The story “Marriage is a Private Matter” by Chinua Achebe brought up a very interesting topic that I wanted to research and analyze. It highlighted the ancient, more traditional way of bringing two families together through marriage and the more modern, “private” love marriage between two individuals who chose each other without outside influence. It was the story of a man named Nnaemaka who married a girl named Nene from another tribe in Africa. They loved each other and decided to neglect their own culture because they knew their culture's traditional methods of marriage would never allow them to be together. When her father Okeke found out he didn't approve of this marriage because Nene was from a different tribe and wasn't. To narrow the topic and provide a more specific comparison between cultures, I chose to compare the idea of ​​arranged marriages in India with that of open marriages. Are weddings in the United States. This huge difference in culture can be linked to Achebe's story in which Nene's father and Nnaemaka discuss the problem of their marriage plan. Nene, who comes from a more developed and urban part of the country where the culture has evolved, says: “...I don't believe that anyone will be so different from others that they will be unhappy when their sons are engaged. » Immediately after this statement, Okeke replied: “Yes. They are very unhappy if the engagement is not arranged by them. In our case, it's worse: you're not even an Igbo. This answer is the difference I wanted to analyze. As you can see from this exchange, the two different cultures have completely different perspectives on marriage. Okeke believes in a more traditional way of marrying within the tribe and organizing the wedding. This allows his tribe to maintain its strength and maintain the bloodline. On the other side, there are the Nene, from the most developed culture in the city. She believes in our view of love and marriage as primarily a private affair between those who are married. This difference in culture can be attributed to the evolution of society. A tribe like the Ibos will of course have a greater number of arranged marriages. Arranged marriages essentially involve choosing an individual deemed suitable to join their family. In India, “marriage is treated as an alliance between two families rather than as a union between two individuals”. (Prakasa 15) In India, marriage is not necessarily about love. “Prakasa states that arranged marriages serve six functions in the Indian community: (1) helps maintain the social satisfaction system in society; (2) gives parents control over family members; (3) improves the chances of preserving and perpetuating the ancestral lineage; (4) provides an opportunity to strengthen the kinship group; (5) allows for the consolidation and expansion of family assets; (6) allows elders to preserve the principle of endogamy”