Marriage as an institution has undergone a radical transformation from ‘ritual’ to ‘commercial’ in its outlook. Explain the factors behind this change. (2024)
In the Hindu ideal described by K. M. Kapadia (Marriage and Family in India, 1955), marriage was a sanskara: kanyadan was a religious gift, and the aims were dharma, praja and rati. Today the marriage market dominates, with a wedding industry Jefferies (2024) valued at about $130 billion a year. Several interlinked factors explain the shift.
Factors behind the change
- Market economy and consumer culture. Liberalisation brought disposable income and a consumer ethic. Weddings became occasions for conspicuous consumption, the status display Thorstein Veblen described in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Destination weddings, planners and pre-wedding shoots turned rites into packages. For the 2025 wedding season (1 November–14 December), traders’ body CAIT estimated 46 lakh weddings and about ₹6.5 lakh crore of trade.
- Dowry as status competition. M. N. Srinivas (Some Reflections on Dowry, 1984) argued that modern dowry is not an old custom surviving. It spread with the cash economy, salaried jobs and hypergamy, as families “buy” grooms with urban jobs. World Bank researchers found dowry was paid in 95% of rural marriages between 1960 and 2008, and the NCRB recorded 15,489 Dowry Prohibition Act cases in 2023.
- Commodification through matchmaking platforms. Matrimonial portals and apps rank partners by income, height, complexion, caste and visa status. Zygmunt Bauman (Liquid Love, 2003) describes this as relationships pursued as consumer choices.
- Secularisation and legal contract. The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 and the Special Marriage Act, 1954 made marriage dissoluble and a matter of rights. Alimony and maintenance disputes bring cost-benefit reckoning into marriage. This is the drift from sacrament to contract that Kapadia first noted.
- Individualisation and education. Educated, earning partners choose on compatibility and career prospects. Marriage becomes an investment in lifestyle, which Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (The Normal Chaos of Love, 1995) link to self-authored biographies.
- Media and globalisation. Films, television, social media and diaspora (NRI) weddings set a spectacular standard that less affluent groups imitate, often through debt.
- Demographic squeeze. A skewed sex ratio in north-west India has created bride-price and brokered across-region marriages. Brides bought from poorer regions are the starkest form of commercialisation (Reena Kukreja, Why Would I Be Married Here?, 2022).
A qualification: ritual is repackaged, not replaced
- Rituals have revived and multiplied with affluence: haldi, mehendi and sangeet, once regional, are now pan-Indian. What changed is their meaning, from sacred duty to performance.
- The law still insists on the sacred. In Dolly Rani v. Manish Kumar Chanchal (2024), the Supreme Court held that a Hindu marriage without the required ceremonies such as saptapadi is not valid, calling it a samskara, not a “song and dance” event or a commercial transaction.
- Feminist scholars such as Uma Chakravarti note that the “commercial” outlook still serves caste endogamy and patriarchy. The market has reinforced the old structure rather than dissolved it.
Conclusion
“Ritual to commercial” is best read as commodification of ritual. The market, dowry-driven hypergamy, legal secularisation and digital matchmaking have turned marriage into a status investment. Its caste and patriarchal core remains intact. For sociology, the task is to see how capitalism reworks tradition rather than simply replacing it.