Prospective brides prefer to meet guy first, family later: Survey

Indian girls are becoming more forthright than ever about their marital choices. It's evident from a survey which shows they prefer to meet a prospective groom before his family.

The survey, by online matrimony platform www.shaadi.com, was conducted on a total of 5,800 respondents in the age group of 24 to 35 years, to understand if singles -- both men and women -- believe that there is 'Someone for Everyone'.

While as many as 94.6 percent 2,128 single Indian women respondents agreed, the remaining disagreed. When the same question was posed to men, 93.8 percent of the 3,672 respondents agreed.

For single women, 'meeting the boy before meeting his family' is the top priority in the important requirements during partner search, with 49.5 percent of them voting for it. This was followed by 31.4 percent respondents picking 'the feeling of being treated as equals', and 19.1 percent of them said 'similar values and beliefs are important'.

Men too resonated that 'meeting the girl is important before meeting her family' is at the top of their requirement when searching for a suitable match, followed by 'Compatibility' and having 'similar values and beliefs are important'.

There are several challenges that men and women face while zeroing in on a life partner.

For 43.1 percent of the women, a 'hectic lifestyle and time constraint' is a major problem, while 34.5 percent of them voted for 'compatibility' and 22.4 percent of them said 'food habits'.

When men were asked the same question, 41.5 percent of them said 'compatibility', followed by 35.3 percent, who said 'hectic lifestyle and time constraint' and 23.2 percent who said 'food habits'.

Many prospective brides and grooms are also easily put off by different things during partner search.

"Meeting match-seekers due to family pressure" tops the complaints of 72.4 percent of the surveyed women, while 65.1 percent of the men said 'getting rejected on the basis of salary bracket' is a put off.

"We believe that there is someone for everyone, and understand that finding a life partner is an important and sensitive process. We therefore constantly strive to make the journey of the match-seekers more relevant keeping in mind their partner preference," Gourav Rakshit, chief operating officer, Shaadi.com, said in a statement.