Good looks, good looks and... here’s what Indians prioritise on matrimonial sites

We’ve read our fair share of newspaper matrimonial listings hunting for ‘fair and beautiful’ brides and grooms. Turns out, not much has changed in the digital world either.

An online survey of 286 single Indians shows that nearly half or 43 per cent of respondents consider ‘looks’ to be the foremost filtering criteria on a matrimonial profile.

Conducted by new-age matrimonial site betterhalf.ai, the survey found that after ‘looks,’ around 22 per cent consider age, 19 per cent assess profession and 16 per cent look at the potential partner’s salary before showing further interest in the profile.

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The matchmaking app’s CEO Pawan Gupta commented that looks in an online profile may not necessarily mean someone is good or bad looking but it also speaks to the quality and variation of pictures that make a profile enticing.

Interestingly, more young Indians now judge based on profession and salary rather than traditional factors such as caste, religion, community and culture. In the survey, 58 per cent of respondents did not give high importance to the traditional factors while 48 per cent believed otherwise.

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