The story “Marriage is a Private Affair” by Chinua Achebe brought up a very interesting topic that I wanted to research and analyze. It highlighted the ancient and more traditional way of uniting two families through marriage and the more modern and “private” marriage based on love between two individuals who have chosen each other without external influences. It was the story of a man named Nnaemaka who married a girl named Nene from another African tribe. They loved each other and decided to ignore their culture because they knew that their culture's traditional ways of marriage would never allow them to be together. When her father Okeke found out he didn't approve of this marriage because Nene was from a different tribe and she wasn't. To narrow the topic and provide a more specific comparison between cultures, I have chosen to compare the idea of ​​arranged marriages in India to free marriages. Weddings in the United States. This huge cultural difference can be linked to Achebe's story where Nene and Nnaemaka's father discuss the problem of their marriage proposal. Nene, coming from a more developed and urban part of the country where the culture has evolved, says: "...I don't think anyone will be so different from other people that they will be unhappy when their children are engaged." Immediately after this statement, Okeke responded: “Yes. They are very unhappy if the engagement is not arranged by them. In our case it's worse: you're not even an Ibo. This answer is the difference I wanted to analyze. As you can see from this exchange, the two different cultures have completely different perspectives on marriage. Okeke believes in a more traditional way of getting married within the tribe and arranging the wedding. This allows his tribe to maintain its strength and maintain the bloodline. On the other side is Nene, from the most developed culture in the city. He believes in our concept of love and marriage as essentially a private matter between married people. This cultural difference can be attributed to the evolution of society. A tribe like the Ibo will obviously have greater influence. Arranged marriages are essentially the choice of an individual deemed fit to join their family. In India, “marriage is considered an alliance between two families rather than a union between two individuals.” (Prakasa 15) In India marriage is not necessarily about love, “Prakasa states that arranged marriages perform six functions in the Indian community: (1) it helps maintain the social satisfaction system in the society; (2) gives parents control over family members; (3) increases the chances of preserving and continuing the ancestral lineage; (4) offers the opportunity to strengthen the kinship group; (5) allows for the consolidation and expansion of family assets; (6) allows elders to preserve the principle of endogamy”