part : 1 Prem Gurung & Muna Gurung Mid western Gurung community wedding ceremony Lamjung Manjang

A Gurung marriage is clan exogamy and caste endogamy; one must marry outside his clan but within his caste. Marriages among the Gurungs are of two types: arranged marriage and marriage by elopement. Arranged marriage is done through a formal agreement between the prospective two families and in the second case, the couple elopes against their parents’ will. The traditional match for marriage is a cross-cousin marriage, where a boy marries his mother’s brother’s daughter (matrilateral) or the son marries his father’s sister’s daughter (patrilateral). A mediator plays the role of contacting either the prospective bride’s father and his lineage brothers or their own representatives. After receiving initial approval for the match from the bride’s side and having ascertained the horosocopic compatibility of the couple, the groom’s representative again approaches the bride’s side bringing a gift of liquor ‘pung’ and if this is accepted by the bride’s side, the match is formally assured and the betrothal is complete.
The marriage of a Gurung is taken as a contract between a man and woman and not as ‘donation’ or ‘kanyadan’ prevalent among the Hindus, where a daughter from her birth is considered as a ‘paraya dhan’; somebody else’s property or a burden to the family. This is not so in the case of Gurungs where a daughter occupies an equally an important position in her maternal home and later in her husband’s house after marriage.
The marriage in Gurung wedding has no religious significance. The ceremony is extremely simple. It marks the beginning of the legitimate conjugal life of a man and a woman. At the bride’s house, it entails putting on the white tika (rice mixed with curd) on the foreheads of the future couple and parents and relatives wishing them a happy life. They then wash their daughter’s feet and take a drop of water so used to their lips. Usually money is given to both the newly wedded couple by the parents and relatives. Similar ceremony takes place at the house of the groom. A wedding feast is a must during a wedding.
In an elopement marriage, the above formalities are forgone and instead of parental arrangement, the boy makes known to the girl of his intention directly and if the girl is agreeable, both of them go into hiding. Message is relayed to the parents of the girl. In a few days time, he sends his representative (and he himself may go) to the girl’s father to reason with him and request him to accept the new relationship putting aside the offence to his dignity and to cancel other arrangements that he may have made. If the bride’s father agrees, the new son-in-law comes with gifts of compensation and a ceremony takes place to accept the wedded couple.
Wedding ceremonies takes place usually only between mid-October and the beginning of April. However no rule forbids them taking place outside this period