There is little or no community-based compassion in the United States for we care little about what people around us think about our families. As an Indian woman is found lonely in the United States, exposed to media, love and romances her idea of marriage becomes vulnerable to this new groove. To explore this new love, we noticed that many of the Indian students that came to US to study started dating behind their parents back. When it came down to telling the mother, many time the response would be "Who are you talking to, Ayah? What? How ca it be my daughter? I don't have a daughter. Hang up right now." The importance of keeping that compassionate relationship with the parents and friends is essential to the Indian-woman. We recognize this importance once we see the divorces and lives of the women that shifted to this new Companionate Marriage idea. Most of the women ended up unhappy, single mothers and in need of acceptance by their family. But there were no secrets in Calcutta. .
Integrity involves putting one's beliefs into practice. It acts as a source of strength in times of trouble. The stories by Divakaruni does not tell us much about the purpose and practice of arranged marriages. However keeping this tradition for a woman was being obedient to her parents. When families came together with their children, it wasn't just a social engagement between two people of opposite sex. It was the beginning of an approach to marriage. Better no daughter than a disobedient one, a shame to the family. It was the daughters" duty and responsibility to obey her parents. She carried out the tradition for her own good and the sake of her family. There is something powerful in Integrity, which no one can destroy. That is the belief that something good will come out of troubled times. That however was not easy for the Indian women that came to the United States. What did he know, you thought, about families, about love he"d left home the day he turned eighteen; he only called his mother on Mothers Day, and if he remembered her birthday.