Shivaji comments on how marriages, ‘potentially the most progressive social force’ have played a completely different role in India and elsewhere:

The institution has become the greatest source of conservatism around the world ensuring that socio-economic status, racial makeup, occupational backgrounds, casteist makeup and the resultant disparities, stigmas and attitudes remain as strong as ever. Only 2% of marriages in the UK are inter-racial while the same number for the US stands at 6% (even though it has increased by seven times over the level of 1970s). In India, especially for the middle class, marriages are designed to bring together very similar profiles, ones falling at the intersection of the same caste, religion, linguistic group, economic strata, educational background and skin color.