தமிழர் பண்பாடும் காதலும்

தமிழர் பண்பாடும் காதலும்

"காதலுக்கு காத்து கிடப்பது சுகமெனில் காதலை காக்க வைப்போரும் உத்தமரே"

"காதலுக்கு காத்து கிடப்பது சுகமெனில் காதலை காக்க வைப் போரும் உத்தமரே” 

இதுதான் தமிழர் பண்பாட்டின் அடிப்படை. அதனை விடுத்து கூடிக் கலந்தால் தான் காதலென எண்ணி உண்மைக் காதலுக்கு இரும்புத் திரை போட்டு, கட்டு அறுத் தோடுவதும் (தமிழர்) பண்பாடு ஆகாது.

 

Having described the culture of Tamils (தமிழர் பண்பாடு), it is quite interesting to research the alliance-making towards a successful marriage among the Sri Lankan Tamils in the present context. There are few methods of alliance-making within the Tamil Community,

1.    Inducting the major son and going to be daughter-in-law, vise-versa to understand each other /arranging to love towards marriage- widespread among very close relatives – mostly siblings of parents.  

2.    Arranging the possible life partners for loving toward marriage – mostly found among distant relatives and family friends

3.    If one and two are not possible call in a 3^rd person to help find an alliance as a friend or

4.    Through the paid hirer, that is how Marriage Brokerage began and burst into a booming business that devasted the Sri Lankan community for a long particularly the Tamil community.      

It has been evident even from our ancestral practices that the system 1. And 2. which prioritized lifelong partners understanding each other and encouraged marrying the direct cousins. This way the parents direct their children to marry a cousin who would fall in love with marriage. If there are no suitable direct cousins, they will go to the next option 2, seeking close relatives or friends and making their children free to move toward understanding each other. In both ways, it is evident that our ancestors have encouraged cultured love (பண்படான காதல்)- It is very awe-inspiring to observe that even in this modern techno period most families resort to this cultured method for respect and economy of involved parties. During our ancestral period, children were very obedient, and social challenges and demands were much less for 1 and 2 were very successful in contrast, in the modern techno period Tamil youths of both genders are exposed to matrimonial websites and Dating Websites, and even worse is those websites are being considered as the only method for seeking their life-partners, by them.

This attitude of Tamil youths born out of youthful exuberance for exploring undoubtedly challenges the psychic characteristic of Tamil girls/women and hence very antic to Tamil Culture (தமிழர் பண்பாடு). Here the youthful exuberance for exploring overruns the parental control for cultured love (பண்படான காதல்), inducted for accomplishing the methods 1and 2 of alliance making.  

When considering the method of hiring an alliance maker comes into play when the parents do not have avenues for the first 3 options, this also confers parental control and inducts love as well - if marriage is not hurried for other reasons. For a long, print media also has been serving the purpose very well through matrimonial advertisements. The brokerage became a booming business in the 1970s and 1980s and middle-class families faced the impact of it since the dowry system was in place that decided the brokerage fees, even made an impact on the birth rate as well, as families feared the consequences of bigger families later in their lives.  

Anyhow the warring situation within North and East of Sri Lanka changed the pattern of this, as families became dependent on each other for social needs and methods 1 and 2 came to the forefront for alliance-making irrespective of what class they were in economically and still intact; the rebellion groups also banned the dowry demanding for marriages. In the present situation, dowry demand is fading out as an obstruction to marriage alliances through whatever method it was inducted.

The overall observation is that matrimonial websites and Dating Websites are contracted from Western culture, and their infiltration into the alliance-making for marriages within the Tamil community is a serious threat to the Tamil Culture (தமிழர் பண்பாடு) – since those websites carry all the aspects of Western culture practices that would take place before the actual marriages, and demolishes the psychic characteristic of the Tamil girls/women.