Procrastination

i’d assume that most couples would get to know each other before they become intimate with one another. it would be quite uncomfortable to just…do it without knowing anything about the other person. ah, and i came across your site while bloghopping. quite interesting =)

great post!! i’ve often considered the points you make and totally agree with what you say. to claim that american marriages are unsuccessful based on the divorce rate is not only wrong, it is, in a way, naive. well written.

I just wanted to make one comment. You remarked Hence, they are married as strangers and stay strangers all their lives when talking about different cultural definitions of a successful marriage. You seem to be assuming that all people want the same thing out of a marriage. If two people want out of marriage to have a complementary partnership raising children, and that’s what makes them both happy, then that is a successful marriage for them, even if we personally would find it odd.

Just as there are people in Eastern cultures who wish for a “soul mate/confidante/red-hot lover/best friend” there are people in Western cultures who would prefer the “complementary partnership” type of marriage.

What’s important is the ability to make the choice, not the ultimate decision they make. You seem to go beyond just saying that people should have choice in who they marry and what type of marriage they have, to saying that people should have a certain type of marriage. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

a lot of americans would prolly benefit from arranged marriages ;) more would do it if people didn’t see them as losers….

great post btw.

PS-i had a friend whose dad faxed her a list of reqs from a potentional husband, in big bold-faced he had NO FAT.

I would find it odd too, but it’s really none of my business to interfere with how people want to live their lives as long as they aren’t hurting anyone. I hope they’ll do the same for me.

I think I’m totally late following this post, but I have just been kinda busy lately. Here goes:
I’ll vote for the semi arranged where the guy or girl get to know each other and they were introduced by their parents, or for the make-your-parents-think-its-arranged where the guy and girl get to know each other and then let their parents do all the stuff that parents like to do. As far as getting to know someone, I think in this day and age of technology, there are so many ways to get to know some one without having to continuously meet them. There’s the telephone, email, chatting. Once you’re introduced, I actually think these means are better because you are not nervous (as in meeting in person) and can better speak your mind. Its a better way to evaluate how the other person thinks (provided they are being honest, but then that is a precursor for even when you meet in person).

I agree with the point you make about how people in the Eastern cultures get married for beauty, wealth as well. Actually, unfortunately in most marriages where the to-be-spouses did not get to know each other, the marriages are usually based on superficial things that the parents look for.

I also agree with the fact that divorce may not be the best way to evaluate the success of the marriage.

As far as this society, I dont even know what marriage means here anymore. More and more people are just happy being companions and not getting married. Living together, having kids, the whole lot, but not getting married….I dont know what’s up with that?

yaser - that’s what one would like to think, but you’d be surprised at the kind of maniacs out there who insist that the marriage should be consummated on the first night.

zack..i agree that sometimes parents raise completely ridiculous issues /problems when it comes to marriage…in my post, i was referring to more or less ‘cool’ parents of the i’ll-be-happy-with-what-you’re-happy with variety….in that case, i think parents are more than happy to do their bit, and are usually happy tht their child has found a mate so they dont have to look.
why soem parents throw pointless fits is beyond me….they dont realize that in the end they end up losing out….(and usually its the son or daughter they are losing, and being able to be a part of their life)
i can understand (even though i dont agree) when parents make an issue about ethnicity because they are worried about language, but some people make an issue like u stated above, about even being from the same town in pakistan or being punjabi or being pathan….that’s just dumb..
insha’allah i will be a very cool parent when i grow up (haha that sounds funny)…and my kids can marry whoever they want (almost).

in the case where parents are making a non-issue an issue, i’ve seen some kids just keep on sticking by it and eventually overcoming their parents (one of my friends will be getting married next year after 8 yrs of knowing the guy..and about 4 years of being ready to get married….she’s karachi memon..they’re punjabi rajput), going with the ‘screw the parents’ attitude (which is not a very recommended idea, but i guess i’m confused at what the other option would be ..other than wait and wait and wait), or forget about it all together (which i think is completely retarded..if you didn’t have the guts to follow, you should never have fallen in love)
i think the best advice would be for parents to be a little more understanding (within boundaries of reason) to what their children are presenting, and accept it as an adult decision, and give them their blessing. Trying to control their lives will only ruin them. I’ve seen too many cases.

Interesting discourse Zack.
The only thing I have to add at this moment is that you are staring at the western view as a monolith to justify it as a beast to the east’s beauty (?).
More Later.

It’s way past me bedtime so I’ll keep it short.

You are really employing the “divorce rate” as a maxim and crutch just so you create a stronger opposite. A good versus evil sort of battle where it’s unfair to compare things through b&w tunnel vision.
Overgeneralisation.
All western marriages dont fail.
And all or even most eastern marriages arent unions that produce no love or emotion or stable connection.
I’m sure you don’t believe that but your writing suggests that this strongly.

Writing something in as a column trenched in fiction to speculate on the facts is fine but your writing used the trappings of straightforward journalism/manual writing and I think you need to be a bit more fair by looking at things from all points of view that don’t necessarily support your argument.

And since you don’t know me at all, I’ll keep my negative criticism to myself at this moment because it’ll appear not only insulting but elitist.
Are you familiar with a piece I wrote on the “matrimonials” in Pakistan? It doesn’t examine all sorts of women but it’s based on true stories I’ve heard and some actually I’ve seen.
You might find the idea behind it interesting even if my prose or the content fails to appeal to your sensibilities.
It was published last year in print but less than 3 weeks ago online. I’ll post it on my blog if you’re interested.
G’night for now.

One more thing…
I mean no offense at all and
(begin suggestion)
we can take this somewhere where there are less prying eyes if you aren’t comfortable.
(end suggestion)

Haha ok tyrantblogger.
I’m not really a strong believer in either philosophy or method of madness. I’ve written on this subject, discussed it at a great length which is why I’m really sickintoid of it.
I’ll add my voice to the chorus if something else pops up.
But I’ll be honest, I’m really bored after the sort of discussions I’ve had, things I’ve written and the views I’ve experimented with.
My “matrimonials” social commentary disguised in chicktrick is up on my blog.
Where are you based btw and how long have you lived in Pakistan?

Noted.
Thanks for the info Michael Zackson.

Heh. Sorry I couldn’t resist. Your name is very rhymy. I bet your roadies/groupie chix have it easy writing love poetry for you. ; )

can u send me more info about arranged marriage and if it should be eligle or not

I can’t remember a time in which people have debated so well (and in such a civil manner).

Now, for my two cents…
1) As a whole, more “prospective mates” are being given the choice to say Yay or Nay. As for the pressure, that’s present in many societies, just in different forms. Whether its an Irish girl who wants to marry her Spanish boyfriend (a friend of mine) or a Pakistani girl who didn’t even get the chance to meet who she thought she could be interested in because he was from another part of Pakistan (another friend of mine.) Granted, on the whole, Westerners are more accepting, and that’s something I think we should learn from them. We could certainly use more tolerance.

2)Perhaps it’s just my experience alone, but I do find that Easterners have a more positive outlook on marriage than Westerners do. For Westerners the option of marriage is something that is entered into ONLY after they’ve played the field, established their careers, and are looking to settle down. Men (more so than women, by a large margin I believe) are extremely apprehensive of having to commit to one woman for the rest of their lives. It’s looked at from the perspective of “It’s something you should do later on when you’ve already had your fun” (as if marriage is just going “downhill”.) On the Eastern front, men and woman are expected to get married, yes (you’re an enigma if you don’t), but it’s done with a more positive attitude. I don’t feel it’s because of Eastern men’s resignation, but more that they ACTUALLY do want to share their lives with a significant other (usually at a much younger age.) They look forward to getting married. It’s a rite of passage that they usually welcome. Whether or not that’s because of the anticipated…ahem…conjugal rights, well, that’s another thing altogether. Speaking of “relations”, I think this also plays a very important factor. Western couples have mini quasi-marriages throughout their adolescent and young adult lives, unlike their Eastern counterpart, therefore they (Westerners) are not as “hungry” for the ultimate relationship: marriage.

Hmmm…I guess this turned out to be more like $2, as opposed to 2 cents. I’ll try to trim next time around, Insha Allah.

Thanks for the forum!

i have read you articale and really liked it. i also have an arranged marriage but with me it was differnt i married with my cusine whome i never seen nor talkwith him. now its been two year but i am living with like stranger. because i find him very uninterested man. i am realy kind of forced to live with him because he is my cusine. there will alots of trouble in family then. we have no physicale relationship with each other we don’t talk with each other much. sometime i blame my parnts for that. that is why i hate arrange marriages. i think its good if parents ask their children before they make any deceision. my parents din not ask me. what do you think about this?

Hi,

I am a westerner living in India. I think that misconceptions abound about both western style love marriage and eastern style arranged marriage, so I’d like to make a few points.

The first point is that actually, large numbers of marriages follow an ‘arranged introduction’ model. That is, your parents, friends, colleagues etc may set up an introduction with someone they consider to be eligible (ie suits your personality). This is particularly so if you are older (in your thirties) and a woman. Remember how Bridget Jones’ mum was always trying to find her a boyfriend (in the hope that a boyfriend will turn into a husband.) Arranged marriages used to be the norm in Europe, and it’s really only since the end of world war 2 that people really have been free to make completely independent choices about whom they marry.

Having observed marriages of both kinds, I notice that the happiest IN BOTH CASES are ones where the couple respect each other, receive emotional support from their families, and who share compatible interests and personalities. I’ve just finished talking to an Indian pal of mine who is absolutely terrified that his parents are going to select a girl according their values, but who won’t understand music, which is profession and his life.

At the moment, I am in the process of ‘arranging my own marriage’. That is, I am interviewing guys for the job of being Mr Uchiita. Had I been Indian, then I would have had a lot of help with this, as it is, I’m on my own. Which is proably why 25% of British households are single person ones. The fact remains is that arrange marriages suit a lot of people in India, and would, if socially acceptable suit a lot of people in the west. I would only trust three people in the whole world my mum, my sister and her husband) with the task of finding a life partner. And, if I chose for myself, their opinion of him would be a big factor in my final decision.

I don’t think that westerners focus on physical beauty any more than other cultures. Here, if you have a physical defect or dark skin your chances in the marriage game are slim. This is a very beauty orientated culture, perhaps even more so than the west.

zack - stumbled on this site while procrastinating, don’t know if you or anyone else will ever read this but thought i’d put in my couple of cents’ worth anyhow….i like your post, it’s something i think about often these days - i’m indian and hindu, my boyfriend is pakistani, and of course my parents are totally against us…until not too long ago i never thought i could do the arranged thing - never imagined being able to marry a stranger…but now i wonder. perhaps arranged marriages really are better, maybe rocking the boat isn’t worth it, and anyway, just because i’ve met the love of my life doesn’t mean i should want to spend the rest of it with him, does it, when there are other things to consider? maybe it won’t be so bad after all and i’ll be able to be friends with and fond of the person i marry - after all, proximity can do wonders if both people are basically reasonable…so i trawl the web looking for reasons to believe one thing or the other, and all i find are arguments both ways - as you might expect….

I’m a college student in Springfield, Missouri, USA, doing research for a debate on arranged marriages and “love” marriages. I wanted to first thank all of you for your discussion. It is good to see reasoned arguments on both sides, rather than lengthy diatribes against the other side.

I think the common thread through all of your arguments is how to define a successful marriage. I believe marriage to have many and varried purposes. Several of them are named here: raising children, providing a friend and confidant, providing a foil or complement, and lowly economic, social, and sexual benefit.

A defenition of successful marriage must encompass all these things. If it only includes raising children, then any fertility clinic will do. Friends and confidants require only a roommate. Foils and complements are your family. And economic, social, and sexual benefits can be attained by contractual agreements.

What ties all these things together is love, however in this case it is the Biblical sense. Love is kind, unselfish, giving, and keeps no record of wrongs. If there is a better guide to parenting, friendships, family, and life, I know it not.

Marriage and love tie all these things together. In this way, it makes no difference whether the marriage is arranged by God or Man. The tieing together is by active verb: Love, and is controlable by the doer.

This was what the Biblical writers meant when they compared the relationship of the Church to Christ to the relationship of Marriage. Love is defined by actions, the actions of Christ for his Church, the actions of spouse to spouse. If I can move mountains, but have not love, I have nothing.

I think it is important that romance does not make this list. It is not a marriage based on Active Verb Love, but on Descriptive Noun Romance that fails. This is based on physical beauty and education. “He’s Dreamy,” or whatnot. The medievalists who first talked of Descriptive Noun Romantic Love never envisioned it as centering a marriage. They considered Active Verb Love to be the center, and as such, arranged by God or Man, their marriages held. I don’t think it accidental that this appeared in Christian Europe and not Islamic Near East, Hindu India, or Budhist Far East.

One final thing, if you all haven’t guessed, I am a single, evangelical, Baptist Christian. These are my beliefs and findings on the realm of marriage.

I wish to thank you all again for helping me clarify my own arguments and I look forward to your riposts.

M. Howell

I was just curious, but at what age do the boys/men begin getting married at? And if a Pakistan guy has been living most his life in the US would their parents still possibly force them to fly back to Pakistan to get wed? Is this like a law for there traditional family ways?

Kudos to Zack for maintaining this a very civil discussion :) Nice blog.

Very well written. However I do believe that the parents out there should sit down and talk to their children before reaching a final conclusion. Arranged marriages work out for some, and some they don’t. I’ve noticed parents using arranged marriages as a weapon, “If this happens… I’m sending you to India to get married” Thats funny, I thought marriage was something wonderful. I am still very young but have very opiniated views on the topic. A marriage should NEVER be the result revenge and should be a union between two people and their families. Unlike most people my age I don’t necessarily view arranged marriage as a negative thing as long as the ones getting married get final say. Arranged marriage is much like your friends setting you up with someone and it works out so well that you get married. The media portrays arranged marriages as such a negative thing to western society which is where all these points originate from. IT’S REALLY NOT THAT BAD. If you can’t find someone for yourself, let someone else help you out. Who better than your family who’s raised you your whole life? I’m pretty sure they would have your best interests at heart when finding a match. And if it doesn’t work out… well… everyone’s dealt different cards…

Im OK with arranged marriages…… but I dont know what i will do on the wedding night………………. does the marriage have to be consumated on the wedding night?

Then again, its not as if young people here in the West do not meet strangers in bars etc :)

i think this is stupid

Well, This is a very interesting topic and i’m going to have to agree with Ashley and say that this is stupid. The topic itself is not stupid and some of the posts are relevant, but the whole “get drunk” before your wedding thing is stupid. And people like Arzoo, who made a post on November 3rd, should probably learn how to spell and use proper sentence structure because their writing is equivalent to that of an infants. Anyhow, before I get carried away with making fun of Arzoo’s post, I must say that I think arranged marriages are wrong. Once again, I agree with Ashley and many of these posts are stupid. Keep it real Zack.

