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The Daily Telegraph
Marriage Brokers Help To Bridge The Racial Divide |
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH - Tuesday, December 4, 1990
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AFTER THEIR first lingering kiss, they were 'madly in love'.
Within a few weeks, they were married.
No, this is not taken from a teenage magazine.
It is, in fact, a story of everyday romance in multiracial Britain,
but it is not without some unusual aspects.
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He is an eligible and polished Englishman of 26, a graduate employed in a London office. She is a vivacious Punjabi,
aged 24, British born, with eight 'O' and three 'A' levels, who works for a TV company.
The time from first hesitant meeting to their wedding was only six months.
The story does, however have one twist, indicative of changing trends in the love life of the British. This couple
and others like them met through a bureau specialising in cross-cultural marriages.
Part of the function of the Laj Marriage Bureau, based in Slough, Berkshire, is to match Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs
with partners from their own community. This is a task undertaken by all Asian marriage bureaux in Britain.
But, increasingly, white men are also enlisting in order to acquire Asian brides. Laj arranges between 15 and 30
such marriages a year.
Many single Asian women are also joining the bureau to meet white men. Those who have been brought up in Britain
believe that if they marry a white husband they have more chance of escaping the male domination that marriage
between Asians often entails.
In the case of the 26 year old Englishman, his reasons for coming to Mr Sushil Kumar Verma, 55, who runs the Laj
bureau, were straightforward. Like other Englishmen who have registered with Mr Verma, he wanted "a good wife
who will look after me and be faithful".
The woman, who was escorted by her parents, was initially reluctant to be introduced. "Why don't you meet
him?" Mr Verma suggested.
The couple met, discovered they worked near each other and had much in common. They began to see each other secretly.
When she had rejected other eligible and wealthy Asian men ("including one with two flourishing shops"),
she finally told her parents that she was deeply involved with the Englishman. Their marriage was a happy affair
attended by relatives from both families.
It first became clear three years ago that Asian marriage bureaux were arranging cross-cultural matches.
Sometimes, though not always, the white men have emerged bruised from a broken marriage.
The Asian women tend to be divorced, in their 30s, often with very young children. Such women are rarely acceptable
to men from their own community.
Now, the girls are often single, but unable for cultural reasons to meet partners at parties or in pubs.
Mr Verma gives three examples of marriages he has arranged between white men and Asian women:
- The man, a civil servant aged 33, married a Hindu receptionist, aged 27, who came to Britain from east Africa
at an early age.
Her parents were separated which made her less acceptable to the families of prospective Hindu bridegrooms. The
Englishman married the woman after a six week courtship.
- The man, a sales representative, aged 31 and a Roman Catholic, travelled from the Midlands to Scotland to meet
the 27 year old woman, a Christian from Pakistan. "I am looking for an Asian lady to cook me Asian food,"
he joked. His wish has now been fulfilled.
- A 32 year old English school teacher from the north of England married a divorced Sikh woman, aged 27. She
had been deceived by her first husband, also a Sikh, who married her in India without telling her he already had
two children by his English common-law wife.
She discovered this only when she arrived unannounced in London six years after her marriage.
Through the bureau, she met the Englishman, who was also divorced. She was touched when he sent her flowers afterwards,
the first time this had happened to her. She telephoned Mr Verma and confided: "He's very nice."
After their marriage the man wrote to Mr Verma: "You really did provide the perfect match".
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