IT is needless to say that marriage is another sociologically major event within the parameter of the rite of passage. This is not an exception in the Mauritian community in Britain. Indeed, it is socially more significant among the early settlers of UK Mauritians, who appear to be still bound by the cultural baggage with which they left the country of origin.

I have no doubt that many of them will deny the fact of their conservatism, cultural, religious and traditional, trapped in the historical past of Mauritius, which has long since disappeared. However, where marriage is concerned, although it is losing its importance and sanctity through increasing marital breakdown on the island, teenage pregnancy, children born out of wedlock and extra-marital affairs in Mauritius, parents encounter a serious personal crisis when a suitable boy or girl has to be chosen for either a son or a daughter who has reached marriageable age.

Conflict between two cultures

In relation to early Mauritian settlers, finding a suitable bride or a bridegroom often poses challenging value conflict. This does not only occur between the parents, who, caught up in the webs of cultural confusion, seldom share a common view on this important matter in particular and other issues generally: it also happens between the conflicting-held views of the parents and the adult child. These unhealthy attitudes, one can imagine, multiply the contradictions, thereby negotiating a compromise become difficult and complex, if, at times, not impossible. In the end, the adult child helps resolve the impasse, but this depends on two factors: first, how much cultural values he or she has absorbed from his or her parents and, second, whether he or she is reaching the end of the marriageable age. Where there is a strong element of Mauritian consciousness, added to the fear of ending up in the depressingly lonely isolation as single persons in this individualistic society, reaching a compromise is achievable. However, in the absence of these factors the processes leading to a culturally orientated marriage must collapse, particularly if the adult child were born and bred in the environment of this permissive society.

The drifters

Many of the Mauritian immigrants, who emigrated in the 60s and 70s, have children of marriageable age. However, a substantial number of them, particularly those who have either failed to realise their often over-ambitious programme of self-advancement or have found it, under unexpected invasion of difficulties, to be a mission impossible, have allowed their identity to drift, erode and even disappear into the traumatic uncertainty of non-identity. For them, living on the fringes of the community, like people exuding bad moral influences wherever they go, with progressively fewer contacts with their compatriots, the marriage of their children poses no serious dilemma. Poor or even deteriorating relationship with their children has enabled them to develop some form of thick skin.

Like many of their British contemporaries, the young of Mauritian parentage pick up their partners either in the Pub, at work, at clubbing, at discos or somewhere else and cohabit. Like many of their native contemporaries, Registrar wedding, let alone the religious one, is left to the fate of the uncertain future, which can be several years, even long after their girls born out of wedlock have become big enough to be bridesmaids. It is like an experiment, a period of trial and error, in order to assess whether they are a compatible couple or whether there is a future together. With no support in the community in time of stormy weather, such unions often hit the rocks and shatter into bits in the disastrous sea of separation. As indicated, the parents have no say in the choice. But they do not seem to be too sensitive about it, living in isolation from the Mauritian community and with few of their compatriots are likely to arouse feeling of embarrassment by asking how their ?married? children are faring.

For these Mauritians, whom I refer as the ?drifters?, the marriage of their children is not as psychologically damaging to the feeling of inner peace. It is also sociologically insignificant for the presentation of self in the community in Britain and among the family in Mauritius. They are a totally different category of Mauritians from those whom I have described as ?achievers? with a strong Mauritian consciousness. These are two different categories of Mauritian immigrants standing poles apart. Emigration to the West is no eldorado, where dreams of fames and fortunes can be realised by all. Many have undertaken the journey but few have arrived.

Reasons for involvement

Ask the Mauritian parents, as I have done in the preparation of this article, why they are so eager to get involved in finding a suitable boy or a suitable girl for their children of marriageable age, the response will invariably be as follows:

We are afraid of the failure of the marriage of our children, having seen so many of them breaking down.

We have life-experience as a major advantage to make a constructive contribution in choosing a suitable partner.