Zack: I am actually doing a project on arranged marriages for a sociology class. I need to discuss cultures that still use this way of marriage and the pro’s and con’s about it. I need to research different countries that use it such as India and Japan.

I find some of the comments on your post quite helpful actually. Many of the stats you have listed will help me. I was wondering if you could help point me in a good direction for my project or offer me some websites I could benefit from.

As to me making fun of the grammar in some of these comments… it was all in good fun. Take it easy Zack :)

woots zack, hook up some solid information for my budday Andrew Bryson…this is a tough project and any information that you have would be greatly appreciated by him…im on my knees….HEEEEELLLPPPPPP!!!!:D:D:D:D:D:D

Zack: so does your last comment mean that you’re going to help me….or just smile, just thought you should try and make that more clean….thanks mate

Zack: you use to be cool, i thought you were the all mighty zack with over 600 comments and could help us out, well we’re doing our presentation today and its going to be horrible and boring and we were going to talk about you a little bit because we had a great deal of respect for your work…now i dont know what we were thinking….im sorry, your pals….moose, andrew bryson and murph

Did you find any statistics on arranged marriages?

i have to write a story on “a difficult descion” and thought arranged marriages would be approriate- i could maybe set it in modern times in the u.k or u.s.a and have a man/woman have to travel to india/pakistan to get married to someone they haven’t met before. i want to make deep characters but don’t think this can be achieved through the usual “…my parents don’t understand…old-traditions…i want to marry who i want” any ideas? thanx TD

Marriage is a life time agreement between two individuals. I am a big supporter for personal choice. But not everyone is capable for such decision especially where one gets married at very young age. How can one choose if they haven’t met enough peoples (non relative)? What world need today is more emphasis on Education, only then one can able to decide what is best for them in every aspect of life.

For Tainted Dreams

First make sure that you both are true to each other. Then you tell your parents that if you had to choose between this person and them, then it will be your LOVE. It may take years, depending on your conditions, such as whether you are financially independent or not. Affluent parents tend to be more stubborn than others, but eventually you’ll win as time is at your side (you are younger than your parents and they know this). Things may be difficult in the beginning but will smooth out ultimately. I don’t want you to go against your parents but they should be considerate to their child’s feelings.

Goodluck to both of you.

i just want to thank everyone for their ideas, and just reading this discussion has helped! it’s cool that people talk about issues that affect the modern generation!

hello

I think this is a great website. I am going a research paper on Women in Afghanistan. This gave me a lot of information on the women and arranged marriages.

Thanks.

Linny

Imagine this your 11 not even out of primary school, you expect nothing, and out of the blue your parents have told you, you are to be married.
Its to a boy, you may or may not have ever met. You may like him you may not; you are not allowed to object.
Once married you must fill out requirements for this boy including a sexual relationship.
This boy can be anywhere up to 25 years your senior.
This is what it is like for girls like Lia, she is 11 and lives in Indonesia, Jakarta. She has never met this boy.
Or take Nurhayati who is 12, she spoke to a boy and a week later her father had planned the wedding.
These stories are surely heart braking but not compared to the story of our next girl- Santi.
Santi married when she was 12, she is now working at a brothel, her husband decided he liked another girl better and divorced her, girls in this country cannot find a husband after they have participated in a sexual relationship. Unfortunately Santi’s story in not un-common, and if the husband does find some-one else it is blamed on the wife for not looking after him properly.
I believe that Arranged marriages should not happen because…
Now to my first point, Arranged Marriages is an insult to the nature of marriage! Marriage is about taking a vow to create a lasting and loving relationship; it is a ceremony that reflects family and religious values.
To allow Arranged Marriages to continue leads to unacceptable pressure through generations, take Karmi who is 29 she married when she was 12 and is now making her 13-year old daughter Jumaria marry a man 10 years who senior. I don’t know about you but I believe that 29 is a good age to start a family, not become a grandmother.
Arranged marriage decreases rights for Women, often the women have to travel a long way to live with there husband and his family, which makes them very vulnerable and likely to suffer abuse.
Sure some may say it is fine because the family makes the decision, but what if they make the WRONG decision its not like you can go back, A lot of the time arranged marriages can be based on how much money, stock or food the husbands family can give the wives family.
That is like SELLING or TRADING a person, that highly breaches international laws, if we allow this to continue, you may as well let Slaves come back I mean, don’t you sell and trade them? And the wives are being bought to do services for the husband, just like slaves are bought to do services.
So really in letting Arranged Marriages continue on you are really letting a small slavery market live on.
Women in these marriages are unable to get out if mistreated, it’s a deep dis-honor on the family, even if it is very obvious to everyone she is being mistreated.
Take Meena a 20-year old of Indian origins, her parents set her up with a man ten years her senior, she ended up sharing there house with her husbands girlfriend, even though everyone new about this she was unable to go back to her parents for there social status would be destroyed.
Unfortunately some see no way out, take Sujata also an Indian girl from a good family, she got arranged to a son of a family friend, however she was in love with a man from Trinidad and couldn’t bare to confront her parents so she committed suicide, they also think she may have been pregnant.
They say that 95% of these Indian arranged marriages stayed together- I hate to think how many of those women were being abused and mis-treated.
Arranged marriages have started a “bullying point”.
If you are an Indian and you divorce a arranged marriage your parents will disown you, if there were no arranged marriages, many youths would not be left out alone, or feel pressured to continue on with a marriage that isn’t working.
It’s a known fact that many Indian women take overdoses to escape the arranged marriages, more women would be alive today if not for arranged marriages!
If you live in China and have a arranged marriage your only allowed one child, which is discriminating, also these countries believe that girls aren’t important so many get killed, who knows how many young baby girls have been MURDERED, in countries were there isn’t arranged marriages, this doesn’t happen.
Quite Simply parents run adds in newspapers etc to sell there child or look for a person to marry there child, these adds are quite similar to a house add or a advertisement for a car they go something like this-
“Punjabi parents desire beautiful, professional, never married, US raised girl for handsome son, 34, 5’10”/150, fair, slim, athletic, engineer/MBA, consultant in DC area. Enjoys travel, sports, music. Please reply”
Do YOU think its fair to sell a child or youth?
It also creates a rift between countries that do and don’t have arranged marriages, because the ones that don’t, can’t understand why the parents to such horrifying things to there kids.

all these are just fuck in bullshit. dont try to cheat people with these kind of paragraph.

i am a 20 yr old indian girl currently living in usa and 99% of whats written above is right. my parents r pressuring me for marriage and i dont see any way out.
i hope i die before im married to a stranger.

I just realised that all my life i have been surrounded with this topic. My parents had a love marriage. I have been brought up to think that love marriages are not wrong. I have seen all the problems that they had to face. I have heard of the hardships that they had to face initially. I have been brought up with the thinking that marriage is sacred and that i would have the final say in whom i choose to marry. There was never any kind of force used to make me conform to any kind of thinking.

My feelings about this issue is quite flat and cold when i think about it rationally. I can see that arranged marriage (the exterme cases) is not good.However i have come to the conclusion that the intial hiccups faced by couples in any kind of marriage cancell out essentially.

I have always lived in an environment where i thought that a marriage was based first and foremost on love. The other things we worked around. The other things were a part of life. The way my parents approached it was to sustain their love and then create a sucessfull marriage from scratch.

I think love and marriage are two differnt things but have to exist together. Neither one is weak enough to be dependent on the other. Each is a force to be reckoned with by themselves.
There can be no marriage without love. There can be no sustained deep love without a commitment(which in our society transalates to marriage - and rightly so!)

In any marriage - love or arranged - what matters after a while is what value addition each person brings in. How well you cope and how sane you are about things. It matters how much progress you make.

According to me, it doesnt matter how the romantic relationship started what matters is how involved each person is in that relationship.
In a successfull relationship both partners feel strong and powerfull. Both partners feel enthusiastic. Both partners feel supported and loved. Each partner keeps the other person as priority and are supremley dedicated to them no matter what hardships they have to face - that is what enhances a relationship. Sometimes this dedication is impulsive….it is a heart oriented thing. You feel like being dedicated. It is however not always necessary that you will always feel like loving another person. Sometimes this has to be a conscious decision.

This is a really good post. I learned a lot from what your views were on arranged marriages. Thank you.

Thank you Zack.

I would still like to add sometihing to my earlier comments. I have been doing a lot of soul searching recently about love and marriage.

One thing i know is that not all couples who are in love will be able to create a successfull marriage. Infact i think it might be more dangerous to have to marry someone who you are so much in love with and then later discover things about them that you absolutely hate….it is like a heart break and in many cases you will have to undo all your romantic fantasies and rebuild them again.
Oh! For that matter i think in ANY kind of marriage you will have to constantly redo your image of love and loving. There is no constant. The person who you are married to or in love with is also not constant!!!!

An extreme case of arranged marriage is really bad. No one can happily survive the pain of having their life decided for them by their parents without their consent.
This happens still i know and it is sad. Howeve,most of the cases these days are of “arranged love marriages” or “love marriages”.

I believe that one has to live this life true to oneself and keeping the present and the future in mind…..trying never to look at the past.
No matter how you were involved in your marriage(tradditional arranged marriage or a love marriage), i think it is every persons duty to give marriage their everything. I still think that marriage is sacred no matter how or when it came into your life.

Hey Zack, great site. Alot of info. I’m doing a presentation in school on arranged marriage, and I need to know the qualifications for my sources. Can you tell me a little about your background on arranged marriage?

That will do. Thanks a whole lot.

My boyfriend is an Indian. I’m Eastern European. We are both in the States now. We started dating not so long ago but our relationship’s been progressing very fast. We like each other a lot. He’s just told me he loves me. But…I know that his family would not accept me as his wife. But he’s already 25, has graduated and has a job and as I recently figured out his father raised a marriage question before and will raise it soon again as my boyfriend is going to India in a month. And he said he loved his parents to death and they did so much for him and he wouldn’t go against them although he will try to talk to them about me. But he is almost sure about the outcome.
I don’t want to be judgmental. Life is wierd and you can never predict what will happen to you. I believe he sincerely loves me. But… I feel a little deceived. If he knew from the very beginning that this will happen why did he get involved in this? Why is he making both of us suffer? Why hasn’t he told me what I should be ready for?
It’s not that I havent’ asked him but his arguments don’t seem strong enough to me.
Don’t you think if one knows that he/she cannot marry outside his culture(religion/society)he/she should not date outside one?

Yeah, Vicky, I know of innumerable South Asians who enter into relationships(with Whites usually) entirely for sexual reasons while dissimulating all the while about their love for their partner. I think you’ve been used and see little reason for you to be sanguine about the outcome. I’m sure you’re boyfriend intended to dump you right from the day he met you, but South Asians are rather pathetically lust for Whites and have them, till they eventually marry someone that their parents choose. In a nutshell, for the typical unscrupulous South Asian, non-S.Asians are only good for sex, not as wives.

Typo - that should have read, ” I’m sure you’re boyfriend intended to dump you right from the day he met you. South Asians rather pathetically lust for Whites and have them, till they eventually marry someone that their parents choose”

Zack thanks for coreccting Randomguy’s rather unfair statement. Whilst I accept that lot of what Randomguy says happens but I can give my personal example that its not always the case.

I got married when I was 21 and ten years later my wife who is Irish have three lovely kids. She has chosen to remain Catholic and I have not felt any problems with that. I did however at the outset make know that I would want the kids to be moslem.

BTW in those 10 years many of her friends who painted doomsday stories, including her siater are now divorced.

In my view men use women and some women use men and that cuts across races or cultural/religious groups.

hi-i would just like to say that this post has helped me a lot in dealing with my situation. not only in asian and eastern cultures are there arranged marriages, but some mediterranean cultures as well. i met the man i was supposed to marry when i was 14. i was camping with some friends and he showed up at our campsite. so there we are roasting marshmallows, and this guy comes up to me and says, “hi, i’m you’re future husband”. his father was with him. i was so shocked i didn’t know what to say-i thought it was a joke! so i said yeah right-i’m too crazy and young to get married. apparently this didn’t go over too well, because they left. and it kind of spoiled the rest of my trip. and the worst part was all of my friends there KNEW that my parents had sent them there to meet me, and DIDN“T TELL ME!! and they also knew that he was 10 years older than me!for all i know i could’ve had marshmallow all in my teeth or something. he also started showing up at my dance recitals, cross-country meets, family events/etc., and this made me really nervous and i felt very put “on the spot”. and his father was always with him which made it worse! i know that one time at my regional cross-country meet, i accidentally crossed the finish line one lap too early because i was so nervous that they were there. i wouldn’t have been if he wouldn’t have kept shouting “come on slow poke”, which really threw me off. i didn’t see him again until college. he was living in the same town that my university was in,(i was 19 the next time i saw him) and we ended up working together. well, let me tell you, we did not get along at all! he thought he was a “high roller”, spending daddy’s money on trashy women, and he treated me like sh**. and he literally called me that to my face regularly. then the next minute he would tell me how beautiful i was and how he wanted to live with me someday and have children. yet he was dating three other girls! well, it didn’t work out, but when i told him that i didn’t think that i wanted to marry him or have kids, the next day he said he was going to kill me. i was very afraid to leave my house for 6 months to a year, and people in the community didn’t look at me too kindly. now that things have calmed down a bit, i can look back and say, well, this is america. it’s a free damn country. if i die because of this now, at least i’ll die free. why would i want to live in a $375,000 house if i knew i was going to be killed in it anyway?(this same man also tied his ex-girlfriend to a chair and beat her-great choice mom and dad, thank god my friends did their “research”! saved my life!) now i am 23, and i plan on waiting for the right one to come along. and i won’t let my parents try to find him for me!

