Vol. 1, Issue 13, Part H (2015)

Abstract
Hindu marriage is one of the important and universal institutions in Indian social system, which teaches the actual values of life. According to Hindu Shastra there are four stages of life, of which Grahastha Ashram or married life signifies the second stage. It joins two individuals for life, so that they can pursue dharma, artha, kama, moksha together. Hindu marriage involves many rituals and practices, such as vagdana, kalash stapana, homa, hardi, kangan, mangalyadharana, sapthapadi, gruhapravesh etc., in modern era Hindu marriage, wedding ceremonies, rituals and practices are changes caused due to number of factors, such as westernization, education, industrialization, urbanization and globalization. A study was carried out with the sample of 50 elder females of Hindu religion in Hassan city of Hassan district of Karnataka state. For this study, qualitative method was used. The analysis has been done on the basis of in-depth interviews with those who are elder females of Hindu religion in Hassan city. For this study, data was collected from 50 elder female by using both purposive and random sampling. The present paper aims to find out the changes in Rituals and Practices of Hindu Marriage. The main finding of the study shown that the reasons for changes of Hindu marriage rituals and practices, Such as modern education, job opportunity of male and female, influences of western life style, constitutional legislations, concept of love marriage, register marriage, inter caste and inter religious marriage, etc.,