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It happens only in India. Two minor girls aged 7 were married to two frogs from the village pond during the Harvest Festival - Pongal in a remote village in Tamil Nadu.
It is an annual feature because of the superstition that in doing so the village will be safeguarded from any mysterious diseases or evil eye.
The villagers first divided themselves into two groups one being from the groom side and the other being the brides side. When Vigneshwari and Masiakani were chosen as the lucky brides, the auspicious hour was decided by the holy calculations the two minor girls were decked up as brides with sarees and jewelery. The villagers of the groom side caught two frogs as grooms from the village pond and tied them to bamboo sticks decorated with garlands.
The procession was then taken the village temples where the brides were waiting. Amongst great fanfare the marriage ceremony was solemnized at the auspicious time. As the grooms were unable to tie the sacred thread the mangalsutra around the necks of their brides, this work was done by the village priests on their behalves.
After the ceremony attended by hundreds of villagers was over everyone enjoyed a sumptuous feast and went back home completely satiated happy in the belief that now they were safe from any disease or evil eye.
The minor brides after their 15 minute of fame, took off their bridal finery and returned to their usual routine.
The grooms, well after being subjected to a huge trauma were thrown back into the village pond where they must be reliving their ordeal and must be thanking their stars that they were still alive. They must also be totally baffled by the human behavior.
Well they are not alone, even we are totally baffled by the whole ceremony. On one hand we are sending Chandrayaan to moon, signing nuclear deals and trying very hard to become the leader of the developing countries and on the other hand we are equating amphibians with Homo Sapians supposedly the most intelligent species on earth.
RSS 
Poor young girls now my question is will these girls ever be allowed to marry real men or that is it?
In America we have a legend of a girl who marries a frog. She kisses a frog who turns into a prince. I don’t hear anyone saying that kissing a frog is disgusting. If ”savage” Indians do something it’s ”inane”. If Americans and Western Europeans do it, it’s amazing.
How many animals have these ”ignorant” and ”superstitions” villagers killed to eat? Never mind that it take 100 kilos of plant matter to produce 10 kilos of meat. I call that a far more ignorant and dangerous waste of world resources than a quaint and harmless ritual. Don’t act like embarrassed adolescents when you will be crying to remember your culture after you’ve wiped it out to be like us.
Being culturally rich you mean that we should waste money in such rituals whereas it can be used to improve the basic facilities in their own village,The ritual has no place in the present perspective.Why not use the money to finance the education of the two girls. at least the whole family will benefit from this, who were the beneficiaries in the above case, perhaps the persons who organised the whole ceremony.
I don’t know if it’s true but the western media portrays India as a place where young brides get burned and murdered for their dowry money.
If this is true I could see complaining about these kind of murderous practices but not marrying frogs.
Priorities - rail against every petty thing and you won’t impress anyone. Rail against important grievances like all the poor Indian farmers who are committing suicide because of debt and lack of opportunities and you’ve got my ear.
You said..
The marriage ceremony was solemnized at the auspicious time. As the grooms were unable to tie the sacred thread the mangalsutra around the necks of their brides, this work was done by the village priests on their behalves.
How can you term this as ’mock wedding’? And if this is ’mock wedding’ then how is one supposed to identify or preserve the sanctity of the sacred rituals??
The crime is too grave and branding it as an act arising out of illiteracy or superstition won’t help much.
You see, if we believe in the Holy rituals and mantras, we’ll have to hunt those two frogs again from that pond and..
1) either kill them
2) or persuade them to divorce their respective wives
if we want the girls to marry again and lead a proper normal life. (This answers your query, Rose)
Further, the priest and the other responsible persons should be tried in the court of law for arranging the child marriage, which is a crime.
Even more, did they confirm whether the two frogs were male specimen?? Because otherwise it would amount to same-sex marriage, which again is a crime in India.
Finally, from PETA’s point of view, this incident is totally unethical.
Anyway, the problem still needs to be solved. Lets discuss a way out of this.
