Indian Marriage creates multiple relations
Unique relations
Marriage in India does not create only a relation between husband and wife. This is a marriage between two families and creates multiple relations. The groom does not get only a wife but also Sasur (father in law), saas (mom in law), saala and salhaj (brother in law and his wife), saali and sandhoo (sister in law and her husband). The bride gets in addition to husband Jeth and jethani (husband's elder brother and his spouse), devar and deevarani (husband's younger brother and his spouse), nanad and nanadoi (husband's sister and her husband) The parents of the groom and bride are samadhi and samadhin to each other. The husbands of sisters are Saandhu to each other. Such unique relations are rarely found elsewhere. Some of these are very charming and spicy. It may not be out of place here to mention that all relations have a role in an Indian wedding. There is a procedure involving embracing of counterparts of both groom and bride. This is called Milani. Groom's father, brothers, uncles etc would embrace the bride's father, brother, uncle respectively. In a humorous Punjabi movie, when boy's father, brothers etc had embraced bride's relatives, the groom's friend came forward and asked- Where is the Kudi da (bride's) yaar (friend). Others chided him for such nonsensional utterance. But the friend said- when fathers, brothers, uncles have embraced, I being groom's friend should get opportunity to embrace bride's friend. If there is no boy friend let bride's best saheli (girl's friend) embrace me.
Spicy relations
The jeeja saali relation is very sweet, spicy and unique. The salees are licencsed to tease and joke with their jeeja from day one. Even during wedding, they teased the groom by hiding his shoes and other tricks. Holi festival is not complee without saali. Commonly saali is considered as half wife (aadhi ghar wali). She is mausi or masi which translates as 'like mother'. The 'like mother' is obviously 'like wife' to children's father. The relation with salahaj (brother in law's wife) is almost similar to that with saali. Saali is the prime conductor of ragging of the groom. Ragging begins at the wedding stage itself with the saalis (including all cousins and even bride's friends) joking with the groom and doing mischiefs like hiding his shoes or mixing tea with chillies.
Another relation considered as very sweet and spicy is betwwen Dewar (husband's younger brother) and Bhabhi (elder brother's wife). The term 'Dewar' is said to have been derived from 'dwi war' meaning 'second husband). Dewar is to a woman what saali is to a man. A bhabhi can cut jokes. Also the Holi festival is incomplete without dewar bhabhi participation. a poor and weak man's wife is every one's Bhabhi (Garib ki joru sabki bhabhi) In certain traditions, a widow is remarried to her dewar (her Late husband's younger brother). This was well portrayed in the movie EK CHADAR MAILI SI. In some cases, a widow can be married even to elder brother of her late husband. In the ladakh region, there is no distinction between brothers as they have a common wife. A woman is married to a family and so all brothers are her husband. Probably, they follow the tradition of Mahabharata's character Drupadi who was married to the five Pandava brothers.
The samadhi and samadhin are also very interresting relation. In a Punjabi movie, a man had friendship with a woman, who was married to some one else. He was disappointed. Later their children married each other. Then the man said to the woman- "Okay. We could not unite as husband and wife. But now our children's marriage has united us both as samadhi and samadhin.)
These relations need be within limit of decency
No doubt, there are many sweet and spicy reelations arising from an Indian marriage. But these should be within limits of decency. If these are fetched too far, there is risk of family disintegration.
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