A problematic task

The demand for parental involvement has its own problems. With the adult child born and bred in this permissive society, negotiation often fails in mutual bitterness and this not infrequently leads to parents and children falling irrecoverably apart and reconciliation difficult. These facts have been crystallised in particularly the Pakistani community, where parents often dupe their daughters with a promise of a holiday in Pakistan, which ends up in forcibly marrying a male cousin there. Incident like this has given some bad publicity to the Pakistani community. However, where there is a healthy interaction between parents and children, a mutually acceptable compromise is often the outcome.

The two perspectives on marriage

There are two schools of thoughts regarding the arrangement of marriage among Mauritian parents in UK. The first group prefers to choose a suitable partner either for their son or daughter in Mauritius. The hypothesis is still strongly held that a bride or a bridegroom from Mauritius is more likely to sustain the marriage rather than their counterparts in this country. There is a view that both young men and young women, contaminated by the culturally permissive environment in this country, generally lack moral integrity to maintain a good and happy marriage.

This view, in my opinion, is flawed as a result of lack of knowledge in terms of the historically unprecedented social and cultural changes, which have been increasing intensity sweeping across the island of Mauritius like wild fire since the latter part of the 70s, with the diversification of the economy. Progress in technological communication and globalisation are the other two important phenomena, which have fuelled the changing movement of values further. Still blinkered by the cultural baggage with which they landed in this country, many of the early Mauritian settlers seem to be living in the cloud cuckoo land.

Held in the past, these parents usually seek a suitable bride or bridegroom within the immediate family or one recommended by a responsible member of the family or friend. I am aware of a number of such marriage arrangements. However, there is no guarantee of the sustainability of such marriages, let alone happiness, when two young persons, being joined together, of two different and opposite perspectives and expectations. Very few in this category have been able to patiently work out a common strategy in the pursuit of a shared programme towards certain goals, torn by differences and disagreements. The opportunity to achieve self-sufficiency through the availability of employment or the protection of the welfare system has often generated a sense of such individualistic self-sufficiency in the couple that they feel that they can survive without the help of each other. This view appears to be at the roots of many unhappy marriages and broken relationships in the Mauritian community in Britain as well as in France.

The other group of Mauritian parents, who are usually more educated, pragmatic, perceptive and better adapted to the country of migration, are aware of the vast differences between a young Mauritian born in UK and one born and bred in Mauritius. Therefore, their first preference is to seek a suitable bride or bridegroom in the country of emigration itself, conscious of the fact that the probability of better mutual understanding and compatibility will be much higher. In short, the chances for the sustainability of the marriage are much more assured.

A complex community

This preference, on the other hand, in no way resolves the other equally important considerations. The community in which the parents were born in the poly-ethnic Mauritian society is important in finding a suitable boy or girl. As one of the objectives of emigration was to achieve social advancement, the social class of the other parents is another important factor in the process. The comparability of level of education between the young persons ready for marriage and the nature and quality of employment held are also issues, which form part in the effort of finding a suitable boy or girl. Nowadays, thankfully, the caste issue is no longer a socially significant one in the Mauritian community, with the above factors gaining precedence.

The problems of community-oriented

The early Mauritian settlers, particularly the Hindus and the Muslims, experienced comparatively strong socialisation in their respective communities at home. Therefore, it is inevitable that cultural values and heritage are important factors in their search for a suitable bride or bridegroom. However, the major problem is that in certain communities, particularly the small ones, such as Telugu, Tamil or Marathi, would-be brides or bridegrooms of comparative status are too few and far between. This often encourages parents to direct their attention at home for a suitable partner for their son or daughter; but this is subject to how much influence the parents have over their adult children in dissuading them from picking up a young woman or man in other Mauritian communities or in the white community. Parents, however responsible and farsighted, are gradually losing their grips over their British born children.

Social class

As already indicated, Mauritians are generally class-conscious. One of the main goals for leaving Mauritius was to achieve social mobility. It is also a fact that there is but one method of climbing the social ladder: it is through education and not material acquisition. In a world where knowledge rules material possessions have long since lost its glamour in the life-ambition of thinking people.

