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Comment by madengr | Hacker News Reader

I’d think an engineer and surgeon could hire a housemaid to help out with the cooking. In the USA, it’d be a household income of > $600k.

I saw a documentary a few years ago. The woman cooked breakfast, then after the husband left, immediately started lunch. Brought lunch to the husband in a stacked lunch-pail, them immediately started with dinner.

They cooked all day; crazy. Of course Indian food takes a long time to make well. I don’t know how they do it in restaurants. It takes me three hours.

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In the USA, parents don't typically arrange an adult daughter's marriage without asking her what she thinks either. (She also was living with extended family, a thing Americans tend to not do either. In America, we default to the nuclear family. When it began with saying she was cooking for 8 people, I assumed she had many children. Not so.)

Also, she liked to cook and if you are a woman and have a career, doing things like cooking is a way to bond with family. If you hire a cook, a maid and a nanny, you spend vastly less time with your children.

I was a full time mom for years. I can't imagine having kids and then just hiring other people to do everything for them. If you want nothing to do with your kids, I feel like you shouldn't intentionally have kids. (Though, unlike some people, I realize that not all children are planned. So sometimes people are just coping as best they can with what life handed them.)

>In the USA, parents don't typically arrange an adult daughter's marriage without asking her what she thinks either.

Same in India also. Arranged marriage doesn't mean forced marriage. It's unfortunate people have this perception. Even in arranged marriage, men and women agree for marriage only if they are ok.

At least the ones I have talked to understand that you don't refuse. It might be possible, but it isn't done.

Of course India is a big country with a lot of people. Their culture is not completely shared. To state anything in absolute terms is probably wrong.

Everything you say about India is true, and its opposite.

For the record, i can safely say that arranged marriages without the couple even meeting were common in my parents generation upto the 60s, became unusual in my generation (I don't know of any case in my family) around the 80s/90s and now would be unimaginable in my children's generation. This is a mostly (but not completely) urban middle class experience, spanning a very large family in north and west of India.

Things are different in the North vs the South, rural vs urban, poor and rich, different religions probably and so on. We are probably the most heterogenous society on earth, so this is not surprising.

> Arranged marriage doesn't mean forced marriage. It's unfortunate people have this perception. Even in arranged marriage, men and women agree for marriage only if they are ok.

I don't understand this indignation followed by a generalization. For the record, I'm Indian and have lived for decades here. What you say may probably be true in urban India, depending on the family, education levels of the woman and the parents, economic class, religion, caste and several other factors. But even in urban India, adult women don't have much say in refusing to marry a man whom their parents have decided is the best match. If you look at rural India, it's likely a lot worse.

A woman agreeing to marry a man doesn't mean that she's voluntarily choosing to do so after doing her own "due diligence" and checking if this match would support the kind of life she desires or dreams to lead.

Most of the time, the man and woman get to talk to each other for a very short while, almost like a job interview, after which they're expected to decide on the "yes" or "no", if such a choice is even available. The fact that divorce is looked at as a disgusting matter combined with this decision making process is a big bummer. But I will give credit to the social support structure to keeping things running (though sometimes to the detriment of individuals).

The same matter is a lot different for the men involved. As with many other instances and places around the world, the men do have more freedom and choice.

P.S.: For a funny take on marriages in India, watch this movie from 1998 called "Hyderabad Blues". [1] Most of it still holds true now.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyderabad_Blues

I usually find a lot to agree with in your posts, but this time I want to push back on arranged marriage = forced marriage. That's just false.

Also want to push back a bit on having kids and then "just hiring other people to do everything for them". Many cultures have extended family, grandparents, other wives, other adults/older children do child care. The nuclear model is not the norm in the world or in history and we should examine that. Economics in India are pretty different, and it's seen as a responsibility to the community to employ people as cooks/maids/drivers/nannies. If you don't hire people and you can, you're a selfish person not contributing to the welfare of your community. Americans hire help to free up time for work; it's not the same aesthetic in India. Moreover, the number of full-time dads is still disappointingly low, though it isn't brought up when we talk about SpaceX or NASA. Thanks, though, for acknowledging that not all children are planned and that options for planning are eroding.

I usually find a lot to agree with in your posts, but this time I want to push back on arranged marriage = forced marriage. That's just false.

For the record, I upvoted the other comment that made this same point (as well as your comment). I considered thanking them, but long history suggests such comments by me go weird and problematic places. I don't know a fix for that, so I sometimes upvote as my only expression of gratitude for a good contribution to the discussion.

Many cultures have extended family, grandparents, other wives, other adults/older children do child care.

In my eyes, that is completely different from just hiring help.

FWIW, when my brother got custody of his infant son during his divorce, my father officially retired and stayed home with the child while my brother and mother continued working. My father never changed a single diaper for any of his own kids. I think he was in his 60s when he learned to change a diaper so he could provide childcare for his grandchild.

I have my reservations about the two career couple model that is promoted by so many people. It is promoted as a women's equality thing, but the reality is that those children are typically being raised by a woman, just not their own mother. It actually creates a class divide if you really think about it.

I don't know the solution, but we need to spend more time figuring out how to resolve this conflict without shortchanging some demographic. I don't see that issue being discussed enough.

Thank you for your comment. I think you misread part of mine, but if others also misread it, it's good to get that information out there.

Best.

> I want to push back on arranged marriage = forced marriage. That's just false.

As someone in India, I responded to a similar comment above explaining why such indignation and generalization would be inappropriate and incorrect. Please see

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17913844

In my experience, having dated legit Indian women, housemaids are extremely common. Even low income families, had someone of even lower income working for them. Having food cooked for you by someone else is very much a norm for a lot of Indians.

>very much a norm for a lot of Indians Not at all true.

It is :) 70-80% of the middle class homes have daily part time maids. At least they do dishes, wash clothes then move to the next home. Not all maids cook or allowed to cook.

I dont know why you are down voted but this is true. They should be easily able to afford a cook & a maid. Doctors earn well in India. People with less prestigious and less salary have cooks and maids. My guess is this is a narrative.

I am not saying she didnt have two jobs (house work & office work), but the article paints a slightly tainted picture. It is also possible that this family did not choose to have a cook, which is also not uncommon. Especially if they are of certain cultural groups, they have strict rules on such things.

regardless, you have a good point. its the choice they made and it is impressive to pull this off

3 hours? I think it might be matter of practice. It takes my partner and I about 30-40 mins to cook a full Indian dinner for the two of us from scratch, these days.

I remember it used to take about 80-90 mins when we were less coordinated in the kitchen, but nowadays we've got a pretty smooth supply chain going!

"Could financially" doesn't necessarily mean it's socially acceptable.

It is socially acceptable in India to hire help for cooking and cleaning. It is much less socially acceptable in India to hire help raising the kids.

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