CEREMONICES IN BANGLADESH

The biggest, most important event of a girl’s life in Bangladesh, and anywhere in the world, is her wedding day. Earlier, the wedding was a family event in Bangladesh.Pre-wedding celebrations such as “Paan Chini” (Engagement), “Gaye Holud”-s took place at home while the wedding would only be an outside event that also if the guest list was too long. The mother, aunts and sisters participated in cooking, flower ornaments were made by the younger cousins and sister in laws and the stage decorations and the Alponas where all done by family members and friends. Idea of fun was to work together days and nights to present the bride to be in the most attractive way the family could afford. The satisfaction of the parents came from being able to marry their daughter off, in pride, amongst colorful events arranged by themselves with merriment and gaiety around the house for an entire week. While the wedding remains the most significant event of a girl’s life, today the celebrations have taken a very different look in the country. In today’s high priced market of Bangladesh a wedding is not just finding your daughter or son their life partner, it is also a contest where the two parties tries to spend more than the other trying to portray a wedding scene from one of the popular Hindi serials or a Bollywood movie. This new practice takes its toll over the middle class people of the country who want to provide their offspring a memorable wedding yet struggle with the expenses of it. Some of us, the girls that is, actually look forward to the lavish events. While some others deny any interest in the gold jewelry, expensive saris and extravagant decorations yet participate in them nevertheless. How many of us today can completely reject such practices and go back to the earlier family weddings? Why do we feel the urge today to compete in jewelry or saris with everyone else around us disregarding each others social status or income sources? The average monthly income of a middle to upper middle class family where both the husband and wife are employed at some kind of Government service or the kind would range between Tk.20,000-50,000. Increasingly Dhakaties are taking up corporate jobs with higher salaries, yet it is the new generation who is more into multinational jobs than the parents of the bride and groom. Keeping this in mind, lets look at the cost of a wedding in Dhaka for a middle to upper class family