Hindu way of life:-
Veda means knowledge. The original knowledge are the teachings of the Vedas. In the conditioned state our knowledge is subjected to many deficiencies. There are four defects that a conditioned soul has: committing mistakes, subject to illusion, cheating propensity and imperfect senses. These deficiencies make us unfit for having perfect knowledge.
The human are divided by vedas according to their orders of life namely brahmacarya, grhastha,vanaprastha and sannyasa and vedas teach us how a soul could be purified.
To simplify the process and make them more easily performable, Vyasadeva (the empowered incarnation of Krsna) divided the Vedas into four, Rg (prayers), Yajur (hymns for oblations), Sama (same prayers and hymns in meters for singing), Atharva (body/world maintenance and destruction) in order to expand them among men.
the Vedic civilization three orders of life lived in the forests. Only grhasthas inhabited the cities. The regulated knowledge for living in the city, is revealed in the books known as Brahmanas, whereas the regulated knowledge for living in the forest is revealed in the books known as Aranyakas.
A father protects his daughter in childhood, a husband protects his wife in youth, and the sons protect their mother in old age. The father who does not give away his daughter in marriage at the proper time is censurable; censurable is the husband who does not approach his wife in due season; and after the husband is dead, the son, verily is censurable, who does not protect his mother. Even against the slightest provocations should women be particularly guarded; for unguarded they would bring grief to both the families.
Motherhood is considered the greatest glory of Hindu women. The Taittiriya Upanishad teaches, "Matridevo bhava" - "Let your mother be the god to you."
Hindu tradition recognizes mother and motherhood as even superior to heaven. The epic Mahabharata says, "While a father is superior to ten learned priests well-versed in the Vedas, a mother is superior to ten such fathers, or the entire world.
Woman in the role of wife occupies a position of pre-eminence in ancient Hindu tradition. The Hindus from the Vedic times believed in dual worship Siva with Sakthi, Vishnu with Lakshmi, Rama with Sita, and so on.
Numerous case of Svayamvara, that is, of ladies selecting their own husbands, is mentioned in the Mahabharata and other works. There is sufficient evidence to show, that widow marriage was allowed, and that the Sati was unknown in the Vedic period.
It is, therefore, no wonder that the wife enjoyed with her husband full religious rights and regularly participated in religious ceremonies with him. In fact, the performance of such ceremonies would be invalid without the wife joining her husband as his full partner. Some grammatical passages show that women had other careers open to them apart from a mere literary career.
In Hindu dharma, marriage is viewed as a sacrament and not a contract. Hindu marriage is a life-long commitment of one wife and one husband, and is the strongest social bond that takes place between a man and a woman.Grahastha Ashram (the householder stage), the second of the four stages of life begins when a man and a woman marry and start a household.
On the wedding morning, various ablutionary rituals are performed on both the bride and the groom in their own homes. Their bodies are anointed with turmeric, sandalwood paste and oils, which cleanse the body, soften the skin, and make it aromatic. They are then bathed to the chanting of Vedic mantras,One important point to be noted is that in the Vedic Age the school going is both for the boy and the girl. And the Upanayana is to be performed for both of them. At the time of the marriage the women starts wearing the ornaments and the man is tied with the sacred thread.So when both complete the Education {comprehensive education for the development of the individual and the society} the parents used to find the match by comparing the Horoscopes of the probable matches .
KANYA DANAM- offering of the daughter for the marriage.
Kanya means virgin girl (namely the bride). 'Daan´ means giving away.
Kanya Daan is an important part of the marriage ceremony in which the bride´s parents give her away to the groom by entrusting her to the bridegroom. The officiating priest chants appropriate verses in Sanskrit. The people in the audience (the public) is now notified that the parents have willingly expressed their wish and consent by requesting the groom to accept their daughter as his bride. As soon as the groom indicates his acceptance the marriage ceremony begins. The parents now bestow their blessings on both the bride and the groom and pray to the Lord to shower His choicest blessings on them.