TO VICKY,
I sincerely know how you are feeling. You are not being deceived “just a little”. Your boyfriend knows exactly what he is going to do - he will eventually marry a girl/woman chosen by his family for him. He is also deceiving himself that he can remain in a relationship with someone that he loves without hurting either one of you. I am currently in and out of a relationship with an Indian man myself. The first year we spent together was nearly perfect, we also spent all our free time together. The relationship only got better and better until one day he told me he was going to Pakistan to visit a sick relative. He had jokingly mentioned his cousin/uncle was looking for a wife for him. I did ask him before he left if he was going to get a wife. He laughed and told me no. When he returned he told me he was getting married. You can only imaging the heartbreaking pain I experienced. How could an educated, highly intelligent man make such a choice? He has gone through great lengths to get this person to America. He has gone as far as becoming an American citizen and is now working on getting her to the U.S. I continue to see him. He has always told me he loved me. We spend most of our time together when possible. The relationship has gone to almost two years together now. I actually do love this man. I have tried and tried to understand this arrainged marriage concept. I do know that he believes that these marriages have less chance for divorce and that he personally wished to be with someone from his own culture although he has spent the majority of his life in the U.S. Yes, Vicky, I have been deceived, it can probably be compared to the experience a spouse has when one finds out the other has been having an affair. My advise to you is to try to have this man tell you his true intentions. If he plans on following his parentss wishes, then do yourself a favor and get out as soon as possible before you fall more in love. He has no right to continue to lead you on. But if you continue to investigate the nature of Indian men as I have you will find that they do not value women as men of other cultures do. In their culture the woman is to simply act as a servant…run the household, have children and raise them, care for the man. The man that I am with simply needs a “breeder” to produce children although he has indicated he does not plan on participating in the upbringing. What choice does the woman have that he is to marry. She would face being murdered by her family if she did not concent. However, if you have the opportunity to come to America via marriage, if you are from Pakistan, it is as though you have won the lottery. So don’t feel so sorry for her, the ability to bear children has paid off for one young lady. As for me, I plan on moving out of the state away from this man simply because I love him so much - and I believe he actually loves me -to get out of this painful situation. The whole situation has actually caused me to become somewhat prejudiced against Indians. As they come to America, form relationships with American women, then dump them for their traditional marriage. Once again, they have little respect for half of the world’s population (women). Indian men must reallyl love coming to America. It’s alot like coming to someones home and being disrespectful after they have been fed and treated well. Their intentions are not as honorable as they present themselves to be. The divorce rate is probably lower in arrainged marriages because the husband simply abandons the woman when he is unhappy with her and marries someone else or he murders her. The numbers can be just as deceiving. They’re still a primitive culture and the men try to keep it that way because it’s pretty good for them!!!

hi i am nagendro pal a 19 year old man from india. this incident happened to my mom a 36 year old widow 3 months ago and a very scary one and showes why arranged marriage at india is nothing but a farce. around 1 year ago i came to usa for higher studies. my mom a very preety and full body well off woman were all alone at west bengal at that time. when i was here her uncle and his wife tried to get her married with their only son raju, a 45 year old no good bad ass person. mom refused but they planed to forced her into marriage. one night while she was sleeping at her house they bribed the housemaid and entered her house and jumped on her. she was tightely bound hand and feet and was gagged with a rubber ball gag to keep her quiet. she was wearing only her panty and bra but it didnt deter them to carry her away and kidnap her into their house.there she was kept 3 days on her underware and later a bribed prist arranged and performed the marriage ceremony with raju. it was indeed a weird marriage ceremony. mom told me she was tied hand and feet and was gagged with the rubber ball gag to keep her quiet while the prist performed the marriage. after that raju took her mom into his bedroom and at knief point forced to perform sex with him. mom was at that house for 2 month , locked ino a room and ound and gagged wearing only panty and bra. later she find a way to untied her and sliped away and reported the police and call me. i came back and took care of her and now raju is at jail. but what kind of a arranged marriage india has?

Thank you for the information about arranged marriages. I’m doing a report on it, and your research work has helped me out a lot. Plus your views helped me point out some stuff that I want to say out as well. Great weblog!

Wow! There is so much interesting discussion here, but I have still found a few things points about arranged marriages that no-one has yet mentioned.

I’m British born and bred. My friends (even half my family) are all British (white). I have been surrounded all my life by the same romantic images and ideals as every Western child. However, like my parents, and those before them, I am still choosing to have an arranged marriage. Here are some of my reasons:

1. I am a muslim living in the West. My family are practicing muslims. I wish to rear my children in the same loving environment as I myself have experienced. It has been hard enough for me, with two muslim parents, to retain my religious beliefs and practices over the years. I do not wish to attempt raising my own children as muslims without the assistance and encouragement I would receive from a muslim partner.

2. Arranged marriages in Islam involve both the seeking and approval of a potential partner by a child’s parents, and the agreement of both children* (male and female) to marry. Over and beyond the decision being made by child and parents there is a spiritual aspect: prayers to God seeking guidnace and blessings in maing a decision, and continued prayers after the decision has been made. After all, no relationship is easy to maintain!

3. Arranged marriages are approached in an almost back-to-front way (cf. love marriages). First, a child and his/her parents assess the suitability and compatibility of the two families and the two children. In liberal homes, the children* have the opportunity to speak with one another openly and honestly about their views and goals. After all important issues have been discussed, a decision is made. When you have agreed on the bigger picture, all the little things you dislike about each other can be worked around. Having created a ‘safe’ environment through the objective decsion-making process, the relationship is free to flourish. The blinding (rose-tinted) effects of emotion, hormones and biology are no longer risk factors for hurt, but wonderful mechanisms that enable the relationship to be fresh and exciting.

*Please note, by child I am referring to males and females of marriageable age. Some of you have spoken of marriages between children and older men - personally I belive this should not be permitted in Islam since such young children are unable to give valid consent for the marriage.

This is an essay that I wrote for my class, I believe that it has much to do with this topic……Gaurav Kumar
———————————————————————————————————————————————
The divorce rate in United States is about fifty percent which is primarily due to “non-arranged” or love marriages. Arranged marriages have been successfully happening in ancient countries such as Japan or India. Recently has the idea of love marriges evolved, and it exists primarily in the Western society. Opponents usually oppose arranged marriages due to supressivity factors, however there are more positive aspects to arranged marriages then most people think.

In arranged marriages, both partners grow to respect and love each other. This is the case in many countries such as India, Pakistan and Japan. Most marriages are arranged by the parents without the consent of the couple. And in most situations the couples do not even know each other and have never really met. Advirsaries may oppose this type of relationship, however this is the key to a healthy relationship. Love marriages primarily focus more on the physical aspects of the relationships, and are thus obsessed with love, sex, and beauty. In arranged marriages these three factors are not even considered, and love grows as time progresses because their relationship is not strongly based on physical attraction. This in turn leads to divorce rates below the average divorce rates in love marriages.

Divorce rates are also significantly lower in arranged marriages than they are in love marriages. People who base their marriage on the three factors are most likely to divorce as soon as their spouse becomes unattractive or just “boring”. Since arranged marriage is not based on these factors, there is a better probability that divorce will not be limited to physical appearance or sexaul performance. Antagonists might argue that there are abusive husbands in arranged marriages and women do not have a voice, however that is not true due to the fact that not everyone is abusive, and in today’s society more and more women are able to confendientially come forth and report these abusive claims. It is better to divorce with a ligitimate reason, then it is to divorce based on inane reasons. The decisions of parents can prevent all of this from ever occuring.

Who else knows their child best, other then a parent? No one expept the child himself. When it comes to choices and decisions, teenagers and young adults are amongst those who are likely to make the wrong ones. It is evident all around us because it is present in the media everyday. This case also applies to those who approach an age where they are likely to be married and make an important decision which will heavily impact the rest of thir life, and parents are the ones who should choose whats best for their child; as they do in arranged marriages. Parents seek a bride or a groom for their child in arranged mariages and they choose the person who will best fit their child’s needs and fulfill their wishes. True, that someone is going to be married is capable of making their own decisions, however this decision should be left to the people who brought them into this world. To those who raised them for over twenty years and provided them with necessities; who know what is best for their child. A marriage should involve parents, and arranged marriges assure that involvement.

Arranged marriges are very controversial, but there are many examples throughout the world that indicate that they are successful. People do not marry based on just primarily factors and consequently divorce rates are considerably lower. And they involve the most important people in the world to an individual. Clearly there are many benefits to arranged marriages then there are downfalls. Today’s world is full of sex and lust, and arranged marriages portray that through it all there is still the sense of decensy and respect. The more the arranged marriges, the merrier the world.
-Gaurav Kumar 10/4/04

I like arrange marriages are not good because you should be able to choose who you marry and children with.

hello

i am an 18 middle eastern girl from the bay area. i have lived my whole life here and have seen and missed out on alot of what other girls my age are able to do. this summer my marriage was arranged to someone in another country and i flew over to meet him. although i did not meet him myself and fall in love with him on my own, i feel like the connection between me and him is just as strong and intimate as any love marriage. after getting to know him, i appreciated the fact that i was not allowed to participate in any of the activities i saw other girls of my age doing. my mom and dad always kept me away from those things and i appreciate it now more than ever. i went into my inlaws house repected and gave my parents high honor by decently leaving my home and entering into my inlaws home, completely saved for my husband. the love that i feel towards my husband is as great or maybe even greater than any love marriage. i not only married my husband but also marriedhis whole family and brought two families together. to me the best way of marriage is arranged marriage because our relationship is strong, intimate, passionate and will always remain stable because a marriage with an entire family requires more than just irreconciable differences to fall apart.

you all suck kinda a lil no alot but u know its all good just get a life then maybe we can get along. ya heard?

I’m very excited when knowing this information. I hope that eveybody will sympathize whit the people here.

I am completly for arranged marrige. It makes much more sence to me. I have been married myself that way. It has been 7 ya=ears since then and I appreciate more and more every day. I see so many girls my age that haven’t done anything purposefull in their life. They all consider getting drunk and high is the best way to be happy, and what happens later… They have couple kids and all of them from different parents, no connection between each other. That’s the problem in western countries, there is no connection, love or respect to parents or kids (between each other), so they grow up to be just two people that once lived under one roof. I am not saying that all of them are like that but the majority is.
It has been said above that in Islam they have two have intercourse with each other the first night after they get married, but it is completly wrong. Everything is done within the family to make sure the newly married couple spends as much time as possible with each other. They are not allowed to be outside their house after 6 PM for fourty days, and it is to insure that they spend more time with each other. So there is always time to get to know each other.
I love my husband, and trust me we are even more inlove and passionate to each other with every day that passes by.

Whats this shit about not being allowed out after 6pm for 40 days? Do you honestly believe that’s an Islamic rule - like they had watches in Arabia?? When I get married I intend to continue having a busy social life with and without hubby in tow! Thank goodness I dont believe in your rule.

This is in reply to the poster who felt they were decieved by their Indian boyfriend. Well I’m in the other side of the situation. I’m an Indian guy and been having a relationship with a non-indian gal. But the difference is I’ve kept her informed on the arranged marriage situation. But she still doesn’t understand it and because she loves me, is not willing to accept it. So I am put in a situation were I have to make her accept the reality and bring her to tears or take it one day at a time and live in a illusionary world were we think we can work it out. The reality is there is incredible pressure on single indian men and women to do an arraigned marriage. The biggest factor is the parents of course. The funny thing is that parents who left India long while back can be more persistant about arrainged marriages than those in India. I belive that is because their perceptions of societal expectations have frozen in time when they left India. They are living in the past. I know more Indian guys who married non-indian girls that have parents in India than not. I’ve met their parents and they are confortable with the relationship.

I’d like to respond to Gaurav Kumar (04/10/2004) who wrote that no-one knows the child better than the parent. This might be true when you are talking about a child aged under 16, but I’m 23 and I feel my parents barely understand me these days. Parents, just like other people become more restricted and narrow minded as they age. I dont feel like mine could open their minds enough to understand my worries and difficulties because their priorities are so different to what mine currently are. My parents may well know what’s best for me when I am 35, but that means 10 yrs of living with someone who doesnt fulfils the criteria I have aged 25-35! There are so many things young people cant possibly discuss with their parents. In this case, they turn to their friends who are dealing with the same issues (not even necessarily problems, just thoughts). I have no problem with arranged marriage - I only wish that you could put your best friend on the jugding panel too!

i think arranged marriages are wrong.your not giving the people the life they deserve, they have to stay married to somebody they barely know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i dont think that peoples marriage should be arranged because they dont love them and they might not get on and people may not fill right with them

Arranged marriages “work” because in cultures where arranged marriage is the norm, there are no other options!
I grew up in India. Even a phone call with a male voice threw suspicious glances from family members.
Now, I am a lawyer, in New York, and things are not much better.
My parents had an arranged marriage. I have nothing to rile, rant and rave against it. Or for it.
If your culture doesn’t let you date or hang out with the opposite sex, then it’s the only way to get some.
I blog on my possible arranged marriage on www.arrangeme.blogspot.com

I was hoping to get some help. My fiance’ is from Kenya. I’m from USA. When he told his parents we were getting married, they arranged for him to mary someone else and told him he had to come home. They sent the girl to the states for him to see. I don’t know what to do we both love each other, can someone give me any advice?

Dear ladies,

I am about to lose a very beautiful westernized Indian man to an ‘arranged marriage’. He lied to me about his age and his prospects in order to secure a relationship with me. After I questioned him about his freedom and we made love he told me the truth - I was extremely mad at him for I would not have proceeded if I had known the facts … . I am much older than he is and more experinced in life and no doubt he wanted me at any price… so he lied. He gave me his virginity at thirty years of age and I gave him my love. We had intense intimacy and many profound experiences.

There is the outer and inner marriage. There is one area where the greatest secrets are kept - the bedroom. This is the place of truth for all couples that no one can access - a sacred place - that not even the parents can access. I am sure what he and I shared will never be matched again in either of our lives. Nevertheless, in two days he will be gone to an arranged marriage in India - to marry someone he does not know and to some one he is not sure he will be compatiable with - especially in the bedroom which I know is of great importance to him for he is love-hungry. I am sure that she will not enjoy him. I do not see good things for her because he is not yet experienced enough to know how to give pleasure to a young inexperienced woman and I foresee that his discontent with her rejections will become buried and channelled into more smoking, more stress and anxiety. My repsonse to his bad news and the desception - apart from deep heart-ache - was to ask him to ask his father what it was like to be married to a ‘frigid’ woman all those years. If his Indian father was happy with that and a meddlesome domineering disontent cold Indian woman then I will be happy for my lover. Chances are that he will repeat the errors his father.

I am a western Christian woman with the beliefs and ideals of angels. I have read all your comments and tragedies with great interest but still feel hollow and sad. Love conquers all - so I believe. But to conquer one must have great endurance and courage … few of us have this rare gift. It is easy to go through life without testing the soul. It is easy to follow tradition. Most of the world lacks courage and so there will always be arranged marriages. What I have concluded from my observations is that Indian, Middle Eastern and Asian men think Western women are filthy or impure. This is a fact. So we have little chance of out-classing any tradition unless we become desirable and advantageous to the other culture - this requires money, power, status and prestige etc… I am an educated woman with some social prestige but I still do not see my lover finding courage to overcome his strong mother or his sister or the constraints of the Indian system into which he was born, no matter how western he may appear to be. I saw him lament at the loss of freedom. But as a married man he will also be free from the relentless 24-hour-watch of his family who dogger and pester him to do their will. I also see his ‘winging woman’ of a brother-in-law wants to make my lover as miserable as he is - I do not see true happiness just acceptance.

