “Surprisingly the change was happening in ‘bride wanted’ ads while the ‘groom wanted’ ads remained unchanged. The latter ads still emphasise qualities like fair complexion, beauty, and height, which might imply that parents are underselling their daughters. However, Parameswaran says ‘groom wanted’ ads in areas like ‘working bride’ were being seen more frequently and people stating ‘caste no bar’ is on the rise. But we don’t know what actually transpires in the reality.”

Parameswaran and Agarwal examined the descriptive terms used in these ads over the span of 20 years and concluded that in ‘brides wanted’ advertisements, the percentage of complexion declarations released by men’s parents showed fluctuations over the years. It started at 19 per cent in 2003, increased to 20 per cent in 2008, declined to 17 per cent in 2013, further dropped to 12 per cent in 2018, and finally reached 7 per cent in 2021. In contrast, in an article published in The Economic Times in May 2021, the authors said they noted that the self-declaration levels in ‘grooms wanted’ ads released by women’s parents did not change significantly. The percentage of complexion declarations in these ads decreased from 24 per cent in 2003 to 22 per cent in 2008, then to 18 per cent in 2013, but increased again to 16 per cent in 2018 and rose further to 23 per cent in 2021.

Parameswaran says 90 per cent of marriages in India are arranged or arranged with consent. He says India remains an arranged marriage-oriented society where even youngsters express their willingness to marry with parental consent rather than otherwise. He  says a large percentage of marriages are still within the same caste and community.

While advertisers say newspaper matrimonial ads are on decline as people opt for online platforms, some section in the society still see utility in giving matrimonial ads to newspapers.

In 2021, Dove, a personal care brand owned by Unilever, launched a campaign called #StopTheBeautyTest. The campaign urged those who subject women to beauty tests to reconsider. Dove encouraged people to look for beauty beyond such tests and join the movement to stop the beauty test and break stereotypes.

However, Parameswaran’s says the real issue lies in the ‘groom wanted’ ads. 

“My counter to the Dove ad campaign is that problem lies in groom wanted ads,” he adds.