This was posted by an Indian Muslim at another website. This is funny and interesting.
If you are a typical, single, Desi man who lives in the USA, the
time will come when it will dawn on you that the only chance you have
to indulge in wedded bliss lies in the hallowed institution of the
"Arranged Marriage". You probably left India when you were twenty-one,
having squandered your adolescence striving to get here. At this
point, you are twenty-five or older, and have been out of touch with
the general Indian female population for more than a decade. All the
women you know back home are married. This manual is written for those
of you who harbor hopes of acquiring a beautiful arranged bride.
Of course, before I even go about describing how to acquire beauty, it
is necessary to define it. And this is where I expect the most
disagreement. There will be those among you who proclaim, "But beauty
is in the eye of the beholder!" And you would be partly right.
If you are a man who equates beauty to facial attractiveness, there is not much that this manual can do for you. You are a very fortunate man, for Indian women have the most beautiful faces of any race in the world. (Aishwarya Rai, Sonali Bendre... need I say more?) You have a very large pool to choose from, and you do not need much help in choosing, because you can look at each prospective bride's face and decide whether she is beautiful or not.
If you are one of those academic types who have not given much thought to the matter, or merely one of those blighters who like to ask intelligent questions to which you already know the answers, and ask me, "But why does one NEED a beautiful wife?" I would reply that beauty is a double edged sword. It has its advantages and disadvantages, some of which I summarize below.
Advantages of having a beautiful wife:
a) A beautiful girl is much easier to adjust to than an
unattractive one. You will be much more tolerant of her faults during
the initial "adjustment" phase of marriage, simply because you will
not have the heart to get irritated with someone so lovely. She will
be much easier to forgive after a fight.
b) If you are the typical desi engineer, you will not be exactly
Adonis Reborn. If your wife is homely too, your child will probably
look like the Swamp Thing, or the Blob. If you love your unborn
children, you owe it to them to give them a beautiful mother.
c) A beautiful wife enhances your social stature. People will
look at you and think, "How the ^&*% did that !@## land such a
gorgeous babe? He must have something that is not visible on the
outside!" You will get invited to more parties, especially by men who
want to spend the evening drooling at her. Conversely, if your wife is
homely, you will be rather embarrassed to take her to gatherings of
your friends, especially if they are all married to knockouts.
d) And most importantly, sex will be much better if your wife is
good-looking. Otherwise, after a couple of years when the pent-up
horniness of the past 25+ years has worn off, you probably will not be
even able to get it up, unless you resort to ungentlemanly and
undignified tactics, like fantasizing about Pooja Bhatt when you are in
bed.
Disadvantages of having a beautiful wife:
a) If you are one of those for whom innocence, virtue, and chastity
are important, beautiful women are not for you. My empirical research
shows that, while beauty (or the lack of it) in a woman is in no way
indicative of her intelligence, beautiful women are invariably very
street-smart. They KNOW that they are good looking, and have got used
to people bending over backwards to accommodate them. This dawns on
them very early on in life, when they observe that teachers are much
nicer to them than to their less-attractive friends, when almost all
the men they encounter behave like brainless, testosterone-driven apes
in their presence, when they observe that they get things done twice
as quickly in a government office.
As a teenager in college, a beautiful woman would have had lots of men
vying with each other for her friendship and affections. She would
have to be more than human not to have enjoyed the attention. She
would have played the men one against the other, as women have done
since time immemorial. She might have dated, and even had affairs. In
the process, she would get to know men all too well, and would realize
that they are but putty in the hands of a good-looking woman.
b) A good-looking woman is more than a match for the average desi
engineer. She will twist you around her little finger and make you
jump through hoops. Things will get done her way nearly all the time.
Of course, it will be fun to jump through hoops for someone as lovely
as she is. A homely woman, on the other hand, will usually be so
grateful to you for marrying her that she will treat you like a king.
c) As I mentioned before, a beautiful woman is unlikely to be
particularly virtuous or righteous. But that is okay, since too much
virtue often goes hand-in-hand with rather undesirable traits. A
virtuous woman may also be ugly, weird, boring, hyper-religious or
frigid.
d) A beautiful woman is more likely to "stray" after marriage
too. This is the USA, and the fact that a woman is married does not
make her off-limits to adventurers or would-be Casanovas. The more
lovely a woman is, the more likely is she to be propositioned by her
male colleagues or friends. Ergo, she is subject to much more
temptation than her homely counterparts. Think about this... how
would it be if women kept asking you, a man, to make love to them? How
many times would you refuse?
How to go about selecting a beautiful wife:
First of all, there is the matter of mentioning the fact to your
parents. If your parents are anything like mine, they will freak out
when they hear that their dear devoted son is actually interested in
earthy things like beauty (and, by extrapolation, sex). It is not
considered good form to say that beauty is important to you in Indian
circles.
Here is a very important tip... do not leave bride-hunting to your
parents! Beauty is going to be the last of their priorities, coming
after caste, horoscopes, family background, perceived virtue of the
girl etc. Make it very clear to them that beauty is high on your list
of priorities. State in no uncertain terms that you will not marry
anyone who does not measure up to your standards. That will prevent
them from goofing off during bride-hunting, shirking their
responsibilities and palming off some family-friend's daughter on you.
Another unpalatable fact is that your mother will not want you to
marry someone too beautiful. This often comes as a surprise to most
sons, but the reason is simple. Mothers know that, sooner or later,
there will be a tussle between her and her daughter-in-law over her
son's affections and loyalties. Since women are extremely conscious
of their looks and tend to rate themselves accordingly, a beautiful
woman has a psychological advantage over a less attractive one in an
argument. Also, your mother knows that a beautiful wife will tilt the
scales against her as far as you are concerned, since such a wife will
probably have you dangling by the balls, if you pardon the expression.
So, left to herself, your mother will limit her search to women who
are less attractive than she perceives herself to be.
Before you start on your bride-hunting, you should convince yourself
that you deserve a beautiful wife. Do not ever think, "But I am not so
good-looking anyway, what right have I to demand a lovely girl?"
Since Man started walking the earth, it has been the man's wealth that
has been traded off for the woman's beauty. Rest assured that your
looks will be the last thing on a girl's mind when she rates you as a
prospective husband. (I am limiting myself to arranged marriages
here). She will be weighing your earning potential, green-card
potential etc. Even in this land of feminism, "Cosmopolitan" has
articles on "How to hook a rich husband" and "The ten best places to
meet successful men".
You have worked hard, and wasted ten of the most wonderful years of
your life getting where you are. You deserve to get something out of
it. Do not squander your bargaining position. In other words, do not
be ashamed to make your preference for beauty known.
How to check whether she is beautiful:
First of all, never consent to marry a girl whom you have seen only in
photographs. PHOTOGRAPHS LIE!!!! Photography is an art that can make
HKL Bhagat look like Aditi Govitrikar or Sonali Bendre. All too often, photographs sent to prospective suitors contain only the face. Also, they usually have been so air-brushed and sanitized, all the pimples and other irregularities removed, that the end product has little in common with the original. Also, it is a certain fact that no woman will consent to send you photograph that presents herself in an unflattering light.
These days, in the urban areas of India, it is often the practice to
take an album-full of pictures of a girl when she gets to marriageable
age. These pictures show the girl in various outfits, eastern and
western. The album is then sent to prospective grooms-in-the-states.
During my last visit to India, I learned from an authoritative source
that many of these pictures are blatant forgeries, involving splicing
the girl's head on to the figure of some other girl, sometimes
professional models. In one case, pictures of a girl's good-looking
sister were went out instead. Bottom line: do not make a decision
based merely on photographs!