I am powerless. The only advice I can offer to Western women is to lift their game and make any man earn her love and her attention. Test him, screen him and raise the standards. The Anglo race has a tough time in the centuries ahead. I foresee that the fair haired race could become extinct as each Indian and Asian family etc., uses the system in Europe, Australia and Amercia to import family members through the back-door of arranged marriages and swamp the world with its culture. For every imported bride in the Western World there are at least four to five family members from another culture getting into the country. For every Western man who marries an Indian woman there are four or five Indian family members trying to get into the country. The truth is, they want what we have.They want to leave their own land full of poverty and mismanagement and invade ours - I see my lover as a co-conspirator in the plot.

I probably will have little to do with him in the future although there is talk of a ‘lifelong’ friendship. I said to him - ‘One has to earn friendship for it is filled with honour.’ I said that I did not think he knew how to be my friend. So darlings, I am miserable, lonely and decieved, but I had a wonderful encounter with a wonderful man which left me enriched. My destiny will be clearer in the next month - with or without him. This is the fourth woman he has considered for marriage. I know he will not marry me. My future at least is clear here.

J

Here I am a non-Indian guy who is in a loving relationship with a beautiful intelligent Indian girl. She is the daughter of a Hindu priest and has been groomed her entire life to be someone’s wife. Our relationship consists mainly of hours and hours talking on the phone at night when her parents think that she is asleep. We see each other at work for a few moments every few days. We have managed to find 4 or 5 hours a week to be together in person mainly out of our area because to be seen together would be the end for her. Her parents have denied her the opportunity to become a US citizen so that they can threaten her with deportation to India if ever something like what is happening with me was discovered. We both believe strongly against premarital sex and have not gone down that road, so the typical arguments against a purely sexually motivated love relationship are not valid (although it disgusts me to think of her giving that gift to a stranger instead of to each other). We have been together long enough to know that we do not want to be with any other person. In spite of all of this she is so close to her family. With her father in such a public position there is no way that he would ever accept her choosing her own husband. Never would he accept a non-Hindu and definitely not a non-Indian. We dream of being together and having a life full of love and family, but it seems as if this is not to be. So she is faced with a horrible choice: her family or me. To choose her family means a life married to a man that she does not know or love, knowing all the time that the man she does is still waiting for her. To choose me is to alienate herself from her family, but if the choice was us not a day would go by that I would not pursue a relationship with them. In a thought that is completely not Indian, I hope beyond hope that if they truly love her they will accept us and keep her. She is so giving and self sacrificing that she will likely give up all that matters to her in our relationship to follow the wishes of her parents, who coincidentally will not have to be forced into a marriage with a stranger, be forced to give themselves to this stranger physically, mentally and emotionally, to be forced to have children that will be raised in a family where their mother has sacrificed her independence, her ambitions and her emotions to please parents that are not willing to change their ways to see their daughter happy with the person that she loves. I am trying to understand, and I am living each day trying to express my love to her in a way that will make it possible that there will be a choice and that she can choose us. Arraigned marriage, forced pairing, does affect people negatively by taking away all the freedom and choice that makes us different from plants. It subjects a girl to a life that is not hers, will rob me of the only person in the world that I have ever or will ever love, will rob her future husband of the gift of her entire heart, will rob her parents of ever having a relationship with their daughter where she does not secretly or overtly resent the decision that they have made for her, will keep her children from knowing the joy of being raised by parents that model the ultimate picture of devotion and love. So tell me that this is right and I will never believe for a moment that that is the truth.

I’ve been born in England and i am indian. After reading what other people have wrote, the cases where the arranged marriage has got out of hand etc, aren’t nice, and I don’t wish it upon anyone. But what I don’t get, is how people against arranged marriages write about how they have been forced into it, etc. If they have been forced into it, then that is a forced marriagenot arranged. I personally, would marry for love if I ever found anyone. However, I don’t think there is anything wrong with arranged marriages. They are what they are called: Arranged. Arranged marriages are when parents find a guy/girl, and introduce their child to them, however the child has a say in it and can agree/disagree. I admit there was a time when you couldnt have a say in your marriage especially in India and that, but times have changed now, and if you don’t agree in a marriage proposal but are being made to marry this person, then it is forced, not arranged. there is a whole big difference between them.

Hi.
My name is Simran and I’m 17 years old. the topi c of my marriage has been bought up plenty of times. Coming from a sinlge parented family helps, as my mum has not got typical views. she believes it is my choice who i marry however i know and feeel that an arranged marriage is what she wants from me. my extended family want me to no matter what - no questions aked. all i knoiw is that if i do have an arranged marriages, i will die before my children do. i believe that we should chose our own partners - no matter what, although i accept that i may not. my kids wont though, no matter what their grand parents think.
Simran

GEEKY BASTERDS FUCK UP EH LOT A YEE’S

im form lebanon ,30 years old,working in marketing ,christian. i want to marry a girl from usa.

Hi Walid Filfili,
I was browsing the net and I saw that you are interested to get married to an american girl…. I like middle eastern man, and I would like to go to your country and explore more about you and your culture.
Let me know if you are interested, I am a single female, 27 years old, white, origianlly from mexico, living in texas now.
Tell me more about you, and what do you do on weekends.
Feel free to reply to my e-mail, and will see how it goes from there.
Looking forward to hear from you,
Sandra

I can’t say I would enjoy being married to a complete stranger.

Gee I don’t know what to say, except that the comments section has gone from thought-provoking to a rambling contest to finally morphing into some sort of a match-making section.

i am a coccassion girl living in britain however my boyfriend is sikh. he’s the youngest and is expected to follow tradition and is due to be engaged in 6 months. at the moment he is fighting his parents to call off the engagement and is willing to have a marriage just not whilst we’re together. he has been faced with the ultimatum to either break off all contact with me or to leave home and never go back, he’s still fighting it and i won’t let him ruin his life by leaving as he’ll have no family but we’re too much in love to break up. i believe it is unfair to emotionally blackmail someone into marrying if they do not want to. arranged marriage is acceptable providing all parties in the situation are willing.

Practical uses? and what are they!?! The reason divorces are so f-ing low in india is because people are frighned of losing the family wealth etc. Many women everysingle day are in tears knowing that they cannot be happy with their arranges marraige!

i believe arranged marriages are wrong. Hello it’s called true love!!

This is interesting discussion.I am 30yr old Indian guy who lived in states for 6 yrs so far.I have seen both worlds and these are my observations.
There is nothing inherently wrong in current arranged marriage culture.The boy or girl still have choice to say yes or no.Many westerners think they don’t have choice.Agreed there is no romance betweeen them.But Let us consider why partners look for each other in arranged marriage
1.For girls,the guy has to have good job and able to give financial security to girl.This is very mature thing to do.Because money is very important these days.
2.For guys,the girl has to be beautiful preferably.If not, the girl atleast has to have lot of money (dowry).This part is bad.Look at enormous pressure it puts on poor parents.Whatever they earn they have to give.Very unfair and clear case of male domination.
3.Both consider family backgrounds and values like humility,respect towards others etc.I do believe in the fact that in-laws give an idea of how the girl or boy is likely to be.It sounds little crude but it is true
Now let us look at disadvantages of arrangement marriage.The parents try to see girl or boy in same caste.This is how evil caste system is perpetuated in India.
Another disadvantage is, the girl or guy become victim if their family background is bad.
Very sad.

Now let us take dating culture.The main reason for divorce in dating culture is ..people are selective and base things out of emotions like lust,beauty and money.Based on my observation, Dating culture (not everyone ofcourse) tend to ignore long term qualities like acceptance,tolerance,mature ability to solve relationship problem with tolerance and patience.People immediately look for choices and since they don’t get what they want — they divorce.They went in with expectations and they didn’t get what they wanted. makes sense. But little children who are deprived of parental love are worse sufferers.How can parents devote time to children if they are not happy themselves.How can outsider give parental love ?
However dating culture gives freedom to choose someone one likes and get out of bad realtionship.What is point in staying in relationship which is obusive.
In nutshell, Dating culture is hightly conditional due to selectiveness.However it truely gives human freedom if it is based on both love and acceptance ( You love someone because someone is honest,beautiful,wealthy but you accept someone unconditionally because they are human).
Here is my conclusion,If both love and acceptance are combined ..that means one tries to love desirable qualities and at sametime accepting ones weakness.It is both not either/or.
I have every hope that marriages will be successfull. We can move towards a culture taking the best of dating and arranged marriage cultures together.!!!

Whether it’s Love marriage or Arranged Marriage, both sides have to be responsible and compromising. Americans are egoistic, open-minded and uncompromising. Indian nature is to hide our feelings, put up with shit and somehow get along.

As for my fellow indians who like to boast about their arranged marriage system being superior to american dating system under the premise that the divorce rates are much lower, here’s some food for thought:

Take the case of Italy where the divorce rate is only about half of that of India, and Italians follow the Catholic religion/culture which preaches in love marriages. But Catholics believe in ‘love until death do us part’ and are strictly against divorce, making Italians more serious about their marriage responsibilities and stuff. This is the same even with Hindu relegion too. However, British, Americans, Germans etc. are Protestants who support the divorce and remarriage system, which is the reason why the divorce rates are enormous in those countries

I, personally, strongly support the ‘Love marriage’ system. However, I also believe that Americans treat love as a materialistic desire (i.e. like beautiful toys or gadgets which kids like to play with). That is an obvious premise for a break-up. True, real love means an understanding for each other that they can trust, get along with each other very well (similar or matching personality/character) & not necesarry that they must be good-looking or sexy.

I, personally, am against the arranged marriage system because though it’s your parents whom you can always trust and approach for advice, it is ultimately YOU who really knows what is best for YOU & you decide your life - your parents can only point the way for you, but ultimately you are the one who will lead your own life. You have to decide what you will study, what job you will do, and whom you are in love with & decide to marry.

BTW, my opinions and beliefs have also been based on the history of marriages in my family ( you can get a hint from my username) - almost all of them (90% arranged) have all turned into a big mess except in the case of my parents, although none of them ended up in divorce.

i doin a research at college great job love is what matters

Interesting read

I am doing a paper on the subject of arranged marriage and originally I was going to do it against it. As of this point, thanks to some things to think about, from your site, I may do it for arranged marriages. Thank you.

i am 19 years old, brought up in Canada, but i was born in India…and all i wanna say is that i am totally against ARRANGED MARRIAGE, even if my parents pressure me about marriage…i dont care, becoz, i am gonna get married with someone that i want,( only an indian), not someone that they wants me get married.

I am looking for a Western-minded woman who agreed to an arranged marriage and as a result has a very successful marriage with the values and traditions she and her family wanted. I’d like to feature such a young woman in an article I’m doing for Seventeen magazine. Please contact me if you’re interested or know someone! Thanks. Lynne - lmcohn@juno.com

Many people say there are positive things about arranged marraiges, and that they’re planned out more and all, so they’re more successful. yet, I truly feel that it should ONLY be used as a second resort IF you cannot find a suitable partner on your own. I’m a gujarati girl who met a wonderful UP boy who was woderful in every way possible, except that he was majoring in finance, not medicine, which is what my folks wanted, and i let him go, thinking they knew what’s best for me, and now i’m heart-broken. though my folks want the best, they have mostly utopian ideals for me, and i don’t want that. Thus, i’ve decided to find my own way, and my own life partner. I’ll make sure he’s a good education and job, and i’ll take my parents’ considerations in as well, but most importantly, i’ll see that he’s kind, honest, respects me, is romantic, and soft-hearted, all of which are attributes i want. I simply cann’t learn to love someone after marriages, as my folks hope will happen to me. All these attributes are sometimes truly hard to find in a lot of Indian men nowadays, but I won’t give up. I’ll search for love, and God willing, I’ll find it. India is a very closed society, wehere a man and woman have very little contact, and that’s why rape is on the rise there, and even fully-clothed, well-mannered women are sexually harassesd and touched, if you have an open, free society, albeit with certain restrictions, then people will generally be healthier, as studies have shown, towards relationships and all. Many indian women are pressured into marriage, and stay married because of the fear of being alone with no support in this male-dominated society. Women in India really do have a long way to go. India may look modern on the outside, with it’s economic boom and all, but scratch the surface and you’ll see a country where the rule of law is at times easily dismissed in the eyes of a more traditional culture that enforces its opinions on society, especially upon the younger generation. Not only does India discriminte against women, it makes life miserable for the men that wnat to make changes and reform. Thus, people have to do things they can’t do to get around the traditional culture. I remember growing up, and the lies and silly games girls would have to play to manipulate their folks so that they could go out with a guy, and get around the traditional culture. It was Ridiculous. I think the concept of love marriages are better, since we have more of a say of what we want. i think it’s better for a society to first let people try to find a good partner on their own, but if they can’t, then they can go to their family for help. There are so many hurdles to the indian system of marriage, like the girls and boys of lower castes automatically get rejected for marriages for other people of higher castes, and i know from my own family that we indians tend to stay married for the kids, since divorced is frowned upon. To be quite honest with you, I truly feel India is in many ways backward socially, especially for the 21st century. We’re still stuck in the dark ages. Even the aranged marriage system and the caste system has almost been completely eradicated in Sri lanka, which certainly says something about the lack of social progess in India. I just hope when our folks are fold, and when our kids are at marriage age, that we don’t restrict them like our folks did to us. Can someone please post a reply of my views ont this, especially how I feel India is still somewhat backward? thanks.

gujarati_girl, your parents forced you against marrying your lover - that is just totally immoral and against goodwill. They should only arrange your marriage if you want them to. But unfortunately, having followed the tradition for ages, parents are most of the time forceful in deciding your marriage once they take the responsibility. Sadly, very few parents give their children the option of making their own choices in life.

this is boring

i think arranged marriage is silly why do islams have it? i am confused

iyer, what do you mean when you said they’ve followed the tradition of the ages? i understand that you must respect and listen to your folks, but there’s gonna be a time in life when kids need to grow up and find their own way. my parents’ marriage was arranged, and tough they’ve learned to love each other, i know my mom at least wouldn’ty have gone through with it again. my dad married her to come to america, and though they’re still together, i do wish they had more choices in life. just because they were restricted in life doesn’t mean that they have to restrict us as well. I miss that UP boy SO much, and i really feel this arranged marriage system is partly to blame for. believe it or not, there is ALWAYS some pressure in this system, like once my folks introduce me to a guy, they really want me to decide within 3 to 4 months if he’s the one for me. is this not pressure? what do you say to that? I’m a girl who loves and always respects my folks, but it’s not good indian parents try to control their kids. as a matter of fact, because they forbid dating, many indians get out of college, then try to let their folks find a person for them, but they can’t settle down, since mental compatibility is often neglected, thus many of my cousins are still 27 28 years old and single. I just feel that if we’d more of an open society, then there’d be greater chances of people finding someone at the right time. Moreover, it’s not just about marriage. I firmly believe that it’s a wonderful feeling when you’ve someone special to share your thoughts, feelings, and problems with, to go to places with, and to share love, before you settle down, and now that I’m 21, I really regret that I let that UP boy go, for we could’ve had something special. you can’t live life through the arranged system, not in this century. i just hope the right guy finds me soon. Do any of you feel he’ll find me? because i surely don’t want to have to go back to India to find a spouse. help! thanks.

i really think this site is a great tool to use for projects and well, just for practicle advise. thanks to all the people that have posted their stories, opinions, and their personal advice. im using this site for a school project and it is really going to help! thanks to the creator

I think the author the original post is delusioned or he doesnt know what is right or wrong. He is bluffing
I am an indian guy and ive noticed many faults in the indian marriage system.

he points out that the whole idea of western marriages is silly . but this is not true . Many western marriages do last for a life time

and even though indians are “married” for a long time , they are screwing other partners than their spouses just bcoz they are not happy with their marriage also because of social shame of divorce.