Nevertheless, not all the Mauritian immigrants have succeeded in making great strides in the field of education. However, many of them, conscious of education as the engine of social advancement, have made every sacrifice possible to ensure that their offspring succeed in this area where they have failed with good reasons.

Among these parents, education, which is invariably linked to the quality of employment held, is one of the most important criteria in choosing a suitable bride or bridegroom. Few Mauritian parents will wholeheartedly approve the marriage proposal of a graduate son or daughter to someone with no academic qualification or interest. Empirical knowledge has taught them that a marriage has a stronger and more durable foundation where there is a partnership of equal in status. Many less sophisticated parents, with poorly educated son or daughter, have faced humiliation and have had their ego badly bruised in thoughtlessly approaching their Mauritian counterparts with marriage proposal for a son or a daughter of unequal academic and other equally important attributes.

Seeking a suitable marriage partner at home

In most cases, it is the failure to find a suitable marriage partner in the UK that has driven many parents to turn their attention to Mauritius. In some respect, this is true in both categories of Mauritian parents: the ?drifters? and their more successful contemporaries. There is an assumption, which is stronger in the former than in the latter, that a well scrutinised suitable marriage male or female partner from Mauritius is much easier to mould into the chosen shape than an unsuitable one in the community in UK, unsure of the sweeping changes in attitudes and values that have taken place in recent years in the Mauritian society. Invariably, the search begins within family members and, failure to find the right one, it extends beyond immediate relatives, but the first preference is still to confine the search within the community.

With Britain still envisioned as the land of milk and honey, the candidates, without looking at the pros and cons of the transaction, often jump to the ?opportunity?, literally queuing up for the chances to come to Britain. One can always expect to get the right answers from them, i.e. to cooperate, to study, to save, to create a happy relationship and to make sacrifices so as to achieve the common goals. However, many

of the opportunists, who lack the ability to adjust themselves in the new circumstances, have failed in marital breakdown, separation and divorce in a matter of short time. But the few mature ones, who came realising that the new situation called for great effort and resolute commitment, have thrived and succeeded in UK.

Conclusion

Finding a suitable marriage partner is likely to be a difficult and complex problem in the Mauritian community. Whilst the Mauritian Christians are flexible in terms of choosing a partner, the Hindus and Muslims, who are more culturally bound and traditionally more conscious, have a relatively rigid attitude in this respect.

This is truer among the primary migrants, the first bath of Mauritian settlers, who seem to be still tied to their original cultural baggage. Among them it is the more successful ones who appear to be more rigid in their choice of their daughter or son?s marriage partner. The less successful ones, whom I have referred to as the ?drifters?, are more flexible even to the extent of being not too concerned of who will be their future son-in-law or daughter-in-law.

Having failed even to translate part of their ambitious migration programme into something positive, they have also failed to make any impact from the standpoint of culture and tradition on their children. In the real world failed parents produce failed children: it is a process that is difficult to stop. Failed parents also forfeit the right to have any influence or say in the major decisions, marriage is one of them, affecting their children. This is not only a tacit acceptance between the parties, but it is often articulated by the young persons, who have been drifting in wherever direction the wild winds blow.

The small Mauritian community is already facing an identity crisis. With the passing away of the first generation of settlers and, as a result, with the erosion of Mauritian consciousness, the community is likely to disintegrate.

Other small communities, like the Jewish, the Polish, the Hungarian, the Maltese, the Greek-Cypriot, the Chilean and the Columbian, had had no such crisis, being of white skin, indistinguishable from the native English and easily assimilated. In the near future, that is, in ten or twenty years? time, the Mauritian community in UK will progressively confront their most critical period: they will have to make a choice whether to preserve their Mauritian identity or to allow it to drift into the dark clouds of fading history, leaving only such fragments of distant memory as: ?My grandfather or my grandmother was a Mauritian?.

Dr Sam LINGAYAH