arranged marriages

[LostNotFound]

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[vashti]

I think if you have the type of parents who you believe make decisions in your best interests, you are no worse off letting them choose your spouse than you would be on your own. I believe I have heard that arranged marriages are no less happy overall than are marriages in which you choose your own spouse, and the divorce rates are lower.

[Junket]

I have heard that arranged marriages are no less happy overall than are marriages in which you choose your own spous, and the divorce rates are lower.

Yeah, because there's less of a choice to divorce in an arranged marriage.

Think about it, if you don't have a choice in who you're marrying, do you really think you have a choice of divorcing?

Not only that, but the majority of marriages in the western world aren't arranged anyway, so clearly there'd be much lower rates of divorce, for the same reasons above.

[vashti]

I don't discount the cultural impact as a rationale to stay married. However, of the handful of couples I know who have arranged marriages, all but one been from India, and they live now in the U.S. They seem happy, and relatively Western. I think they could divorce if they wanted to.

The other woman I knew who had an arranged marriage was from Greece. She actually DID divorce her husband back in the 1930s or 1940s.

[Mish]

not blind date, never met/seen/heard them before type but to cousins or family friends? or people you've known but don't actually have a 'relationship' with?

I don't understand this sentence, could you please explain it?

Anyway, it's definetly a culture theme. It has low probability working in the west because our culture does not support it. In India however, the family structures and other social / economic structures are built around this idea thusly it works for them. The idea is that, not just the two people marry, but the entire families join into the family structure. The support for the married couple from the family members to stay together is great, because there is a lot more invested interest in marriage than just the love of two people, there is an invested interest of entire families. There are a lot more support structures that force two partners to reconcile in the event of problems in that country.

By the way, the means by which the marriages get arranged are not the same as many Westerners think. I had a lot of discussions with my Indian friends at work and uni about this. Basically, there are dating / matching services to which the parents apply. They give out details of their son / daughter and based on these details the agency looks for a match. They find a number of matches and give those to the parents. The parents hold interviews with these matches and their parents and narrow down the choices. Then they bring these narrowed down choices of whom they approve to their children (Ussually 10 or more) and their kids hold their own interviews with them. If they like one out of these they make a choice, if not parents continue looking. Villages aside, this is a popular model for the Indian cities.

[anachronistic]

i think that this arranged marriage scenario that you described is despicable. then again, do you know how many people are too dumb to make decisions themselves?

[LostNotFound]

this is how it works for my extended family and most people i know..

the kids grow up and there parents talk to other parents about who would be a good match for their kid. then a proposal comes and guy meets girl and if they click they'll be married within the next year and if they don't we wait for guy number 2 to come along.

now i don't know how it works in my immediate family coz i'm the first to get married but there are extended family members who are trying to win my parents over in to me marrying my cousin. yergh.

[Charlie Boy II]

If my parents were able to choose my bride i know exactly who I'd be married to: my (female) best friend, who my parents adore (her mum thinks I am a bit of an alright as well). And I suppose, in many senses we would have a happy life together. She would be a good life partner for me, but there is no sexual attraction. But if arranged marriages were my cultural norm, I think I would make the best of it.