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Indian bride breaks rules
May 16, 2003 6:43 AM Subscribe

Indian soon-to-be bride breaks indian marriage rules.Not surprisingly she is a "software engineer" student probably a programmer with some clue. Groom goes to jail. On a tangent, your job position is currently being outsourced to this "civilized" country with only 7000 dowry deaths in 2001.
posted by elpapacito (40 comments total)

Searching for India or Dowry or Bride would have let you know this is yet another double post. If you want your tangent addressed find something interesting to say about it.
posted by biffa at 6:49 AM on May 16, 2003

Wow, this trend must be really catching on now...
posted by adrianhon at 6:49 AM on May 16, 2003

Oppps double post !
posted by elpapacito at 6:51 AM on May 16, 2003

And an inflammatory one at that!
posted by argybarg at 6:58 AM on May 16, 2003

see, matt really blew this website thing. clearly what he should have done back in 1999 was write a script to pull pages from yahoo, cnn, msnbc, etal and reformat and autopost them. and auto-repost them. and auto-re-repost them.
posted by quonsar at 7:03 AM on May 16, 2003

And then have argumentative comments automatically inserted.
posted by Hall at 7:10 AM on May 16, 2003

.
posted by soyjoy at 7:11 AM on May 16, 2003

And automatically add a post where a random word from the story is mung'd into the site's name.

Dowryfilter, anyone?!

Er, something like that.
posted by atholbrose at 7:27 AM on May 16, 2003

You see, Matt really blew this website thing. Clearly what he should have done back in 1999 was write a script to pull pages from news sites and reformat and autopost them. and auto-repost them. and auto-re-repost them... Change a couple of words and chuck in a sentance or two and they'd never have noticed either...
posted by twine42 at 7:35 AM on May 16, 2003

my cat's breath smells like CatBreathFilter.
posted by quonsar at 7:45 AM on May 16, 2003

Re: the tangent: how is my job being outsourced to India? Or was that the royal "You"?
posted by signal at 7:55 AM on May 16, 2003

see, god really blew this creation thing. clearly what he should have done back in 3,542,234BC was write a script to pull beings from other universes that wouldn't take articles from yahoo, cnn, msnbc, etal and reformat and autopost them. and auto-repost them. and auto-re-repost them.
posted by robzster1977 at 7:59 AM on May 16, 2003

signal: thanks but I'm no longer in the Royal Family, you still among them ? Wait until they find a way to outsource your job as well, then you tell me.
posted by elpapacito at 8:16 AM on May 16, 2003

Why would the royal family outsource my job? Where would they outsource it to? Which Royal Family are we (the commoner "we") talking about in the first place?
posted by signal at 8:27 AM on May 16, 2003

"as long as indian brides keep refusing to participate in dowry extortion, your jobs are safe. except elpapacito's." - Jeb Bush, on the campaign trail, December 2007.
posted by quonsar at 8:30 AM on May 16, 2003

see, matt really blew this website thing. clearly what he should have done back in 1999 was write a script to pull pages from yahoo, cnn, msnbc, etal and reformat and autopost them. and auto-repost them. and auto-re-repost them.
posted by reality at 9:01 AM on May 16, 2003

quonsar: wow that's such a nonsense it really seems to come from a politician, impressive.

signal: I don't know, you gave me the throne ?
posted by elpapacito at 9:03 AM on May 16, 2003

"civilized"

I hope that you were wearing a linen suit and sipping a julep when you typed that.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 9:05 AM on May 16, 2003

Ignatius: no I was wearing a fine pajama and admiring a Ganesh statue in the middle of a pasture full of sacred cows. Better ?
posted by elpapacito at 9:14 AM on May 16, 2003

On a tangent, your job position is currently being outsourced to this "civilized" country with only 7000 dowry deaths in 2001.

Yeah, those fucking savages don't understand that civilized countries have four times that many deaths attributable to handguns, for no fucking reason at all. Way to call 'em like you see 'em, elpapacito!
posted by anildash at 9:28 AM on May 16, 2003

Thanks, anildash. This thread wouldn't have been complete without you and the infamous 2nd Amendment switcheroo.
posted by BirdD0g at 9:56 AM on May 16, 2003

Sorry, has to be done:

posted by oissubke at 9:58 AM on May 16, 2003

Word up anildash.

Ignatius: no I was wearing a fine pajama and admiring a Ganesh statue in the middle of a pasture full of sacred cows. Better ?

Exactly.

Instances like these are really unwelcome, because I fucking hate feeling like some sort of PC whiner or whatever. Look, I am fully down with your right to think and say whatever silly shit you want about which nation or race is more civilized, but you're going to experience some degree of smackdown, due to the fact that you are aligning yourself with an absolutely wackjob idea.

Do you truly contend that one can determine that a given group of people is more "civilized" than another group? Fuck that, do you really even think that one can objectively define or quantify "civilization" (much less affirm the validity of said 'objectivity')?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:56 AM on May 16, 2003

Ignatius, I don't think you're being a PC whiner.

I agree that "civilization" is a totally loaded word and relating job outsourcing to 7000 dowry deaths is totally ridiculous. However, you can still be judgemental about the trend. Cultural pluralism is great but there have to be and in this case, there are, limits. Certain lines just can't be crossed and murder (for whatever reason) is one.

True there has to be a distinction between cultural norms and a perverse extreme (in this case between Indian marriage traditions and dowry murder) but even then it can still be argued that a culture is more tolerant of such extremes and thus deserving of constructive criticism.
posted by pots at 12:45 PM on May 16, 2003

Certain lines just can't be crossed and murder (for whatever reason) is one.

