Bride and Prejudice: Does the Skin-Colour Matter in Arranged Indian Marriages?

Abstract

PURPOSE
Underlying the growing popularity of skin-lightening or "fairness" creams and cosmetics in India is one of the most baseless biases experienced and practiced by Indians. The bias can be summarized as ‘fair is lovely and dark is ugly’. Yet, the over-riding importance of fairness especially in context of marriage has
been largely unaddressed. This study examined the influence of skin-colour on preference for potential marriage partner.
METHOD
A 2X2 (gender X skin colour) between group experimental design was used. Mothers (N=108) of individuals of marriageable age group (24-30 years) were presented with an option of 5 resumes containing education and work information. All the resumes were judged to be highly competent. The participants were shown resume of either males or females depending on whether they had a son or a daughter. Once a resume was chosen, picture of highly attractive fair girl/boy was shown or highly attractive dark girl/boy was shown. The light-skinned and dark-skinned picture was of the same person, except their skin tones were manipulated with the use of computer software. Participants were then asked to rate how strongly would they recommend the girl/boy as potential bride/groom for their children.
RESULTS
As expected fair-skinned highly attractive people received higher ratings than dark-skinned highly attractive people. However, contrary to our expectations, ratings received for dark-skinned woman were
not significantly greater than the ratings received for dark-skinned man.
CONCLUSION
The study found that skin-colour plays a very important role in increasing or decreasing the marriage prospects of an individual in our society. Even a highly competent and attractive individual is likely to suffer on account of dark skin in context of matrimony.