What is so interesting and fascinating about Indian weddings? It turns out that Indians pay special attention to astrological compatibility. If a bride is born “manglik,” or Mars-bearing, she is considered to be cursed and cause an early death to her husband.
According to an old Hindu custom, the only way to break curse for a bride is to marry a peepal or banana tree! Yes, a tree!!! The tree is then destroyed, and the curse is broken. A bride can also marry a silver or golden idol of the Hindu God Vishnu.
Among the Gauras in Orissa, tree marriage appears in its cruelest form. The girl who is supposed to get married to the tree is taken to the forest and fastened up to a tree.
The risk of being eaten up by the wild beasts is at its most and the first comer is tied to the best tree in the locality. Some youngster of the other tribes of inferior branches arranges this ritual.
But the girl is usually not married to this young man of the other tribe, rather she is carried her away by some other tribe when her people had abandoned her.
Certain people in India, custom holds that a younger brother cannot marry until his older brother is married. What happens if a young man wants to marry, and his older brother is still single? Then the older brother is officially married to a tree!
The marriage between the older brother and the tree often takes place at the same time as the younger brother’s marriage. The Indians believe that when the marriages are held together, the bad luck that might befall the young married couple can be passed on to the tree i
nstead.
The current Indian constitution, however, assesses such practices as illegal because they believed to violate the rights of women, who are already oppressed enough in the country. There was even a lawsuit filed against Aishwarya Rai, the Indian film star and a former Miss World, for following this tradition and marryi
ng a tree.
The tradition of marrying a tree refers to untouchability, a practice when a group segregates itself from the mainstream by rejecting change of customs.
