The Archive

Culture Mulcher

Whilst assisting a friend who shall remain nameless in his quest to find 'the one' through the medium of the interweb, I have learned a number of interesting cross-cultural differences.

We ended up considering putting him on 2 different sites: The splendid Guardian Soulmates and the rather more culturally specific shaadi.com.

At the first, you are asked what you are looking for. The options on offer are:

• Activity Partners


• Friends


• A Fling


• A Short term relationship


• Let's see what happens


• A long term relationship


• Marriage

In contrast, when asking what you are looking for at Shaadi.com, the options provided are:

• Bride


• Groom

Right. That's pretty much setting the stall out isn't it?

Back to Soulmates, as standard issue questions they ask you about your body type, hobbies, income, profession, ethnicity and that kind of thing.

At Shaadi, they ask all of these, and add a few more that you probably won't come across at Dating Direct, Match or any of those mainstream chaps. These include:

• Caste


• Sub Caste


• Residency/visa status


• Complexion (ranging from 'very fair' through 'wheatish' to 'dark')


• Blood group

It then goes on to ask you who it was who filled out the profile (yourself, your parents, sibling, friend, other) and who should be contacted if you're interested (same list).

But wait, there's more. Clearly this is not near enough information to make a proper decision in the marriage market, so you also get to say how your parents are doing, what their profession is and not only whether you have brothers or sisters, but their marital status too.

Then you are asked to disclose any disabilities, mental and physical, and whether these have been with you since birth or the result of an accident.

Overall, you have to do everything bar submit a DNA profile to their database.

These people do not mess about.

So, does it work? Who knows, but I'll let you know when my wedding is imminent. You can all come.

As long as you promise not to tell the bride I'm not actually Asian and ruin everything.

posted by Peter The Great @ 1:12 PM