International Institute for Population Sciences
Deemed to be University (An Autonomous Organization of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India)

Marriage is not only the physical bond between two people, but it is also considered the divine bond between two families (of bride and groom), sanctioned and permitted by various social institutions of society and by society itself. There have been various marital norms, as well as the acceptability of different forms of marriage, along with varying wedding gifts, including substantial cash amounts (especially in northern Indian society). This phenomenon holds significant scholarly relevance, and consequently, this study examines the acceptability of various forms of marriage and the prevalence of different types of wedding gifts across several independent variables, including place of residence, educational attainment, caste, religious affiliation, income sources, and membership status in the northern plain states of the country by using IHDS-II data (2011-12) through cross-tabulation and descriptive statistics methods. Lastly, this study concluded that widow remarriage is quite acceptable in the society of the study area (as people agree with widow remarriage), while in the same states, inter-caste marriage is not acceptable to the people. Along with that, the wedding gift is also very much prevalent in the study area, as most people accept that giving or taking precious and costly wedding gifts, such as gold, silver, land pieces, flats, and cash amounts, is very usual in marriages. Keywords- Marriages’ forms, wedding gifts, dowry, independent variables, IHDS data.