Indian Matchmakers and Perfect Matchings
In India, arranged marriages are still preferred by the majority of the population to find a life partner. Typically, parents and other relatives choose a significant other for their children based on a number of factors. Recently, parents have been employing the help of a local matchmaker to aid in this process. Matchmakers keep a database of marriageable individuals from the neighboring area that are seeking to find a significant other. Their matchmaking process can be thought of as trying to find a perfect matching in a matching market.
Parents typically let the matchmaker know about what they prioritize in a suitable match for their child. This criteria usually consists of factors including religion, caste, physical appearance, and professional stature. Using the criteria they are given from multiple parents, the matchmaker will try to match their children with someone of the opposite gender that fits all the criteria. The matchmaker’s process of finding people to enter relationships can be represented as a bipartite graph with males on the left and females on the right. Following traditional Indian culture, people can only get married to the opposite gender and cannot have more than one partner, so edges on this bipartite graph represent an eligible match based on parent’s criteria. It is the matchmaker’s job to try to find a perfect matching from this graph. Below is an example of a bipartite graph a matchmaker may create based upon the criteria they are given by parents.
Of course, it is not guaranteed that matches made by the matchmaker will be successful. Furthermore, there will always be more parents trying to find a suitable mate for their children and employing the services of the matchmaker. Therefore, new nodes will be joining and old nodes will leave the bipartite graph, and new edges will connect possible mates and old edges may be removed to indicate that two people are not actually compatible.
Sources: https://www.culturalindia.net/weddings/arranged-marriage.html