the homecoming...culture shock or admiration...not sure which

The homecoming (like another reception) was very at a beautiful location and the bride and groom looked amazing. It also led me to some big epiphanies.
In Canada, marriage means you gain a few in-laws- you will now have a new set of parents and a sibling or two, right? Well here, it is literally two families, cousins and everything, joining to make a whole new unit. It is difficult to explain how interwoven these families become- mostly why they see divorce is such a terrible thing- they don’t like to break up the family.
As the brides family walked in behind the bride they each bowed to & had their heads touched by the groom’s parents. When we went inside there was then a ceremony performed by a village person where he is asking the other family if they will accept her into their home. I had been under the impression that this was for a week or two but now I understand that this could be, especially if you are the youngest son who inherits the house, forever! If the family has money then they build the older sons new houses. It is so hard for me to grasp this that you are a child until you are married. Your mother makes sure you have all your meals and your father often finding you a husband.
Then you become the wife/ daughter in a new family.
Not only do you never make choices like who your husband will be or where you want to live but I am talking about never making ANY choices! Until you are married, your parents will tell you what you are doing the next day and at what time and once married your husband or his family will tell you. As far as I can see, you don’t even choose what you want for dinner- you ask what you should make.
And, when we arrived home at 3am you’d think that everyone would be eager to get to bed but what do I hear outside my bedroom door- Pearl cooking! I was concerned about having just a short 5 hour sleep ahead of me and here they are thinking about food. They both slept for only an hour and woke up at 5am- Pearl to do laundry and Conrad to work. I really don’t get why for once they can’t just have toast for breakfast??? There have been times when Pearl has said that we would “just have bread” but what she always seemed to mean when she said that was bread with butter, rice, dhal and plantains. I don’t think there is such thing as a simple meal.
I cannot explain to you how much food is valued and sleep is devalued here- the mattresses and like 30 years old and you are lucky if you get the ones where springs dig into your back because the other ones are just rock hard. I won’t even describe the pillows.
Anyway, there is a lot of talk here about how the Western countries have so much divorce. And I totally agree with them on that but they see it like a virus and are scared that it is making it’s way over to their country. They think the couple is just selfish, not thinking about their children but they really don’t get the fact that a child can be just as damaged by growing up in a house where the parents dislike each other. I guess they don’t see that as a possibility- if the horoscope matched and the families agreed they were a suitable match why wouldn’t they be?
Again, it is too difficult to explain the whole context from which they view an individual’s personalities. In Canada, we think of each person with a different set of habits, interests, character flaws, goals, norms, mind set, etc. Here, you are your family.
On one hand, I see that everyone is happy with this- they feel connected at all times and don’t feel attachment to their ego because they don’t think of themselves as an individual. For example, the girls will ask me which one is fatter. Like us, they don’t want to be fat but, unlike us, they don’t have any attachment to being thin so they don’t see the question as being offensive. I now have them using the word “full-figured” now because I refused to answer the question otherwise. They must think I am so strange.
I won’t get to the other hand.
We might have similar questions surrounding a marriage but the main difference is that the parents here will simply say no to a match because the boy or girls family lives too far away or are just not rich enough! We think this is shallow but in a third world country it's about security & survival.