Some Indian commentators have expressed surprise that despite all their freedom, many young Indians still tolerate arranged marriage. Perhaps on the outside, many Indians look fully global citizens, by the clothes they wear, the language they speak, the technology and social media they use. Yet on the inside, they do not break the age-old bonds and traditions—they are only stretching them. But my sense is that something is definitely happening in this area. Especially among young educated women, the topic of marriage seems to weigh heavy on their hearts in some cases. To my surprise, many openly confess they do not want to get married. And they are struggling with it.

My late grandmother, born in 1906, used to advise me not to jump into marriage. In her view, it was no longer socially necessary in the Netherlands to marry “nowadays", so why do it. Hers was an extremely progressive view for somebody of her age; she was around 80 at the time. But she was right. It had become socially and legally accepted in our society not to marry.

The situation of young people in India is, of course, much more complicated. Marriage may become subject to choice. And divorce may no longer make a woman a social outcast, at least in the cities. But it is still fraught with dilemmas. On the one hand, young people feel pressure from their parents to be married off in the traditional way. On the other hand, some young women seem to be worried that marriage will deny them the opportunity to be more someone of their own than their mothers were able to be. Young women want to guide their own lives. And with many of them gaining more economic independence, their tolerance to stay in bad marriages may decrease.

This means that young Indians—men and women—gradually could be facing the same task as lovers in the West: how to make a love relationship between two consenting adults work? Men, too, will have to get out of the lazy chair of tradition and raise their game. But these men and women are in a difficult situation, because where do they go for counsel? Their parents may resent the idea or be unable to offer much help. Unfortunately, Europeans and Americans have not exactly figured out a foolproof way to make it work either. Divorce rates are high—around 50% in the US and slightly lower in the European Union.

Perhaps one of the most important things for young Indians is to go back to Indian traditions of love that date from before the guilt-ridden Victorian ideas about sexuality that the British brought to the sub-continent. Perhaps more open discussion is needed to rediscover the middle ground that lies between Victorian shame, and the exhibitionism and promiscuity of MTV dance videos.

In my experience, the open way in which especially Northern Europeans talk about such things is helpful. The way many of them see it is that, what is later called love begins as an exploration of the unfathomable attraction between people: the mystery of human desire. The curiosity in the other, and the exhilaration of being inexplicably and tantalizingly connected is a joy that is etched in their memories. And, as most do not marry their first love (and are not expected to), they will undergo the process of mental and physical attraction multiple times before settling down.

Many Europeans experience this phase in life as profoundly transformational. It is, therefore, not uncommon for good friends in later life to openly discuss and recall the sensational feeling of first kisses and the vulnerability of making love with someone new. Such conversations not only happen among men and among women separately, but also between men and women. They may even confess that they sometimes miss that wonderful feeling of a new love that shakes your entire being. Not because it transformed them from child to adult—more importantly, perhaps, because it pushed them from a state of individualism to experiencing what blissful union feels like. By giving in to desire, interdependence can be forged. This is one reason why many well-thinking Westerners see sexual liberty as a great good, and why the sexual exhibitionism of MTV music videos has little to do with that. Liberty and excess should not be confused.

Realizing how to be dependent as well as dependable is not easy for Westerners, who are often more focused on being self-reliant and independent. Similarly, it is not easy for more collectively oriented young Indians who are putting inevitable steps in that direction also. Apart from a whole new market arising—from dating sites for second marriages to counselling and self-help books—what is perhaps most needed is an ability to maturely talk about these things more openly.

It is the paradox of individual development that to be consensually dependent, one has to be independent; otherwise it is not a really free choice. But that it is precisely more individualism that makes dependence more difficult also. Perhaps this is why so many relationships in the West end prematurely: people are either not independent enough to be dependent or they are too attached to their individualism.

Young Indian women and their suitors may need all the help they can get as they develop more self-consciousness. They might find some inspiration in the West, but they should not forget to look in their own traditions. One of the greatest books ever written on the art of exploring human desire is, after all, Indian. More answers may flow from there onwards.

Tjaco Walvis is the managing director of brand consulting and advertising agency THEY India, and a speaker at the Outstanding Speakers’ Bureau. He writes a fortnightly column on the softer cultural aspects of marketing that often tend to be ignored by marketers.

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