One of my female colleagues had a breakup recently. Reason? After more than 5 years of serious dating the guy thinks that his parents won’t agree to the relationship BECAUSE the girl is from a lower caste, so he thought it’s wise that they part their ways in mutual understanding. She was sulking all the time this week, so I told her it’s good that you just wasted 5 years on a guy who couldn’t even stand for you, a lifetime would have been a very costly affair.

On the other side, my first cousin who is a Newar got married to a Rai girl. No family hiccups, they just had one condition that the wedding should be fulfilled in Kirati rituals. It was perfectly fine with our family. Honestly the wedding was interesting as it was a mix of both traditions. First we did everything with the Rai culture and when we came home, we continued with the Newari culture.

Later at night that same day, when we all cousins gathered for some drinks, everyone was talking about intercaste marriages and its pros and cons. It all depends on person to person whether you like it, you accept it or you don’t. We came to a conclusion that we are lucky to have a family who believe in humanity than caste system but it might not be the same story in other families. Even in our family it took years to change the same caste marriage. The first person who took this bold step had to go through a lot of $#!t. He infact had to elope to get married.

Anyway, Looks like Nepal is much more liberal than other South Asian Countries. India has more criminal cases regarding disappearance and murder of people because of inter caste marriages. In Pakistan and Bangladesh it is still a taboo and kids get killed even if they get married to someone out of their tribe.

Maybe it is only in the urban areas of Nepal that intercaste marriages are socially accepted. In villages if you want to get married to a guy out of your caste, you have to elope with him and live in the cities for a while, have a baby and maybe when you return to your village, your family will accept you or maybe not. There are cases where parents have not accepted their child back in the family for marrying outside the caste and they have died with it.

I don’t know if it’s good or bad. Some argue that when someone different from the caste comes in the family who is from a different culture; it is obvious that she will practice her own rituals. That way the family values are going to disappear with time. The caste system which is in practice from the time of Jayastithi Malla, had differentiated the society into class. So most of the time nobody wants their family member to get married to someone from a lower class. Then there is Pani nachalne jaat, the untouchables, who are not suppose to come inside the houses at any cost of the so called upper caste families.

On the contrary, there are families, who accept the value of the person and believe in humanity. They feel it is fine as long as the person is good enough to be a part of the family. We all are human after all and we are belong to the family of God. Scientifically it is proven that the offspring of cross genetics have beautiful features and have sharp and intelligent mind ( Pardon me if I am wrong here, I am just a layman when it comes to science and what I wrote is mere observation and researches I have read). They have stronger immunity and healthier life in majority cases.

But yea if you have a rigid family and you feel you can’t go against your family, there is no point getting into a relationship which you can’t live upto it and you gonna chicken out at the end of the day. So it is upto you if you want a Big Fat Intercaste Marriage, a Flying Marriage, an Arrange Marriage or a Gandharva Marriage….Marriage are surely made in heaven, but you got to live it on Earth. 

Racism is a big problem in United States. It creates all sorts of social turmoil.
Don't you think that Recism is much bigger problem in Nepal? I am still trying to figure out what is the higher caste and what is not. All it gives me is that it boils my blood.

Nepal is not yet ready for inter-caste marriage. Every second line starts with caste based topic.

Bhai ji,

Ragat umline gari tatnu parne jaruri chaina, tesle health lai thik gardaina. Everything is changing for good, though changes in some quarter are faster than others.

Ambrosia,
It is good to know that your family/relative circle is welcoming to different caste jwai/buhari. Even in my relative circle, majority of whom are upadhaya bahaus, some have already welcomed newar/gurung/and like caste jwais and buhari. But, i can remember an instance when the son married a sarki girl [sarki, damai, kami are not deragotory words as i use them], and the family has not yet openly accepted her as daughter-in-law. Interestingly, mother of the husband buy things for her grandchild and meet him as often as she can, though, stealthy. So, the slowest improvements i can see are with inter-caste relationships between bahun/chettris and so called untouchables. I am sure anyone in my family/relatives who is choosing to marry a different caste boy/girl may face some trouble for the short term, but they will be alright after a while. I was just curious, would your relatives be welcoming to dalit jwai/buhari in their home, Ambrosia??, i mean regardless of his/her education/economic background.

