Shaadi.com's survey reveals that 80% respondents won't marry a footballilliterate partner
Uttarika Kumaran
If the latest survey by Shaadi.com is anything to go by, finding a suitable marriage partner might boil down to whether you know your jabulani from your vuvuzela. Timed perfectly to correspond with the feverish run-up to the FIFA World Cup finals, the survey revealed that nearly 80% of people will not marry partner who doesn't share their passion for football.
The website has conducted trend surveys on cricket in the past, but noticing that their members were fairly engaged with the World Cup, Gourav Pakshit, business head - shaadi.com and dedicated football fan, decided to conduct a football survey. "We wanted to see the impact of large sporting events on the lives of out member base," he says.
Thirty one-year-old Shaadi.com member Rajeev Mirchandani is not at all surprised with the results, believing that football is always a great way to forge an instant bond. "I've gelled very well with my mom over football We often talk about our favourite players." BPO employee Sagar Shah, 26, agrees, "I've seen that if one partner follows football, the other one begins to, too. It's not a compulsion, they just start liking it."
Harini Venkatraman, 25, and a picture of indifference to any sort of sporting activity, might beg to deffer. "Some people are really passionate about sports. But matches can be very long, sometimes two-three hours and that's lot of time," she sighs, adding that if she sees traces of football madness in a potential mate, she'd be the first to say no. Equally detached is Priyanka Jain, 23, a chartered accounting student who feels that the results might not be quite realistic. "On a very practical level, I think they'll want to look at other details and not just reject someone right away.
Sagar to admits that while he wouldn't reject a girl just based on her interest or lack thereof in football, the potential for conflict might become an issue if she wants to meet up on the night of the final match," he speculates.
Another Shaadi.com member Ria Jain, 31 and a self-confessed 'guy's girl', would want a partner who's just as much of a football freak as herself. but she is also willing to compromise, "I would still be open to someone with different interests, as that brings variety to a relationship. For me, compatibility matters." Psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria believes that's the reasonable way to look at things. "Shared interests definitely help people bond but a person's attitude counts too. Sustaining relationships cannot be purely based on interests," she says.
While emphasising the strength of the survey (70,000 members) as a good reason to not dismiss the findings completely, Rakshit also admits that its very nature could produce skewed results. "We have two levels of analysis. Declared preferences refer to what people state. And then there are the actual, behaviour-based preferences which cannot be measured." But he believes the survey reflects one important feature.
"The responses show that people believe it is important to find someone who shares one's interests. This conclusion has been consistent across all our previous surveys," he say.
Survey results
Nearly 80% said they won't marry a partner who doesn't share their passion for football
70.9% said they want a partner that shares a passion for the sport
Nearly 46% of the women surveyed state that they would like to watch the final FIFA match with their girlfriends, while only 18% of the men said the same about their male friends
Spain was rated the most popular team in the FIFA World Cup 2010 (38.3%)
David & Victoria Beckham were rated the best looking couple in FIFA 2010 (35%), followed by Ashiey & Cheryl Cole (27%) and kaka &Caroline Celico (24.3%)
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