June is the month for weddings. Priscilla and I noted the custom and married 38 years ago on June l3. However, all cultures are not the same. In the early 60’s, we made friends with a visitor from India, Dev Praha. Dev was visiting Schenectady as a professional engineer with the Indian National Railways. He was assigned to the General Electric Company’s Schenectady plant to study the manufacture and operation of diesel engines. Dev was a little perplexed with American courtship customs. He related a story to us that brought back to mind that all marriages aren’t made in heaven.

Dev came from a different culture, a high caste Hindu whose “love” had already been chosen for him by his relatives and he played no role in the process. His job was simply to appear at the right moment as the bridegroom. Apparently, this was also true for the girl who was to be his bride. It seems that this was typical of his caste and culture to arrange a marriage by the families before the bride and groom played the traditional courting game.

Dev told us that the entire family of each party was involved, down to the aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. If the families approved of each other, the marriage contract was made. Dev didn’t seem to disapprove of the arrangement and knew what to expect when he returned to India.

Arranged marriages have existed since time immemorial, especially among the royal classes throughout history. Our popular culture and sometimes our own family trees are rife with stories of mail-order brides who came to the new world and husbands, sight unseen. Many made the arduous journey across the country to the California goldfields to marry men they had never seen. We even celebrated this phenomenon on the stage and screen. Hollywood made a fortune out of movies such as “Westward the Women” with Robert Taylor, and can anyone forget Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin sharing a bride in “Paint Your Wagon” or the MGM musical “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” In the latter they were reluctant brides until they spent a winter with their prospective grooms.

All of the above movies and their themes were very popular in their time. Is it any wonder that television would resurrect this popular image of our culture and replay it in the 21st century before an audience of 22 million? After all, making money, or in this case marrying into it, is still the biggest attention grabber in today’s society. When Regis Philbin points that finger at the camera and says; “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” most Americans say, “Me.” The four musketeers are no longer role models, the guy who won $2,000,000 on a quiz show is.

Fifty women willingly paraded upon a Las Vegas stage to the unseen eye of a male voyeur. Now the feminists are literally crying, “fowl.” These women were exploited as so much fodder for the TV mill. Let’s not stop there. The most downloaded web site on the Internet just happens to be owned by a beautiful woman who knew exactly what she was doing when she created the site. As for the swimsuit issue of “Sports Illustrated,” I don’t believe the models were dragged unwillingly to the seaside.

The month of June will still retain its traditional role as the most popular time to join the knot in holy matrimony and the Sunday papers will continue to be filled with pictures of June brides in their white wedding gowns. All of this is good for the economy and perpetuates the stereotype of June weddings. Unfortunately, statistics tell us that one in two marriages end in divorce. Even the TV marriage ended up in court. Still, hope springs eternal and most couples defy the averages.

In the l6th century, kings didn’t have this problem. Henry VIII created his own church to get out of a marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Once he had done this, the only remedy left for him to terminate a marriage was for his wife to lose her head. Imagine the television ratings for this one.