On Matrimony.com, India's Arranged Marriages Hit the Web

At a tiny storefront in the bustling T.Nagar district in Chennai, a poster picturing maids, construction workers, carpenters, and hairdressers offers a tantalizing promise: “No matter who you are, you can get married here happily.” That pitch enticed the mother of a 35-year-old electrician in March to drop by the store, one of the city’s 25 Popular Matrimony outlets, to seek a suitable mate for her son. “We have been searching for a match at temples and brokers for the past three years,” says the woman, who wouldn’t give her name. “One of these salespeople saw our ad in the newspaper and called us here, and we hope we can find a girl.”

Such Indian parental anxiety has helped turn Matrimony.com, owner of the Popular Matrimony chain and the Bharat Matrimony website into a matchmaking powerhouse. The company, which has brokered more than 2 million marriages, helps parents arrange marriage by caste, complexion (dark to fair), and religious values (orthodox to liberal). Its Elite Matrimony unit, an offline service for the wealthy who don’t want their children’s profiles floating around the Web, can cost up to 400,000 rupees ($7,370) for a three-month subscription that provides a “relationship manager” to help short list spousal candidates. For the less affluent, who may not even have access to the Internet, the company’s Popular Matrimony unit is rolling out new products such as lists of 10 potential suitors for 1,000 rupees.