You mean like how Saddam and his cronies murdered several hundred thousand of his countrymen?

I'm sorry, that was totally out of line. Please ignore that. In my defense, I skipped breakfast, so I'm a little woozy.
posted by UncleFes at 12:52 PM on May 16, 2003

On a tangent, your job position is currently being outsourced to this "civilized" country with only 7000 dowry deaths in 2001.

It will probably come back once India and Pakistan nuke each other. Oh, and when the SARS hits and Monsanto jacks up the price of clean water.

I am so grumpy today.

I am also pretty hard, but the last couple of sentences slipped past the armor, and choked me up. Good for the lady.
posted by thirteen at 1:41 PM on May 16, 2003

Metafilter member breaks posting rules. Not surprisingly he pulled the story from a newspaper's website and didn't search the front page first. Posters get snarky. On a tangent, this FPP was weak, double post or not.
posted by thatweirdguy2 at 2:56 PM on May 16, 2003

I hope Matt is having a good time today, wherever he is.
posted by yhbc at 6:36 PM on May 16, 2003

Ignatius: I think that unless we all use the very same function to evaluate what is more or less civilized, we'll never be able to quantize a "civilization" level and express it with numbers, so making a comparison apples-2-apples possible.

But given that it is highly unlikely that everybody will always use or accept the same function to evaluate the level of a civilization (too many different opinions, not necessarely always rational) we should at _least_ try to find a common factor that we can use to compare the way we behave with the way other people behave, to see if we can do better.

And given that death, I believe, it's one of the fundamental , constact factors that excludes absolutely nobody anywhere in the world and that nobody (unless strongly emotionally disturbed) welcomes, we could try to evaluate the "civilization" level of different groups of people by how violence leading to death is tolerated or (sometimes) accepted in their social group.

I think that any group of people that has some rule (written or not written) that allows violence toward some other human being as socially tolerable/acceptable can't be really considered "civilized". If you prefer some other definition of "civilization" I will be glad to learn your opinion.
posted by elpapacito at 7:05 PM on May 16, 2003

You might be surprised to know this, but many Indians are shocked and concerned about dowry deaths. It's pretty pointless to debate which cultures are superior to others - all of them have their own specific problems. It seems like the only thing worth observing is the way in which a culture can root out its internal problems.

Also, it strikes me as a little unfair to tar Indian culture with the stigma of dowries. There are also a lot of good and humane aspects of Indian society and although I'm tempted to trot out a couple of canards about Western hedonism, I think that would only be contributing to the downward spiral of this thread.

I think sometime ago, civilization meant having access to the technology of animal husbandry, agriiculture and metal working. By that definition, we're all pretty civilized these days.
posted by rks404 at 7:55 PM on May 16, 2003

Fuck that, do you really even think that one can objectively define or quantify "civilization" [...]

Hi. I'm an alien, and I have been observing you humans for some time - allow me to help:
"civilized" means "acting, looking and/or thinking like me".
"civilization" means "a culture that acts, looks or thinks like mine, but offers no direct threat."
posted by spazzm at 8:23 PM on May 16, 2003

Fuck that, do you really even think that one can objectively define or quantify "civilization"

As Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenace points out, you can't objectively define "quality" either, but that doesn't stop you from being able to tell that some writing has it while other writing does not.

Just because you can't nail it down, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't important.
posted by kindall at 8:37 PM on May 16, 2003

elpapacito: Are you saying this woman shouldn't be allowed to work because her husband tried to kill her? Because that's what it sounds like your saying.

How can anyone in a country where homosexual rape is not only tolerated in the prison population, but promoted and used as a deterrent spout off about how 'uncivilized' other people are? America has it's own problems to sort out.
posted by delmoi at 11:00 PM on May 16, 2003

echofilter.
posted by crunchland at 1:30 AM on May 17, 2003

Sorry to duck out for so long.

I think that any group of people that has some rule (written or not written) that allows violence toward some other human being as socially tolerable/acceptable can't be really considered "civilized". If you prefer some other definition of "civilization" I will be glad to learn your opinion.

Good thing that India no longer has the death penalty for minors. How uncivilized it is to execute children. Did you not just notice the war? Violence is as uniquely Indian as Woody Allen is Jamaican. I disagree with the premise put forth by many here that we should just come up with the best working way to determine who is more civilized. You are suggesting that my beef is with the logistic workability of cultural judgment, whereas I just think it's a really bad idea, period, even if you are "right."

The simple fact of the matter is, the group who gets to label other groups as civilized or uncivilized is always the group inpower, or nobody gives a fuck. Say that your judgment is fuckin' spot on, and maybe Belgian people/culuture really were superior to Hutu people/culture when they made contact. Woo-hooo, great. You are assuming that the important thing is the relative distinction. I would argue that there is some absolute threshhold that has not been reached by anyone which accounts for the countless, broadly exceptionless instances of "more civilized" people destroying the ways and means of life of "less civilized" people.

Show me an example of whatever kind of expert makes these distinctions not deciding that "his team" was the best.

Just because you can't nail it down, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't important.

No, but just because something may exist doesn't mean that it should be allowed to become some sort of politically or socially actionable criteria.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 9:30 AM on May 17, 2003

More to the point, Indians were able to get their independence from the British without using muskets. In fact, without using violence as part of their strategy at all. Seems a damn site more civilized than the American method.
posted by anildash at 1:07 PM on May 17, 2003

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Indian bride breaks rules May 16, 2003 6:43 AM Subscribe

Indian bride breaks rules
May 16, 2003 6:43 AM Subscribe