The practice of arranged marriages in Hindu culture may be old-fashioned, but instead of fizzling out with the advent of new technology, the use of cell phones and the Internet has instead made the practice easier.

The practice originated with the Hindu caste system. Parents historically upheld strict boundaries for matches until about the 1960s or 70s, according to Vikas Kamat, whose personal family Web site provides resources on Indian history and culture. The more rigid system of the past did not allow men or women to marry outside their region or native language group, and couples often met for only a few minutes with their families before they were married. Now Indian couples often meet their prospective mates in advance, and they may marry someone in another region or even country. More and more, parents take the preferences of the bride and groom into account.

A 2006 study by a University of Washington researcher found that young people in Bangalore increasingly use cell phones in order to get to know their selected partner. And while classifieds for available brides in local newspapers has been custom for the past few decades, several Web sites now allow parents to search for their children’s future mates online.

Bharatmatrimony.com hails itself as “India’s number one matrimony service provider,” having served over 1 million registered members in its eleven years of existence. Many but not all of the profiles are set up by parents, and most of those that are not include a section for the parents to comment on their son or daughter’s eligibility. The site allows users to search by the usual matchmaking options: location, occupation, age and hobbies, as well as more traditional Indian requirements for a good match: caste, native language and astrology signs.

Religious beliefs have consequences, and Hindus have not only sacred cows who slow traffic but revered monkeys who create mischief and mayhem with impunity.

Agence France Press reports that “Troupes of monkeys are out of control in India’s northeast, stealing mobile phones and breaking into homes to steal soft drinks from refrigerators.”

Our troupe of presidential candidates shines in comparison – but few of us see Fred Thompson as a god. It’s different in India, where some see the thieving monkeys as incarnations of the beloved monkey god Hanuman, a faithful but playful aide to Rama in the Ramayana, which is one of the two great Indian epics.

One Indian lawmaker, Hiren Das, described the problem: “Monkeys are wreaking havoc in my constituency by taking away mobile phones, toothpastes, sipping coke after opening the refrigerators.” He said the monkeys were “even slapping women who try to chase them.”

Another legislator, Goneswar Das, said that more than 1,000 monkeys are “turning aggressive by the day.” In November, according to Agence France Presse, two dozen people were hurt when monkeys rampaged through New Delhi – and during the previous month, the deputy mayor of Delhi died when he fell from his balcony during a monkey attack.

Hindu religious beliefs make it unlikely that a Bollywood studio will do a monkey-substituting remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, but the raw material is there. (By the way, readers interested in the latest monkey news may want to go to monkeywire.org, “the premier source of monkey and ape news.”)

The All India Catholic Union released a report last week documenting 190 cases of religiously-directed attacks and cases of persecution by Hindus against Christians, according to Asia News, which includes murders, armed assaults, sexual assaults and even lynchings. Another organization, the Global Council of Indian Christians, has documented 464 cases of violent attacks against Christians in the past 20 months.

The state of Karnataka is perhaps the worst in India for this religiously-directed violence, which can only expect to become worse as the Hindu extremist Baratiya Janata Party (BJP) took over administration of the region earlier this month, which looks the other way at anti-Christian activity, if not outright endorses it. The BJP has also sought to force a ban on religious conversions and a repeal of India’s secular constitution, while also engaging in virulent anti-Muslim rhetoric.