Pre-Marriage Health checks

The employment of secret detectives or enquiries into a persons background normally were to check their behaviour, their character and even their financial status. But a new trend, especially in India, Mumbai, is the employment of pre-marriage health checks on the would-be groom or bride as reported by the Hindustani Times.

Checks to uncover any health problems including any impotence, infertility, HIV, STD’s (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) are a key and growing requirement. With promiscuity increasing in such cities amongst the younger generations, detectives are being hired to carry out these checks by opposite families and partners of a prospect being considered for marriage. Sexual orientation is also a concern and their type of engagement in relationships.

Agencies such as Hatfield Detectives, report that at least one fifth of their pre-marital investigations are related to health matters. The agency Secret Eye Detective Services, has stated that their detectives are hired to keep a watch on medicines being bought from pharmacies and health visits to special clinics or consultants dealing with serious health matters. An agency in Janakpuri was for example, instructed to check blood results for a groom by the parents of the bride.

This evidently shows that a change in sexual behaviour in India, especially in cities like Mumbai, has resorted to these types of measures being taken by families and partners still wanting to engage into arranged or semi-arranged marriages. The question arises if such practices will spread to other parts of the world, such as the UK, Europe and the Americas, where many Desi people reside and still conduct arranged marriages. However, will the differences in information laws and personal data protection may prove to be difficult to overcome by similar detectives wishing to obtain such details on an individual or will this not pose a problem in this digital age of information available at a price. All this remains to be seen if such a trend does become part of the NRI family-led marital process.