by NR INDRAN

Bengali, Marathi and Malayalam speaking communities’ showed a strong preference to look within their community while choosing a marriage alliance. The Bengali and Marathi communities topped the national chart with over 83 per cent of people in these two communities preferring to initiate marriage alliances within their respective communities, reveals a study by Jeevansathi.com where the partner preference for marriages of different communities was analyzed for the period July 2010 to June 2011.

The Malayalam speaking community was second with 77 per cent people looking inwards for an alliance. However there was a dip by 12 per cent as compared to the corresponding period in the previous year where the community preference was 89% the highest in the Jeevansaathi.com 2010 study. This is because in 2011 over 30 per cent of men in the community were open to looking at other communities for an alliance while only 16 % of women were open to this. The study also brings to light the fact that women across all communities preferred to consider an alliance within their own community

Commenting on the findings of the study Rohit Manghnani, Business Head, Jeevansathi.com said, “”The study revealed that the Hindi speaking community of UP and MP were most open to looking outside their community for alliances, followed by Telegu, Tamil and Kannada speaking communities. It has also been observed that people residing in their native states have higher preferences of marrying into their respective communities as compared to individuals who are settled elsewhere.

Contacts initiated by various communities	2010	2011
Malayalam  to Malayalam	89%	77%
Bengali to Bengali	86%	83%
Marathi to Marathi	82%	83%
Gujarati to Gujarati	74%	67.5%
Telugu to Telugu	66%	55%
Kannada to Kannada	64%	57%
Tamil to Tamil	63%	56.5%
Punjabi to Punjabi	57%	59.5%
Hindi-Del to Hindi- Del	49%	59%
Hindi-UP to Hindi- UP	35%	33%
Hindi -MP to Hindi-MP	17%	22%

For Punjabis, Bengali, Marathi, Telegu, and Gujaratis the first preferences outside their community were the Hindi speaking Delhites. Hindi speaking Delhites also emerged as the first preference Hindi speaking communities of Uttar Pradesh at 39 % and Madhya Pradesh at 33 %.

While communities like Marathi and Bengali topped the list and their partner preference within the community changed by only a small per cent, the Gujarati, Telegu, Tamil and Kannada communities became more open to looking at marriage proposals from other communities. In the year 2010, 74 % of Gujarati preferred marrying within their own community whereas in 2011 this number dipped to 67.5 per cent. The Telegu, Kannada and Tamil communities’ inwards preference also showed a downward trend from 66% to 55 %, 64 to 57 %, 63 to 56.5 % respectively.

If we look at a national perspective then the Hindi speaking people of Madhya Pradesh seemed to be most receptive to seeking partners from other communities. It has been witnessed that 39% of people from the Hindi-MP community initiated marriage contacts with Hindi speaking communities of Delhi and 17% of them contacted people from Hindi speaking communities of Uttar Pradesh

However there was an increase in the community preference among Hindi speaking Delhites and Hindi speaking community from Madhya Pradesh. While there was an increase of 10 per cent from 49 % in 2010 to 59 % 2011 among Hindi speaking Delhities, the Hindi speaking people of Madhya Pradesh who seemed to be most receptive to seeking partners from other communities saw an increase in community preference by 5 %.Punjab also saw a similar trend with a growth of 2.5 %.