I am not a big fan of arranged marriage. The whole idea of adjusting and starting to “love” ( not physical love) their partner after marriage is ridiculous.People marry and then then prepare themselves to fall in “LOVE” !!!!!!!!!!!

what more can i say??

In Western culture dating does not always take place on the basis of lust. I am a Christian and I date to find someone to marry who will be a strong Christian influence in my home and on my children. I want to find a man whose life imitates the life of Christ in gentleness and love. What is the verse,
Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
never selfish, not quick to take offense.
There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith,
its hope, and endurance.
Something like that anyway.
I want to be loved like that. The way that Christ loves the church (believers, not the building :) ). Jesus’s love was not of words alone but of deeds. Giving his life so that people who scorned him, who didn’t have the truth, people who fell short of the law would have a chance at heaven and at experiencing his love. I want a husband who strives for this kind of love. A husband who can love me like that because Jesus is loving him like that and showing him the way. I think sometimes that other parts of the world do not see the whole picture of Western culture. A part of Western culture is what you don’t see on tv. A quiet part. Families. Marriages that last and are fulfilling. Churches collecting money to send to those who are less fortunate. The media focuses on the negative of our country just like it focuses on the negative of yours. That is their job I guess. To get people to watch. Maybe I am being random here.It’s what is on my heart. I hope this helps the discussion.

hey
i am sajjad i am from paksitan i am 21 year old i am looking a girl for marriege
thanks

To “In America”:

You can only find that kind of love, in your best friend :)

Thanks for the views on AM. In my life, I could not come across a girl, who I would like to marry and now I have received a few proposals, originally sent to my parents.

One proposal is from a girl (Indian), 11 years younger (my age is 33) and the family is very keen to get her married. Having negatively analysed all aspects of the girl in regard to her health, education, social life, financial backgrounds, etc.., I could not find any thing wrong in her. I also am not too good looking nor rich for which reason she should be interested in me, but am very good natured and from a good family.

Now keeping in mind the age gap, do you think this arranged marriage will last??

Iyer.

Do you mean that to say that one should look for a husband that is your best friend? Or to say that you can’t find that kind of love in a husband, only in a best friend?

I believe in the first. I believe in holding on to the dream of marrying someone with a Christlike love.

Well, if you can find a husband who will give you that kind of love - that is great :)

But I also strongly believe that the Christlike love you mentioned, in reality actually exists between you and your best friend (irrelevant of whether you are sexually attracted or not).

Hey guys great discussion on arranged marriages. Iam doing a speech on Indian arranges marriages and although i have finished writing it…iam havin trouble thinking of a catchy introduction. I’ll be really grateful if i could receive some feedback

Thanks
Anjali

A lot of modern people frown upon the system of “Arranged Marriages” because they do not understand how it actually works. Here is a very simple anecdote of how arranged matches work compared to the ones out of love:

Lat week, I went to the market to buy a good soap. I looked at all the available ones, but one soap I just caught sight of, looked very attractive with a colourful design and “catchy” technical info and the manufacturer seemed to be a reputed one. It was expensive, but I decided to buy it anyway as I liked it. But when I started using the soap, I realized I made a big mistake - the soap was utterly useless, it hardly lathered & even after rinsing my body, some of it was still ‘sticking’ on me & was like a total pain to get rid of it - I was cheated and decieved - the soap manufacturer put on an attractive cover and catchy info about the “3x clean guaranteed, blah blah blah…”, just to ‘coax’ consumers into buying the soap and making sales. And without even hesitating, I dumped it immediately after using it twice.

I went back to the market a couple of days back, this time with a friend. I went to purchase another soap, then he picked out one soap & recommended me to try it out. I was initially a bit hesistant to buy it, as the soap looked very simple and unattractive - there was barely a logo on the cover & little or no technical info at the back. But my friend said that he is currently using it, and it is very effective. So, I decided to give it a try & bought it. And it was only when I had my bath with it, that I found out how good it was - the soap was much more (really 3x!!!) effective in taking off the sweat and dirt off my body, and could rinse it off very easily. Now, despite how unattractive it looks like, it has become my favourite soap :)

Amazing isn’t it? That’s what love affairs are all about - merely ‘falling for’ the outer appearance and looks and personality(faked on purpose?), but only when this turns into a serious relationship, that the reality surfaces & the dark side comes out & the people involved in it feel decieved and cheated. And, obviously, they break up.

Whereas, in an arranged marriage, the parents of each child know what they really are & thus can make a better judgement in deciding which girl/boy will best match and lead a happy life. Agreed, the married couple may not really be attracted to each other (heck, they may even hate each other!), but eventually, after marriage they realize how well they are getting along with each other & thus they really start to love each other (Just like how I am loving my new soap :) ).

It is possible Zack - that ‘hatred’ is only an initial feeling that arises due to either a lack of sexual chemistry, or the use of force.

But once they start living together, they realize how well they are getting along with each other. Thus, though they are not attracted to each other, they start understanding and respecting each other.

However, this is not necessarily always the case. There are also lots of couples who have not got along & are still leading a miserable marital life, as divorce is not an option in their society.

I have read the above article, and do agree that marriage, in and of itself, is hard work. though to the last question of whether you would sleep with a stranger that you are married to. the answer, sure, is no, but that would also allow the two people to get to know eachother, instead of the western phylosyghy of screw first marry second… which helps the teen pregnancy stats. perhaps an arranged marriage is for the good of some people, and some need the freedom to choose. that is up to the person themselves, if their culture demands that they get married through arrangment, and they do not wish to, then it should be their choice, not the choice of a community, or religion. if they wants to be in an arranged marriage, then they are simply looking for the companionship that marriage brings, sex is not the first thing on their mind, getting to know the person, finding out about themselves and their partner, that is what is importent.

Hello - I heard on MBC that a religious figure in Suadi Arabia has suggested that anyone who forces a woman into marriage should be punished by law since that is forbidden by Islam and it’s teachings. I’ve been searching the web for those comments, but so far I haven’t found anything. Please let me know where to look as I find this a big and a very important move for the Muslim move… AMEN

I disagree with you
I had to do research about arranged marriages and the couple don’t have sex for years after they are married. also many cultures allow their children to back out of the marriage. And divorce is a good way to look at the succes of a marriage if two people get a divorce that means they could make their marriage work which is a failure. If they are still freinds that means they can make their freindship work that still means that the marriage was a faliure still. From reading your post it sounded like you did not do enough research.

Let’s do a small experiment.

We chose four group on N (Each group has N/2 men and N/2 women in the age range of 22 to 32) people in in the following way:

IR (Indian Random) - Consists of Indians, born and brought up in a town in India, and couples paired randomly
IC (Indian Choice) - Consists of Indians, born and brought up in a town in India, and couples chooose themselves
AR (American Random) - Consists of Americans, born and brought up in a town in the U.S., and couples paired randomly
AC (American Choice) - Consists of Americans, born and brought up in a town in the U.S., and couples choose themeselves.

We visit this group of after 5 years, and ask them how happy they are in their relationships, and give them the following choice:

1 - Very Happy
2 - Unhappy
3 - Happy
4 - Very Happy

Let’s assume that everybody answers truthfully. I expect the following results:

Notation: n(IR,1) means number of Indian Random that answered Very Happy , etc.

Comparing IR and AC
——————–

1. n(IR,3) + n(IR,4) = n(AC,3) + n(AC,4) : Same number of happy couples
2. n(IR,1) + n(IR,2) = n(AC,1) + n(AC,2) : Same number of unhappy couples
3. n(IR,4)

Please delete the above post. Here’s the complete version:

http://cs.selu.edu/~rdodda/temp/arranged_vs_choice.txt

i am using your info and views for an english debate, they are very helpful, thanx

Dear Zack,

i just wanna tell you that this is the best article about Love vs. fkn arranged marriage in the world

thank you so much

I have read the article and most of the comments. This is a topic of great interest to me because I am in love with a Pakistani, muslim man. I am a white, polish, russian, american, non practicing Catholic. We met about 3 1/2 yrs ago and dated off and on for about 2 yrs and got more serious but he would never give me more of a commitment and would n’t give me a good answer why. Come to find out he got married. I was so angry that he didn’t tell me that he was to be involved in an arranged marraige. I didnt’ speak to him for about 8 months. We have spoken recently. He apologized up and down and explained that he had no choice and has been pressured into this for years. He claimes to not know what he really wants and wasn’t given the chance. I really feel for this man because he really has feelings for me. I let him know that I am in love with him and I would support him and I would do anything to be with him, but I will not be his mistress. I understand that he did deceive me, but I feel that he has been sincere and cares about me very much and has really taken the time to get to know me and remember me and has claimed that I will alway be able to contact him.
I just find this to be a very sad situation. I respect the muslim religion and would probably convert. I respect his culture but find it very unfair for anyone to be put in that postition. I feel intimacy with him that is emotional, intilectual, fun, free, and physical. And I don’t find being drawn to someone’s physical features or beauty wrong because it is different in everyones eye. We have a bond, a friendship, and a connection that has lasted this long and probably could have flurrished into something real and long lasting. He will probably never be able to get out of his situation and he is confused and trapped. I’m really not one to judge and I dont’ think that anyone should, but my own personal experience had let me to believe that it can be quite tormenting if someone is forced to make these life long decisions.

zack, when in the article it said that they may connect intimately very little, but it’s still a good marriage, how can that not be a good or successful thing, for from you point out? can you explain that? also, i personally feel that introducing two people together is good, but then the introducers should back off and let the introdecees do their thing. how do you feel about that? arranged marriages limit yourself in finding a spouse in that it’s what you’re parents are slecting from you, and not necessarily what you want. I know in Hindu custom, the parents will often never allow their kids to be arranged of anyone other than their castes, even though another person of aonther caste may be better for them. Isn’t that itself forced? not all parents are broad minded. I know my folks are only gonna arrange me up with doctor boys first, and then, if and only then, if they cannot find suitable doctor boys, will they go look for guys of other status. Isn’t that forced? i think so. any way you look at it, in some shape or form, an arranged marriage IS a forced marriage, wouldn’t you agree zack? thanks.

zack, this is good, thanks for this wonderful site, and your good comments. you’re cool! I’m saying that when you said if all the qualities you find good in a spouse can be found in a roommate, then it’s better to get a roommate than get married. I don’t understand that, so i was asking you how if two people can’t intimately connect, and still they think it’s a good marriage, since they raise kids well, pay the bills, care for elders, as the article said, then how can you still not agree with this concept of being a good marriage, and say it’s better to get a roommate than a spouse? also, what did you mean when you said that the level of force in a marriage that’s arranged varies, and itsn’t a part of it? i feel that limiting your child to a particular person of their caste and not letting them expand their options is still forced. don’t you think so? moreover, i know in my indian family, 5/8 of the arranged marriages wound up in problems but non divorced, and so divorce rates are not good indicators of success in these societies, moreover, in societies where you can’t choose your spouse, you can’t usually divorce. does that make sense to you zack, for the most part? lastly, most of my indian cousins are still in their late twenties and early thirties and have never even dated, and they are the products of arranged marriages. their folks didn’t allow them to find beaus on their own, and when time came to marry, and their folks kept on introducing them to people whom they felt were right for them, they didn’t marry them, since they couldn’t find mental compatibility with them. true, you can find someone good through your folks, but if you’re not allowed to date, and you limit yourself to what your folks want, then there’s a greater likelihood that you’ll be single for a long time, because of that limitation. Also, i feel that most of them could’ve been with at least one significant other by now if there was open dating between boys and girls, and that’s another reason why i feel, even as an indian girl, that arranged marriages shouldn’t happen, what’s your take on that, Zack?

ps: sorry zack if i’m annoying you with these questions, it’s just that i’m 21, and fed up with with these limitations and feeling lonely and hurt all the time, without a good person by my side, and i feel i must let it all out and ask you and others if it’s really a good idea to have arranged marriages as the norm these days. Sorry, again, but thank you.

Hi, I am a person of Indian origin living outside India, and I am now at a point where I have to choose between an arranged and love marriage. This page is part of my favorites :) .I would like to make another version of the ‘soap’ kind of story-analogy of my own with clothes instead (owner can keep the copyright if he/she wishes :))
Arranged marriage : Your parents go to the best kind of store they can afford to, pick out a lead brand of clothes, and buy something that they think will fit you. The garment itself seems to be perfect in the true sense, it does not tear easily, it is stain-free, anti-wrinkle and it’s of their favorite color red. They know the brand but they are not sure of this product. they hope it’ll fit you and you’ll like it. They come and give it to you..it’s your greatest surprise gift from them, the most expensive kind, the one they have bought with a lot of eagerness, affection and hope. You look at it and go hmmm..

Love marriage: You dress differently. You have your own style. You feel very few clothes actually suit and really complement your structure. You feel you need to carefully pick out your clothes. So you go shopping. You see different stores. And then you see this store. A very modest store. (definitely not a complement to tell others you have been shopping here). But you see this great looking garment that you try on and find it fits you well and looks great on you. It’s the most comfortable thing you have ever worn. And you go wowww..

As with this story, there is no telling what will happen. The arranged marriage person may/may not like the color, and the way it feels in the beginning but may appreciate its comfort and utility later. They may look at the garment and think ‘this is probably what i wanted’ or ‘what the ..’ or’ i can never like this!’ . The love marriage person may discover in a few days that it was not of good quality, or he/she may find out it’s the best thing he/she has ever bought in his/her life.

