Most young adults in their early 20s are trying to find themselves, graduate college and step into the real world. But for 22-year-old Sabina Uddin, the only child born to Bengali immigrants Abush and Shereen Uddin who live in Ozone Park, the thought of graduating in two months gives her little to no excitement. Her parents, instead, are the excited ones, having arranged her marriage against her will.
Arranged marriages are a common practice in the Bengali-American community. The parents of prospective brides or grooms set out to find their child’s respective counterparts. The bride is usually chosen for the prospective groom by his family, though sometimes in cases like Uddin’s, a groom may be chosen for the woman. Brides are to be of equal social status and lesser age. In Bengali tradition, when it comes to marriage, it should be a match between the two in financial matters, educational level and religious beliefs. But it does not always work out that way.
Parents often get involved in marriages and are driven by greed. There is an imbalance because a bride’s family who is not as wealthy, will try to marry her into a family where the groom is financially well-off. It is the mentality in the Bengali tradition that the man should be the primary breadwinner and support his woman. Due to this mentality, a prospective bride’s family usually seeks a groom who has a higher education level and has a higher salary than the bride.
In many unfortunate cases, Bengali men living in the United States are forced to marry women back in Bangladesh whose families are not very wealthy. The fact that the man is a U.S. citizen promises enhanced opportunities for the couple in the eyes of the bride’s family.
For Uddin, however, the roles are reversed.
“I don’t even know his name,” she said “All I know is that he barely has an education. He works in a farm and his family is poor and this marriage is supposed to get him access to citizenship in this country so he can provide for his family back home and eventually bring them here too.” Uddin’s parents are aware of the prospective groom’s financial and social status, but they see the marriage as a way of keeping the tradition alive of marrying within the race and religion, and getting people back in their homeland out of poverty by bringing them to the United States.
In Bengali culture, marriage is more of a civil contract than a religious sacrament in Islam.
“Being married in the Bengali community really means the interests of the families involved are more important rather than the two people who are supposed to spend the rest of their lives together,” said Uddin, going on to explain that the bride’s worth is acknowledged when she gives birth—but only if the newborn is a boy.
“Bengali women are taught to act shy around men and their elders. It is engraved in their minds that their job is to cook, clean the house and serve their husbands,” said Uddin. “Marrying this guy will turn me into the typical stereotypical Bengali woman, and since I was old enough to understand the degrading role of women in this culture, I knew I wanted to break away from that stereotype.”
While arranged marriages are still the predominant custom in Bangladesh, this practice is slowly changing in the United States, where dating and individual choices are becoming slightly acceptable.
“Recently there have been more and more couples who are both from Bangladesh who are getting married by their own choice of partner,” said Rashiq Gulshang, an imam who lives in Ozone Park, where the community is predominantly Bengali-American.
“But I have yet to see a couple where one person is not Bengali or Muslim. It has been a belief for so long that you should only marry within Islam and with someone who is from Bangladesh. It may be okay for people from other countries and religions to marry outside of their race and religion but in Islam it really is not.”
“I have so many Bengali friends and cousins who are dating people who are not Muslim or from Bangladesh and they have to hide it from their parents and families,” Uddin said.
Many young Bengalis hide their dating life from their families out of fear of disapproval from their families. The promise of a future becomes an issue for couples when one of them is Bengali as they face cultural and societal barriers.
“I know so many couples who dated for years and suddenly broke up because the Bengali guy or girl wasn’t ready to tell his or her parents about their non-brown boyfriend or girlfriend. It was like, damn, it’s so sad that race and religion seem to dominate love because of how old-fashioned our parents are,” Uddin said.
Although Gulshang does not necessarily support marriage outside of Islam, he believes that this generation of young adults will break the mold and change the culture of marriage in the Bengali-American culture.
“The generation that forces arranged marriages is getting old and the newer generations are starting to take over,” he said. “I already see a change in some aspects of the Bengali culture and I won’t be surprised if one day I am asked to marry two young adults where one of them does not rely his or her faith in Islam.”