Marriages may be made in heaven, but quite
a few are being made on the Internet – and in Pakistan
of all places.
A report in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday
says a popular match-making site being used in Pakistan
is www.mehndi.com.
One young woman who accessed the website
is now trying to pick up the most suitable match from
the 20 proposals that her listing produced. According
to the report, she is 23-year-old Amber Khan, a fashion
student from Lahore.
“Everyone has the right to choose
their own life partner. They can choose, they can select,
they can communicate with them - they can even meet them
before they’re married,” she said. The enthusiasm
with which increasing numbers of Pakistanis such as Ms
Khan have embraced online matchmaking casts a spotlight
on the constant tension between modernity and tradition
in this overwhelmingly Muslim country, says the report.
The story mentions the Geo TV programme
Shaadi Online anchored by Mustansar Hussain Tarrar, which
its producer Nadia Mazhar says is part of a revolution
that has brought to Pakistan’s masses the sort of
power over their personal lives that was once available
only to the country’s more secular elite. “If
you go to the middle class,” Ms Mazhar said, “this
is a big deal to them - ‘We can do this!’
” However, the scene in Pakistan, the report points
out, is “a long way from the freewheeling romantic
marketplace of the Western world, as Pakistanis try to
adapt new resources to their customs”.
The newspaper quotes a local man as lamenting
that the centuries-old system of arranged marriages is
being eroded by a new media age that preaches Western-style
relationships. Local tradition that the man believes also
meets Islamic requirements, in which elders should be
in charge of their children’s lives, is being lost.
“The new matchmaking mediums usually
stress that they are intended as tools for marriage rather
than casual relationships. Parents can post on Mehndi.com
and similar websites on behalf of their children, and
all pictures displayed aremodest,” says Mehndi founder
Hayee Bokhari.
But there’s no guarantee that the
sites won’t be used for dating. Bokhari, a Pakistani
who lives in Canada and launched Mehndi.com in March,
estimates that half his users seek dates rather than matrimony.
The newspaper points out that although
it’s a path increasingly being taken by Muslims
around the world, the use of the Internet to find a partner
has acquired an unsavoury taint in some quarters of Pakistan.
Newspaper columnists bemoan unseemly surfing
in the Internet cafes that have sprouted in even the smallest
towns. In one notorious case, several couples met in a
private room of one cafe for sexual liaisons, unaware
they were being videotaped.
Online streaming video is a cautionary
tale for the country’s traditionalists but a matter
of amusement for Pakistan’s new generation of Web
surfers, such as Mariam Alam. The 21-year-old Islamabad
teacher cruises Internet chat rooms and has arranged dates
with numerous men – “I’ve lost count,”
she says.
Often, according to her, the relationships
don’t last beyond the third date, and usually revolve
around secret meetings in cars so as not to destroy her
reputation. She was prepared to marry one of the men,
she says, but had to call off the wedding when her father
found she’d met her fiancé online. She says
women of her generation are discovering the joys of having
careers and control over their lives. That naturally leads
to resistance to the old institution of arranged marriages.
Of the last seven arranged marriages she’s attended,
she said, five have already ended in divorce.
The newspaper says, “Even for men,
spouse-hunting in Pakistan has been no picnic. Take Asif
Iqbal-Naz, a Lahore travel agent who has been looking
for six months for a woman who fits his criteria. His
complaint will sound familiar to anyone who’s been
single: ‘Noble, honest, smart and well-educated,’
he lamented, ‘are not available.’ No eligible
woman in his small extended family fit that bill. He’s
not allowed to interact with women at work or meet them
socially. So, at his parents’ urging, Iqbal Naz
called ‘Shaadi Online’. ‘This way, you’re
in contact with so many people,’ he said. ‘Otherwise,
the search is confined. You just have your own circle.”’
The show is about to extend its reach
- the producers are preparing a searchable online database
of marriage candidates and will air the programme via
satellite in the US in July. The show already airs in
Dubai, home to a sizable Pakistani community. Part of
the success of ‘Shaadi Online’ lies in the
fact that people like Raheel and Iqbal Naz do not see
it as contrary to Pakistani tradition. The producers interview
the parents of the ‘candidate’ as well as
the bachelor or bachelorette. The express goal is marriage.