People change, relationships change, attitudes change. People of the older generation who are proponents of arranged marriages may be well-educated and have advanced ideals, but still lag behind in the ideals of allowing or trusting children to make decisions (which may turn out good or bad).
More on my story in later posts :)

zack, i understand that unequal balance of power can mean people may stay single longer, but i feel that if my cousins were allowed to date, most of them would’ve already had some relationship which they could look back on, instead of not dating, but just meeting someone via your folks, and then rejecting them because you two aren’t compatible. the more you limit yourself, the more likely you are to remain alone. People need to be given a chance to date first, not just endure a system where within meeting someone, they’ve to decide on a deadline when they’ll marry them. can you honestly think of another reason why so many of them are single?That doesn’t sound like equal power does it? moreover, I’ve discovered that dating actually helps people develop proper social skills in relationships, and see how people act and behave. you see many people who have arranged marriages don’t know how to sincerely love somebody all the time, but often feel like they have to love somebody, just for tradition and for the sake of marriage is that fair? zack, just between you and me, and based on what i’ve told you, would you say that India is socially backward in some ways, with the arranged system being the norm, along with the strong everyday presence of the caste system, and dowries too?

zack, thank you. like your objective approach.
shef, I feel your objections are definitely with good reason. I am being asked to decide within a fixed deadline and get married to someone that my parents feel is compatible.
My parents had an arranged marriage. so did anyone else in my family i know. i do have an uncle who is 50+ yet lacks confidence in himself as the family constantly disapproves of him having married a person of the ‘lowest’ cast, even after all these years. Though they have managed to make a good life for themselves and have children who excel in their fields, they’re always looked on as ‘lesser’. i am guilty of having thought they are not to be spoken to, when i was very young.
Since arranged marriages are the norm for the ‘decent’ society, people who break the rules are regarded outcasts. it is more of a societal problem than an individual choice. people are left to decide whether to conform, in which case they are accepted, or break the rules, in which case they are branded. i have heard that marriages were arranged for children in early times. so maybe that, in a way, justified arranged marriages for those cases. arranged marriages,dowry and the caste system are still in very deep levels in Indian society, and is ingrained in most people. It is the root cause of the high rates of infanticide in less literate or poor communities.

interesting fact:: I have seen a lot of mistakes in love marriages in such a community, as a lot of couples do not really evaluate their real feelings, but the thought that they are forbidden to love each other falsely ‘strengthens’ their ‘love’.

another one:: it is against the law in India for doctors to reveal the gender of an unborn baby.

Dating and socialization:: not only builds a person’s self esteem but helps a person mature emotionally. ofcourse it has its evils, and it’s a method of trial and error, which puts a person through a lot as an individual. arranged marriages are ‘safe’ solutions that parents seek for persons who want ‘safe’ solutions for their parents(who’s winning here? noone?) i am in love with a person and often doubt whether i really have the emotional strength to deal with anything that might happen to the relationship or to really stand up for what i believe in. i sometimes even doubt whether my love is true or for the right reasons. i feel this is partly because i have never seen open display of affection or true emotions in a family environment. i have a lot more of emotional maturing,emotional confidence and understanding of self to do in order to be a good partner in a healthy relationship. and there is the extra responsibility of steady mindedly and strongly enduring the challenges of non-acceptance after a commitment is made.

a rather abstract collection of thoughts here..open to suggestions :)

zack, from this washington post article, did they give the example you think to show how Vibha, very scared to marry one she didn’t know, ended happily, and to prove that arranged marriages are “good?” i hope not, since her’s was one of the few stories that worked well in the article. it didn’t work for vinay, who was still single after that horrible date, and it also didn’t work out for devika kopikkar, who was technically disowned from her folks for not having an arranged marriage, along with her optomotrist friend who also had to move out of her parents’ home. eyedealist, i agree that dating an socialization has its ups and downs too, but i say it’s better safe than sorry, and better to know sombody before you settle down with them. in my family, my grandparents were not exposed to society, and thus they set up their son with a woman from a poor, and mean family. but, their son(my uncle), wasn’t smart enough to see the true side of her, and so after he married her, she treats him like a slave, she physically beats him, and she has no feelings for him, but they can’t divorce. thus, while there may be heartaches in all romances, it’s better to look before you leap. that woman was obviously a nasty person, and we were certain he could’ve figured that out for himself, had he been given time to get to know her better, so i wouldn’t want to take a chance. I’m indian-Hindu, but i strongly believe people should love before they mary, since you may not learn to love someone after marriage, like with my uncle. I want a guy who”l treat me well, and I hope to return that to him too. I know my folks will flip, but it’s still my life, and i’ve to live with that guy, not my folks. My advice to you is consider your parents’ opinion, see how you feel about it, then think about yourself and that guy and what’ll be best for you two years from now, then, after seeing things from all angles, then decide, based on what’s best for you. I know you’re scared, but my heartfelt advice to you is know him and LOVE HIM BEFORE YOU MARRY HIM. It might save your life in the long run, and even if it doesn’t work out, at least you may feel you didn’t feel like you just married at your parents’ whim, and that you did take the time out to know him before you married him.
lastly, i want to ask you something: are you gonna enjoy having sex with him just after a short courtship? i’m asking this becasue you may or may not enjoy it, and God forbid, if he had
HIV or any of these STDs, then you may be in trouble with him. I’m telling you this because a gril in india married a man her folks wanted her to marry, and she wound up getting HIV from him, and it turns out he’d been to prostitutes before he married her, but she didn’t know. you never think of this until it happens to you. Moreover, what if he has impotency or other sexual dysfunctions? i’d discuss that with him, rather than just marrying him. Lastly, i don’t know you feel about sex, but i feel that it’s important in a marriage, and I don’t know if you’ll be comfortable being married to a frigid man for the rest of your life? Being a good lover is essential, and i wouldn’t want to marry someone if he despises sex, even if he is a decent man who’ll provide for you and all. I’m not saying go and have sex with him, I’m saying this to let you know that you should know im better, and not just give in to parental pressure. A lot of indian folks care about marrying their kids off, without giving them a chance to see if they really are compatible, and I just don’t want to see you marry for the sake of marriage, and possibly regret it later. sorry to be blunt, but I only wan the best for you, from an outsider’s viewpoint, and from my own observations of indian people. Do you undertand what I mean?

shef, thank you for ur suggstions :) – it does take a lot of evaluation and since arranged marriages invlolve very little emotion toward the other person, it makes sense to make a thorough evaluation before even thinking about the prospect. It is a mistake to foolishly assume you are honoring and respecting your parents wishes when even they DO NOT KNOW the other person’s true character.
phoenix_1982 had mentioned that when people start living together, they realize they get along. ‘getting along’ can be done with a lot of people. if 2 people knew they HAD to get along, they would make attempts to do so(assuming they want to make it work) ,and would get along if they were decent individuals of remotely the same wavelength. ok, then what.. they are members of the opposite sex. they (probably) havent had the opportunity to get close physically to anyone, so there is a natural tendency for physical interaction. this whole setup gives the feeling of a controlled environment where creatures are allowed to breed and coexist, doesnt it?

eyedialist, what did you mean when you said that you didn’t know if you really loved him becasue you never saw open emotions in the household or family expressed towards one another?

Hi

What marriage is like in Saudi Arabia:

I am 16 years old, currently living in Saudi Arabia, raised in the uk.
When we first moved back to Saudi, I was surprised at how it wasn’t like I expected.
I live in Jeddah, which is in the western region of KSA, and is the most open minded liberal city in Saudi Arabia. Even though most schools and universities are girls/boys only, I know loadsa people who are friends with members of the opposite sex, or date, and its completely and utterly fine with the parents. You see couples openly out on dates in cafes or malls, and not much is said about it. And now, girls have started to stop wearing abayas (floor length black coat like things), I know lots of girls who wear hijab, but have stopped wearing the abaya.
Arranged marriages in this part of Saudi Arabia are very relaxed, the engagement process is kinda like dating, it can last from a few weeks to a few years, and the couple can go out alone. My best friend’s sister’s parents introduced her to a guy, they were engaged for a year or so, fell in love, and are now happily married. I don’t see how that differs from your parents setting you on a date with a guy, cuz they went out for a year un chaperoned.

But
In other parts of Saudi Arabia, all this is UNHEARD of, forced marriages are common (and I don’t mean just the rural areas, its in major cities like Riyadh – the capital – too!!!!!) women are forced to cover themselves from head to toe in black!
You wouldn’t know you were still in the same country. To be seen with a member of the opposite sex could earn you a beating. You hear stories of girls as young as 10 getting married to 40 year old guys and that kind of thing, it’s pretty scary.

Im not saying everyone is like this, just a lot of people are.

For instance, in my family, it’s ok for me, my friends, my cousins (male and female) and their friends, to go out and have fun together. So I have loadsa male friends and its ok.
But a friend of mine, can only freely mix with her female cousins, and their female friends, her relationships with her male cousins are kinda formal (limited to “how are you”s and “fines”) and they aren’t allowed out alone, an older person has to be with them.

It all depends on your family, and where you live.

shef..lemme be more accurate ..The environment in my family is one of lack display of any affection or emotion in general.I feel that was because any affection that was brought about was just for the sake of it.
I wonder if my ideal of ‘love’ is correct and whether i can really evaluate all its facets
correctly.
yazz: interesting facts..

eyedealist, but your family memebers do love each other, but it seems for the sake of marriage, which is what i feel at times. well, my advice to you is why don’t you think over for yoursewlf how you feel about this person, about how you both feel, and then decide? don’t concentrate on what your folks want, for it’ll confuse you. Also, did you know that dowry system and caste are in a lot of educated, upper caste as well? same with female feticide in india. it’s not just lower class, and did you know that sri lanka doesn’t have arranged marriages and these things either, for the most part? i mean, most of sri lanka has a free society, where you can date, and i know this from my sri lankan boyfriend, and another sri lankan woman. what do you think of that?

zack, when you say it’s not a good idea to marry then hope to fall in love, what about how people do marry, then learn to love each other? isn’t that possible at all? what about two people usually learning to love each other because they didn’t know each other before marriage, and so they’ve something to start on, and work towards, where as love often wears away after marriage when two people are in love before marriage? besides, what’s the worse that can happen if two people marry for the sake of marriage, and don’t learn to love one another? moreover, isn’t it true that you can know a person for a long time before marriage, but after you marry, then they change to their true personality, and it may still not work out, so what’s the point of knowing someone and loving someone well before marriage, vs marrying someone after just “one good table conversation” if there’s a chance that even knowing somebody might still get you in divorce ? don’t many people know each other for years here in americabefore they marry, but still divorce easily, while people marry quickly in india, after barely nowing each other, like that girl vibha’s parents and vinay’s folks did, but they’ve still got lower divorce rates?

hey there,
i jst wanted to say thanx to all of uz as dese comments realli helpd me out to write my english essay!!thanx a lot!!keep it up guyz

zack, what did you mean when you said “that’s just a stereotype?” doesn’t it happen in america and the west that people love each other before marriage, then marry, and they break apart becasue love wears away because of disagreements where as in indian system of arranged marriages they’ve a foundation to work on, to learn to love each other, and so that process sweeps the two along so that they stay together? also, why’s it wrong to you to marry someone whom you can have the same type of relationship with as you would a roommate? so what’s the worst that can happen if they cannot emotionally connect? they can still raise kids, care for elders, and still be successful marriage, can’t they? isn’t that what even the article itself said?

Dear Zack, I was doing a search on arranged marriages and found your blog which lasted for months on the subject. I learned a lot from it and will continue to look through your blog for more information. I was born and raised in Canada and had what I thought was a storybook marriage, married at 18, had 2 girls, and 20 years later my husband left me with only 3 hours notice. I didn’t even realize there was anything wrong. I adored him and he never even gave a clue that anything was wrong. Now I have been engaged to a man from Pakistan for 2 years. He has helped me see marriage in a whole new light, and makes me feel much more secure that I will not be left for reasons of beauty changing or boredom or other insignificant reasons. We are both VERY religious, he is a Hafiz (has studied to be a Muslim priest), I am a Christian (doctorate degree in world religions). We don’t expect each other to convert and we respect each other’s beliefs, and both talk about God and our love for Him together. He cannot tell his family about our desire to marry, because I am older, white, not Muslim, and not Pathan (his tribe in Pakistan). He is breaking all the taboo rules in order to be with me. We have been through so many trials together that would have broken up any Western couple, (because it seems at the first sign of stress many Western marriages look for an easier marriage, but don’t realize they are just trading one bunch of problems for another)…but I am always amazed that he survives these trials because of the examples of arranged marriage, and how THEY deal with trials. My fiance and I are very blessed that we got to have a love marriage, but I am studying arranged marriages so that I might learn the GOOD parts of them, to incorporate them into my marriage. For example, Easterners consider LOVE as a verb, an action word, something you DO. Westerners consider it a feeling, and once the feeling is gone, so is the husband or wife.

SO IF ANYONE CAN PLEASE TEACH ME HOW GOOD ARRANGED MARRIAGES BECOME GOOD AND STAY GOOD, EVEN WHEN THE ATTRACTION AND LOVE GOES AWAY, EVEN WHEN THEY COUPLE MIGHT HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON AND MIGHT FEEL UNLOVED, I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT. I know enough about the bad arranged marriages and the honor killings and suicides and abuse…and it truly amazes me how much the human soul can endure. I am blessed to be born in a place where I can choose my life partner, but I certainly feel sad that my husband-to-be is giving up EVERYTHING and everyone for me, that his family will never know about me, that I will never be able to show them love and respect, and worry what might happen to him if they ever do find out about us…but God will help us deal with that when the time comes.
Sorry if this is long, its my first experience with a blog. Zack thanks for having such a great site.

zack, if arranged marriages focus mostly on care and compromise, even with little or no love involved towards either of the parties, and they work out well, as shown by the tremeduously low rates of divorce in india, then that is a successful marriage, isn’t it? why don’t we then make this system the norm in the west, so the divorce rates go down? i mean, in the west marriages are moslty based on love, but little attention is paid to compromise, but if arranged marriages involve little emotional intimacy, but lots of compromise, then obviously it will succeed, since love is more emotional, where as compromise is more beneficial, since it involves tolerating differences spouses may have in a marrage. I mean many indians have successful marriages where there’s little love between spouses yet they still manage, becasuse indians can tolerate things better, so why have love in a marriage? what’s the point of having love when what you need to keep a marriage going is care and compromise? why is love necassary in a marriage, if you can just get along with tolerating the differences and conflicts you have in a marraige? what can happen if there’s no love in a marriage but it still works due to compromise?