Once upon a time, there was an ant (girl) and mosquito (boy) who fell in love so deep that they figured out they can't live without each other. After realizing their deep love and situation their family agreed to their marriage and every thing went well on the day of marriage.
At the night time, Mosquito said good night to his parents and all other relatives and went to his room to celebrate SUHAGRAT. He was very excited to see her as his newly-wed wife looked so beautiful and she was also desperately waiting to see him. But as soon as he would enter the room he would cry and go out. His parents and relatives were worried and curious to find out the what was going on. Finally someone figured out that his wife was waiting there but she had turned on Mosquito repelling Incense (MACHHAD DHUP) as it was as per her custom to wait for husband during SUHAGRAT with Incense :)

Guys, be careful and make sure you are not in love with an ant :)

Having said that there are some issues with intercaste marriage. I am not against it but if there is a choice, I would not. Both my brother and sister got intercaste marriage and our family easily (I would not say happily, probably easily is right word) agreed. My sister still feels humiliated as her SASU still does not eat the food she cooks. She (her SASU cooks by herself) but the good thing is that they are in different cities and meet only once in a while.

These things can only be changed if we educated people start taking initiatives. For example, If your parents want to find a girl for you, you better ask them to start looking for someone outside your caste. And why not break caste barier if it is good for society, humankind and also a wider & varied Gene pool that will help in having Healthier Progeny? In case of our parents, it is difficult to go against the social norms because our society is so much crippled with these deformities that they are bound to be that way. This virus of our society has evolved so much for centuries down to our grand parents and parents that it really needs serious treatment. We all need to take it personally when our parents even want to thrust their ideas of caste system on us. My parents pray for hours everyday, but now they also agree that whatever they were taught to beleive is absolute nonsense. I sometimes feel pround when our neighbors come to my parents to talk about someones kid who elopes away in a different caste and gets a good lesson from my parents. That is how we can change Nepali society.

NepaliBhai,
you ain't have to be in dilemma or confused regarding the caste superiority.
It's simple,
brahim-chettri always being the higher caste, still, however likes some people of
shrestha community despite knowing the fact that they have a stub born relative from Rai community
:P :P

Thank you everyone for replying to this thread.
Nepalilaure,
I dont think they are still open to the untouchable. I mean to say as per for the marriages. Probably it will change with time. I guess its all about acceptance.

Hydrogen sulphide,
I think the mentality needs to change. I noticed that the highclass people feom Nepal are still more conservative regarding intercast marriage. For example my bhai who is a newar was dating a thakuri girl for 3 years. At the end the girl dumped him saying hamro ta jaat mai bihe garnu parcha. She is getting married this season with some rich army guy.

हाहा
कसै कसैले मेरो रिप्लाई को रिप्लाई दिएनन् है. :)

Jaruri lagena malai

ओहो Ambrosia जी,
तपाइले कुरा बुज्नु भएन जस्तो छ है | sojoketo ले तपाई लाइ मन पराउछु/माया गर्छु भनेको होला नि होइन र | :)

होहो. ambrosia jee le नबुजेको कुरा ठ्याक्कै nepali laure bro le बुज्योउ.
i wish ambrosia nepali laure ra nepali laure amrbosia भएको भए.
:)

Nepalilahure jee,
Mann paraune kuro ta kahi lekhiyeko chaina.....yo jaat ko kura ma chhetri bahun ko barchaswa waha le dekhaunu bhayeko jasto chha statement ma

Ambrosia,
very nice read, btw one question or may be food for the next topics,
यो अहिले उठेको जातिगत पहिचान ले अन्तरजातिय कुराले विवाहहरुमा कति असर गरे जस्तो लाग्छ?
I have my personal feeling that if these issues were not raised few years back, things would have been lot more liberal and Nepal already would have been a good ,mixed community.Do you think the same?

I have always advocated that there are few things which shud not be touched regarding national interest. Yes of course everyone has equal rights but to seroggate you are bahun you live in pahads....you are madeshi u live in terai....this is just dividing not only nepal but nepalese....take an example of india (we dont need to go far lol) how people in the north dont accept ppl frm south and vice versa. Hoina ta?

I have always advocated that there are few things which shud not be touched regarding national interest. Yes of course everyone has equal rights but to seroggate you are bahun you live in pahads....you are madeshi u live in terai....this is just dividing not only nepal but nepalese....take an example of india (we dont need to go far lol) how people in the north dont accept ppl frm south and vice versa. Hoina ta?

I have always advocated that there are few things which shud not be touched regarding national interest. Yes of course everyone has equal rights but to seroggate you are bahun you live in pahads....you are madeshi u live in terai....this is just dividing not only nepal but nepalese....take an example of india (we dont need to go far lol) how people in the north dont accept ppl frm south and vice versa. Hoina ta?