George Arundale - Marriage

Marriage

During his years in Adyar, Arundale came into contact with the family of Nilakanta Sriram, a fellow Theosophist, and fell in love with his sister, Rukmini. This was considered scandalous: Rukmini belonged to a Hindu Brahmin family orthodox enough to disapprove of Sriram's involvement with the Theosophists, whom they regarded as a bizarre quasi-Christian sect; there were considerations of race, religion and cultural background; and Rukmini was young enough to be Arundale's daughter, being twenty-six years younger than he was.

Notwithstanding these considerations and the uproar raised by Rukmini's family, they were married in 1920, when Rukmini turned sixteen and he was forty-two. Although their marriage was childless, it was a happy one; Arundale mentored Rukmini and encouraged her to develop her interest in classical dance, something that presumably she could have never done as the daughter and wife of socially respectable Brahmins. Rukmini went on to become the first Indian lady of so-called decent birth to dance in public, and was instrumental in rejuvenating the Bharatanatyam style of classical dance by emancipating it from the brothels and the Devadasi community to which it had been confined for many centuries. Accordingly, it is as the husband of Rukmini Devi Arundale that George Arundale is best known in India today.