Shef, divorce rate does not tell the amount of good or bad marriages. Many stay in bad marriages, and many divorce so they can find a good marriage. What if you are in a loveless marriage, then later find someone you love so much that you feel you cannot live without them? Love really needs to be part of marriage at SOME level, for respect and peace of mind. Why is love important? It is part of being human…to know love, to want to be loved, to love someone, people die without it, kill themselves if they cannot get it, and often kill themselves if they cannot be with the one they love. I only hope someday you will experience LOVE, so you will understand its importance. In my opinion, until you have known what love is, you have no idea how much Allah/God loves us!
Also, since my last post I have gotten letters from people from the far east, some who had arranged marriaged, some love marriages, and my perception is as follows: Human nature is the same world wide. There are shallow people everywhere, and spiritual people everywhere. There are successful and unsuccessful in both types of marriages, depending on the personalities of the people who marry. Each couple works out their problems in a different way, because what works for one couple won’t work for another. You just take things one day at a time and try to make life as good as possible. I don’t think anyone should be forced to stay in an abusive relationship, arranged or not. The laws that came straight from Sharia law about marriage on Zack’s site are holy, but people have corrupted the original purposes of the prophet (pbuh). May you all have a marriage that brings you joy and that Allah can smile upon, and not be sad for you. I don’t think He wants any of us to be unhappy in our short journey in this beautiful world of His. Strive to be happy, despite all the trouble in the world. Ask for His help and His blessings daily. Blessings upon you all as you seek your life partner.
Shama

shama, i understand what you say, but the reason why i’m questionaing whether you really need love in a marriage is because in what i’ve seen in arranged marriages with indian people, a lot or at least too many of them don’t really expect a spouse to be that combination of a great lover/best friend, and thus don’t really expect love from a partner, but their marriage still works becasue they know how to compromise with each other. what i’m asking and wondering is if all these people seem okay with this idea of just a marriage out of convenience, and it works for them, then why need love? just stress compromise, and marriage will work, won’t it, because you know you have to be together? how come most indian people have it well in their marriages, though they may never really experience love for a person? [ersonally, i feel love in a marriage should be there because if you don’t love that person, eventually distance may develop in the marriage, and you may not be able to stand that person anymore, though you may on the outside stay with him/her, just for the sake of marriage? I’m going through this arranged marriage issue now, and my mom feels i’ll learn to love the guy after i marry him, but that it’s mpst important to just compromise first and foremost, since that’s why our arranged marriages last, instead of these divrce rates in the west. I too want to love somebody, but i don’t know if I can, since in indian culture, i mostly see the definition of “love” as staying married mostly for marriage’s sake, and thus a lack of emotions and feelings are blatantly shown period, so we often don’t know how to truly make sacrifices for one another, without our parents approving of it, since there’s little love involved towards someone before marriage to him/her. as one commentor said. Thus, when i think of “love,” I too wonder if i can love someone on my own, and from my heart, instead of loving someone because my folks want me to love him. she feels that common language, food, good money, and mostly mutual likign of each other will end up in a good marriage, but i feel that it’s not tjust these things, for if I can’t emotionally connect with him, and
harbor feelings for him, then i’ll go crazy, for i think then that i’ll be marrying for her, not for me, which is what happens in indian culture. most indian kids marry someone their folks choose, and stay married for their folks, with/without happiness being a priority for themselves. what can I do? shama, how can i know if i truly love someone before marriage and that it’s genuine, not just for the sake of it, like in idnian culture? can anyone help me with advice please?

zack, i do kinda get what you’re saying, but indians don’t feel love bfore settling down is necessary, since you moslty need sacrifice and compromise to keep a lasting relationship, which is why indian marriages survive, even though they often involve little emotion towards the other person. now, if you already know someone’s gonna make sacrifices for you becasue of the sake of marriage and trtadition, do you need love? you know that that person is gonna do everything for you, so may just need to like-not necessarily love that person-correct? love is actions too, not just a feeling, according to indian tradition, the latter much more esential than the former. also, i think you can’t have love without being a person’s best friend. in a spouse, you make sure that he’s gonna be your best friend first and foremost, right? then how are the two different?

Shef, I guess if I had the answer to your problem I’d have the answer to my questions as well. If you HAVE to go into an arranged marriage, it is very possible to fall in love with the person after. A lot of laughter and sense of humor help, and of course respect and courtesy will make him love you more. It’s a known fact that when a person serves another, he/she gains love for that person, so make sure to ask him to do things for you as well as you doing things for him. It helps to talk to him about your feelings and what you do and don’t like, in a calm manner and in private, this will make you closer as friends instead of just his servant. I really think laughing together brings you the closest. It breaks the tension and laughter is good medicine and calming. Think of fun things to do together such as going for a walk and holding hands, going for a picnic, getting a book about fun things to do on a date, then plan one night a week to do something special with him alone. I really think one of the reasons my marriage failed is that I did not let my husband do enough for me so that he would learn to love me. I served him too much. I worked for him 20 hours a day while sick and had hired help besides, and it still wasn’t enough. Maybe we should have done more things together. It was his home too, he should have had some responsibilities to care for it, and for his children. He was willing to leave his 2 biological children to marry a woman with 4 awful children, and I think its because he never got to care for his children to develop a bond with them (or me). I tried so hard to be the perfect wife and serve his every need that he never felt like he was needed or that he was caring for me and protecting me, and men need that feeling. He never spent any time with them, and little with me. There are many books about how to make a marriage better. I suggest you buy a few or borrow them from a library. I don’t know where you live, or if your area has libraries or not. One book I HIGHLY recommend is called “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”. It tells how men and women think differently, and how to deal with those differences more easily. It really taught me so much about how men think and about myself and saved a lot of mis-understandings and fights and confusion. There is a saying “What can not be cured must be endured”, so if you can’t get out of being matched up with a stranger, then the only thing to do is to make life as pleasant and joyful as possible. I feel so blessed that I can make the choice to not even be married if I don’t want. Few women in history had that choice because they could never get a job to support themselves, and they had to stay in a bad marriage for the same reason, but times have changed in some parts of the world. The things you worry about are never as bad in real life as in your mind, and half the things you worry about never happen anyway, and don’t forget that God is there to comfort and help and guide you if you just ask Him to. Marriage is not all bad. It can be very good! What’s hard is dealing with a whole other family, but there are now books on how to deal with those relationships too. I miss my husband but I do not miss the abuse of his family. God bless you in your marriage.
Shama

thanks all. i get what you’re all saying. for me, i feel open dating should be allowed, and introducing two people together should also occur, as long as it’s just introduction, no more interference from the introducers. also, i feel that kids can’t always just marry via an arranged marriage because their folks want them to. they’ve to know and see that person well before settling down. for all thoses indian kids who say just do what your folks want, i ask you this: would you go hijack a bus if your folks wanted you to? would you jump off a cliff if your folks told you too? You’ve to think for yourselves too, and your own happiness. there’s nothing more powerful inb life than true love, and i hope you all find it someday. I just hate it in indian culture when people around you always tell you how to act, what and how to think, what to become what age to settle down, and whom you should settle down with. you’re not free to make your own choices. you’re in a palce, but you’re still a slave. is that fair? that’s how a lot of the indian culture is, and I don’t believe in it, and if i’ve to wrongly follow some stupid indian tradition, maybe i don’t want to be indian anymore.

hello there

im a pakistani model, looking for an indian or pakistani buisness man for marriage

shef,
I know exactly how you feel, the indian systems DOES force individuals to make choices for themselves just for the happiness of others. My advice to you is to take it easy and not worry so much about the future. We can only do our best within our constraints, and marriage is a happy event in one’s life, so we can only hope for the best and try to make an informed deciosion with a cool head without having negative ideals about the way it’s being ‘arranged’. i am sure god has a good plan for you.

For many people in india who do not see the outside world that seems perfectly normal and acceptable ,and a way of life. when we come outside India and have a peek into the western world, we realize the meaning of individuality and taking responsibility for one’s own actions.

You were wondering why arranged marriages in India ‘work out’. many people are not aware that they have any other option. to them love is an immature concept. also, unlike western living, family ties are very close so sometimes a spouse is just another important part of the family. a spouse has to act in a right manner at all times, just as a brother,sister of father would have to act.(are you really yourself when you are with your parents?? i doubt it). also this makes one more forgiving of the other’s faults, just as one would be with their own siblings or parents) in this scenario love doesnt figure anywhere. Also in dealing with everyday hardships of life and society in india marriages form more of a ‘partnership’ kind of relationship to support each other in getting through difficult times.

In America every individual at the end of the day is on his/her own. he/she doesnt have a support structure they can bank on. He/she feels isolated emotionally, and place much more hopes on the partner they choose to give them a sense of belonging and love. So they are more easily affected by their partners actions as they bank on one person for emotional(and only emotional not financial) support. As for the divorce rates it is solely a social factor, as it’s not a taboo.

l8r

eyedealist, thanks again for your understandingand god bless you. but how can i not worry when if i can’t date, i’ve to be forced into this arranged system, becasue of my folks? i’ve to deal with meeting these people, deciding on a deadline, when ihave to settle down with them, etc. isn’t this frightening? i’m scared about this. what can i do? i understand the social structure in india, but it certainly shouldn’t be followed in theis country, since this is not india. moreover, in india, you’re basically a slave to your family, and becasue of this social structure, india’s behind the civilized world. they complain about the dowry system and i feel that the only truly lower or eradicate is to first abolish this arranged marriage system, and allow the two parties find their own spouses. then, that way, they’ll know that they bear their own responsibility for their wealth and property. second, they should take the responsibility for their own wedding expenses and all, since they’re the ones getting married, not the families. last, they should adopt the nuclear family system, where husband and wife live separate from the parents, since that”’ prevent abuse of privileges at the hands of in-laws, maintain privacy, and let the husband and wife work out things for themselves. lastly, indian girls always complain of sexual harassment in india, and that’s mostly because there’s no interaction between men and women freely. if they allow open dating, men will know they’ve access to the women, and vice versa, so it reduces it greatly. indians complain about social problems but they don’t want to change, and they deny these problems even exist. i didn’t even know indian in the US demand dowries from brides back home, so i’m sure there are many skeletons hidden in the indian closet. india has a long, long way to go. now do you understand why i’m scared eyedealist? and also, if indian kids want to do what their kids want just to make their folks happy, or else their folks will disown them, or threaten them with disheritance or violence and all, then that’s fear, not love, and so many indian folks do these things to manipulate their kids. respect is often the excuse for fear. eyedealist, is this really a concept of close family relationships?

Indians are just a bunch of hypocrites and perverts who will talk spiritual and pretend to be angels, but in essence are one the cheapest races around who greed for wealth, resources, power, looks…and all the materialistic aspects.
Atleast, the westeners dont have their foot in their mouth!

zack, in terms of a person not wanting an arrangwed marriage, and if they want to date and all, do you know what that means? that means that they have to make themselves available, and not just to members of their own culture, but members of other cultures too. you see, if your culture doesn’t generally allow dating, but you don’t want to follow that, but members of your culture don’t date because of the restriction,s then you may seriously have to open yoursleves up to another culture for courtship and marriage. what if this happens? not all folks will approve of that what you do then?

Great article about marriage, arranged and love marriages, history of marriage and modern marriages.
http://www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Relationships/news_2005/marriage_1.htm

Shef, would it be possible to sit calmly with your parents alone, and talk to them from your heart, and tell them that if they have someone in mind for you to marry, that you would like the chance to get to know them first, even if it is through phone calls? Tell them that you are the type of person that really needs love in her life or cannot survive, so you would like a chance to express your opinion with their choices, and tell them that you know that they love you enough to care about your future happiness. (Even if that comment isn’t true,it will plant the idea in their head that they should care about your future happiness). Then Shef, pray for the right partner to come into your life, as I prayed for mine, and as my girls grew up I always prayed that there was some mother raising a wonderful boy to be sent to my girls lives. Pray that your parents hearts will be softened so that they will hear you when you have this talk with them, Then trust God to send a loving man, or to be able to fall in love after marriage if you do not feel it right away. I really hurt for you Shef, and I will pray for you also.

Why do Indian men get involved with white women if they know they must have or will want an arranged marriage eventually?? I have just ended my relationship with an Indian man whom I love very much. I am sure he had feelings for me too but he insisted that he wanted arranged marriage. I tried to end the relationship many times because of this but he kept coming back (and I kept taking him back). In the end I wrote to his parents and told them about our relationship as this was the only way I could think to get him to leave me alone. He went mad and said I had ended things for good by doing that. His sister is married to a white man and his parents went to the wedding although he tells me they were very upset. So I think it is him who wants the arranged marriage more than his parents forcing him and I am sure I am better off out of it. BUT why did he get involved in the first place??

shama, i trie to talk to my parents again and again, but they’re so stubborn, and it doesn’t work out. thanks for caring, for i pray that you’ll find someone in your life too. i want to be in a loving relationship with someone who’s meant for me, and all i can do is hope. I personally don’t want an indian shama, because a lot of them can’t maker a commitment without pleasing their folks, as it goes. thus, i’ve decided to go fro a sri lankan, for they’re much more open-minded and ready to fight for me. shama, how can i expect to mary an indian when practically none of them have the guts t fight for me, and for my love? that’s a part of security. i want to be secure a man will be there emotionally for me and be strong enough to lead as head of the family. what can you say to that shama?

zack, in terms of not restricting yourself to one culture, what about the children of mixed culture marriages? don’t they have problems with what religion to follow, what language to speak, etc? that’s why people say marry with your own! what you said is true, dating has become more common in india, but it’s still small, and even if you do date with your own, things may still not work out, and you may have to consider opening yourself up. my own cousin tried to find an indian guy, but couldn’t because of the fact that too many indian guys refused to date her, and those that did it didn’t work out for them, and now she’s with a nice white guy, and she told me she loves him, but it’s a shame that she can’t be with an indian, all because of this arranged marriage system. she’s gonna marry him in a short while, but she still feels sad about how she can’t be with an indian. what about her? many people who want to stay with their own can’t because of this arranged marriage system. what can they do? what can my cousin do if she’s upset about that?

Shef, if your parents won’t let you choose your mate, how can you go for a Sri Lanken, or anyone of your choice? Also,are you committed enough to your ability to choose a man to be able to go against your family and go find your own man, a love marriage? My mother did it, and she was disowned, but soon the family accepted her and my Dad was considered the favorite son-in-law when they got to know him. I hate to mention this option after hearing about honour killings in India, but what about moving to another country where honour killings are not even considered or legal? I’ve heard a saying “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” This means its often easier to do what you want with your life and ask for forgiveness after you do it, than to ask for permission to do things before you do them. That honour killing stuff is SCARYYYYY STUFF! Its the desire of EVERY HUMAN to do things her/his own way. Life is empty without that freedom of choice. If you are young and healthy you can make your dreams come true. Get out of India and marry for love…unless you really are in danger of an honour killing….then keep praying and dropping hints to your parents until it wears them down or changes their mind. You have the internet. Get online and date online…CAREFULLY, and prayerfully. You seem like a strong minded woman, so you have 3 choices. Learn to love the man you are put together with, or find a man you can love, or refuse marriage forever. Hope to hear from you soon!
Shama

shama, honor killings do happen in india, but that’s still small percentage, and my folks aren’t like that. thtis is a much greater problem in muslim countries, than in india. it’s not like my folks won’t absolutely let me find anyone on my own, but they want me to find someone who’s totally in line with what they want, like a rich doctor, or lawyer, which i feel is a bit oppressive. true, a good education is important in a man, but this is too much. moreover, there’s very little dating in indian culture, and so i can’t truly find indian guys to date. moreover, even if you do find a nice indian boy to date, it seems like their folks want to control them and even marry them off to the girl they feel is right for them, and i don’t want that. Sri lankan guys are nice, and i want to marry one, and i’ll make sure he’s well-educated, honest, respectful to me, hard-working, gentle, and kind. I’m in America, and i hope to live in London one day, not in india or sri lankan(which also doesn’t really have much honor killings), so it’ll be fine. My folks will eventually learn to love him i’m sure. you see, i think it’s okay for parents to just introduce their kids to other people, but it’s wrong to start pressuring them to marry within a month after meeting them, or to start scolding them if they keep on rejecting people whom they don’t find much in common with. kids should simultaneously be allowed to find a good person on their own as well, with their parents’ guidance, since you can’t just limit your self and let your folks find someone for you, since you may not be able to find a compatible match via your folks, which is the case with my cousins who’re still 29 and who’ve never never had a boyfriend/girlfriend. you can’t live life like that. I know of an indian family where the girl is 26 years old, and she wasn’t allowed to date, and she’s frustrated becasue she can’t find anyone to her liking via her folks, and her folks feel she’s getting “to be an old maid,” and so her folks are beginning to pester her to go find a guy in india, which she’s not crazy about. you see shama, i have to take charge of my own life, and if it means marrying a sri lankan, then it’s worth it. I’m not mentally attracted to indian guys, for I just can’t emotionally jibe with them, and because a lot of them can’t think for themselves, and do mostly whatever their mothers tell them to do, as demonstrated by the various sob stories posted here from non-indian girls and their indian boyfriends, who eventually married indian girls via arranged marriages, i’m scared to be with them, for i don’t feel secure with them, so i don’t want an indian guy as my life partner. and my folks won’t be crazy about my sri lankan, but i’ll have to fight for it, though it may be hard. I’ll make sure that me and my sri lankan learn to trust and compromise with one another, and have mutual respect as well, for that’s what’s essential in life. i wish that for all you as well…

Thanks for the message about arranged marriage.I think arranged marriage has few advantages but i gues it’s not good in the modern life.it’s good for the guy and the girl to get to know each other before getting marriage.And also,getting marriage is about feelings of one another to each other.I mean,feelings is the most important thing in love.How can my parents decide to let me marry someone that i never seen before and that i don’t have any feelings for?

Shef - your comment “as demonstrated by the various sob stories posted here from non-indian girls and their indian boyfriends” I’m sure was not meant to be insulting but using the term “sob stories” I find quite offensive. You make it sound like we are just whining children. I am a grown woman who has unfortunately fallen in love with a weak man. However, I have found the strength to break away from him, which was very painful but necessary. I hope you did not mean things to sound the way they came across, but please this is a very sensitive subject for all concerned. Thanks.

jemima, believe me, i was definitely NOT trying to be offensive, maybe i just used the wrong words. if anything, i sympathisize with you girls, and so i’m trying to stay away from indian men myself, as even a lot(though NOT all) of them cannot stand up to their folks even if they’re dating an indian girl. thus, i don’t want to deal with this nonsense anymore. i want a man who can respect his folks, yet still be able to make choices on his own. This has been my own experience with indian men, and so i strongly feel this way about them. want to find love elsewhere, and if that works for me, then that’s the most important thing.

zack, i still don’t get one thing: in a previous post you said it’s true that personalities can change after marriage, and that you never really know someone until after you marry them, but it’s still better than marrying a total stranger, so how is that so? if there’s a strong chance that the person whom you’ve known for 5 years can turn out to be a jerk after you two get hitched, then what’s the point in knowing somebody before? you can marry someone whom you get just met like that girl Vibha did in that washington post article, and have it turn out well, can’t you? zack, didn’t that girl Vibha have a happy ending with a man whom she married after knowing him for a short while?

How sick is it to marry in one’s caste/ religion etc.It is like marrying someone from your own biological root family. that is why there are so many defective children in asian countries esp india pakistan . They don tunderstand the simple biological rule that you MUST NEVER HAVE A BABY WITH YOUR BIOLOGICAL RELATIVES COZ THAT HAS A HIGH CHANCE OF BEING PHYSICALLY/MENTALLY UNFIT.
I am not against anyone.

zack, what do you consider a stranger to be? someone whom you have never seen and met, or like in hindu custom, where after the couple meets a few times, then they marry? is the latter case still two strangers marrying? also, proponents of arranged marriages say it works better than love marriages because people do background checks, family checks, etc. my question is, don’t even people in love marriages do that? i mean they make sure they have a good family, good job, etc? isn’t that still a background check, and if it’s not so, then what’s the difference here? also, zack, isn’t this arranged marriage system not fiar to people who’s folks don’t have that many contacts, or aren’t that rich, since the more of that stuff you have, the fewer people you may meet even if you yourself are well-educated and stable, as opposed to a system where you can look for someone on your own, and first the couple decide if they’re okay for one another, then the family wealth, status, etc is considered? i aks this becasue one of my brilliant educated cousins is in this case, and because her folks aren’t financially well-off, not many guys want to meet her, and she’s very financially stabler and all. isn’t this system very limiting for people?

zack, what did you mean by the process of background checks is very different in love marrages? also, even though i agree with you that even dating requires the use of attributes, and you may lose if you don’t have them, don’t you think that dating, and having the opportuniaty to meet people on your own is still better than being just limited to your parents’ choices of potential mates, since their contacts may also be limited, and they have their own biases, so you’re stuck even more there?
lastly, what about in arranged marriage, if you leave your folks to do the background checks, and if they get fooled by the opposing party, and you marry them after a couple of “dates,” or meetings, and you get stuck in a quagmire becasue your parents were fooled by your spouses’ parents and the other people? what do you do, and who suffers? i’ve known people in my own family who’ve had these situations, so my question to you is can’t this system of background checks actually backfire on you, because people do lie and all?

zack, why did you mention in your post that how do people who favor arranged marriage feel about sleeping with someone whom they’ve just met after a couple of “dates” or meetings? how come you don’t think sleeping with someone whom you’ve just met is a good idea, since you can know for years can suddenly turn into a bad lover after marriage? I personally feel that sleeping with a relative stranger may expose you to STDS, or he/she might be rough or bad to you in bed, or worse yet, she/he could be so frigid and disdainful towards sex, which would be a total waste, so i wouldn’t sleep with a relative stranger, unless i discussed with him his sexual past or his other partners, since people may have many skeletons hidden behind their closets, so you must be careful.

also zack: when you mentioned earleir that in a marriage, if you can have the same relationship with a spouse and a roommate, then that’s not good, since the universal ideal of a marriage worldwide is to have pretty much a lover/best friend/canfidante relationship, then can you possibly have complications resulting from that scenariop where the husband and wife bond is that of roommates? i think so, because what if the communication loses, because you cannot or don’t want to intimately connect with one another, and so lack of communication may actually cause problems in a relationship, since don’t forget, you two are married together for a long time, and any long term relationship, whether out of love or not, is subject to disagreements and problems, and abuse due to change of financial situations, change of family environment, and thus they two consorts may not love each other as much as they did in the beginning. i saw this happen in my own family, and so i think having a roomate relationship with your spouse can actually be very detrimental and backfire.

zack, what problems do you think may arise if the husband/wife realtionship is the same or similar to that of a relationship between two roommates?

Lastly, to all of you: i’m gonna try to give some good advice from my own life experiences: it’s okay to just have you friends/parents introduce you to people, but still, i suggest you date and try to find someone on your own too, since you may not find a good person for marriage, and have parental pressure to marry for the sake of marriage, like my cousins are having now, and that may make you make a wrong decision. don’t do it. to all my indian brothers and sisters: listen to your folks, since they care for you, but also make your own choices, for in the end, it’s still your life, and your folks won’t be around forever. i hate this stupid arranged marriage system, and my biggest fear is to end up like the people in that washington post article. I’m gonna find true love, the one whom i feel is meant for me, even if it kills me! If i was brave enough at the age of 7 years to get lost in an unknown town on my bike, but by using my memory and calmness to find my way back home, then i can certainly have enough courage to find the one man out there for me, as God is my witness. I wish this to all my indian brothers/sisters.

thank u
i had a group discussion, on the topic “arrange marraiges r more sucessfull than love marraige”

zack, my question to you was in response to when you said that how do you feel about having sex with someone whom you just met? are you saying it’s a good or acceptable idea to sleep with someone whom you just met? also, interms of intimacy, what about those people who feel fine without sex, and can still cannot connect intimately but call it a good marriage? not everyone expects a good intimate and romantcie relationship ina marriage. why is love and sex important to you, when it may not be so for everyone? not everyone needs sex, do they? i
feel sex is VERY important in a marriage, since it often binds men and women together. moreover, i love sex, and i feel EVERYBODY should enjoy it, for it gives such wonderous pleasure, don’t you think so? I hope ALL OF YOU enjoy sex someday, for i know i have, since i was 19 years old.

zack, why do you think sleeping with a relative stranger can not be a good idea? that’s my question, now, and from before. zack, can’t personalities change with time, and a person may suddenly not want to have physical intimacy with his/her partner? i’ve seen it happen, so i was wondering why doing sex with a relative stranger isn’t a smart move. also, i want to ask you something else: are divorce rates even necessarily a bad thing? i think that if a woman or a man is in an absive/unhealthy relationship with his/her partner, then it may be the best to leave, rather than to stay and be miserable. zack, do you think divorce rates up to a certain point are actually healthy in a society? and if so, on what reasons might they be actually beneficial to have a certain amount of divorces in a society?

zack, did you know something? i just learned that in terms of divorce rates, that even in western countries, 20 to 30 years ago, they were also very low. at that time, divorce had a strong stigma, and everyone would stay together just for the sake of marriage, before divorce became socially acceptable. thus, when proponents of arranged marriages say that they’re better because of low divorce rates, that’s a total fallacy, since if we were back 30 years ago, when even western countires had low divorce rates, and we compared both systems, you’d see that it would be about the same, did you know that divorce had a strong stigma even back then in western countries?
also, zack, when they say that arranged marriages are better because they concentrate mostly on the love aspects of a marriage, that’s a total lie, since in hindu custom, they’d arranged marriages to keep together people of the same rank and sociaal class, and still do that. even in pakistan, in arranged marriages, the trad of the man plays a major role in choosing a mate for the girl. only superficially have i heard how parents mention how much love there should be in the guy’s heart, instead of how much cash is in his wallet. at least in the west, since you’ve the choice whom you can be with, you can still overlook that sometimes and concentrate on the person. do you agree with this that love isn’t the most important or the main factor in these things, but money property and even looks are?
zack, also, don’t you think one of the reasons why arranged marriages “work” in india and pakistan is becasue of the lifestyle of those two countries? i mean both countries to some extent do stress a submissive role for their women, so they’ve to be pressured sometimes to choose from amongst any of the suitors, since living alone isn’t an option in those countries, and also the standard of living, since those two countries don’t have a high standard of living or education, they’ve no choice but to fall back on these systems of marriage, whereas in western coutries, ther are more options, so it’s harder to keep up these feudal systems to work?
lastyly zack, when those people who say we need arranged marriages becasue some people are shy and cannot find someone on their own, isn’t that still unnecessary, since even in the west, those shy people have their friends, folks, etc. just introducing them around to different people? for examply, i’ve a shy girlfriend who cannot ask guys out, so her girlfriends, her cousins and i are all trying to see if we can find guys to just introduce her to, and she’s even put out an ad in the papers to find a nice boy, and she’s even looking in the internet. thus do we really still need arranged marriages, when even in the west we still have this introduction system of finding somebody?

zack, what do you mena by “no-fault” divorce? also, zack, when these people from india and other cultures from arranged marriages say they’re “happy” sometimes i wonder, is it possible that they might say that on the outside but internally, they mught be unhappy? people are people all over, and i sometimes feel that people may say things on the outside, but it can be totally the opposite when you go behind closed doors. there are skeletons hidden in many closets of people, and sometimes things aren’t always whta they seem, so can we just say things are good based on the outside picture?

zack, when you said if a roomate relationship is equal to that of a spouse and that can cause lack of physical intimacy in a relationship, then what about those people who don’t want sex or physical intimacy in the relationship? you seem to assuming that all people want physical and sexual relationship in a marriage, when many just wnat a relationship based on paying the bills, raisng the kids, caring for elders, etc. can’t a sexless marriage still be successful? what can happen if there’s little or no intimacy there in a marriage? also, when you mentioned lack of intimacy, can a marriage that’s like a roomate relationship cause a loss in emotional intimacy and communication?

zack, i know you have physical intimacy to make kids, but do you expect spouses to do it all the time? what if they want to just have one or two kids, then that’s it? after they have their kids, why can’t they stop, and just go back to raising kids, paying the bills, and having a partnership and complementary marriage? why would physical intimacy be needed when after you finish having the number of kids you want? moreover, what about those couples who do just have a complementary relationship without physical or emotional intimacy but are doing just fine? they seem to be doing fine, and that refutes your claim to need a best friend/lover/confidante relationship, doesn’t it? what can you say to that?

Ive been looking up a lot of stuff to help me learn more about Indian culture, and this really helped me out…I have met a 25 yr old male from India and he moved to the US about a yr and a half ago. We have been hanging out a lot the past two months and im kinda falling for him. The idea of him being in an arranged marriage never crossed my mind until my friend brought it up a few weeks ago. is it possible that even though he is living here that his mom would still have that much control over who he marries?

indian lover, that’s very true, for indian parents are traditional, and have that much control over their kids future, and that’s why i’m determined not to marry an indian man, for i don’t want to marry anoyone who can’t think for himself and is bound by tradition so much. to be honest i’m afraid to start a man who feels love is only somethuing that happens after marriage.

yeah but he has told me that he is feeling things for me he has never felt before…ive met his friends and he isnt n e thing like them…he seems to have control of his own life…but im thinking logically…just because he seems to act different doesnt mean he is different

indian lover, i don’t know what to say, just use your best judgement, but be careful. i’ve been disappointed in relationships with a good number of indian men becasue of the fact that a lot of them cannot think for themselves, and so i’ve lost attraction for them. to be frank with you, i think i can date them, for that isn’t so much the problem, but i surely do NOT want to start a family with an indian man. with an indian man, i don’t see emotional security and attachment in my next day. true, there are a few good apples among them, but they’re either already taken, or there’s a good of hungry female sharks after them. i know other indians would think of me as a traitor for this, being an indian woman, but i strongly do NOT want to be in a long-term relationship with an indian man. i want someone who can think for himself, do stuff rationally, and not just blindly follow tradition. what does your indian boyfriend feel about arranged marriages? also, indian lover, what do you think of my not wanting to be with an indian man, and my desire to look for love elsewhere? are many reasons for this well-grounded?

shef, i think that you are looking for what every woman is looking for…something better…see you know how indian men are..you have probably been around them your whole life..and decided that they arent the right for your personality…you want a strong independent person with you and thats fantastic more power to you really…but i dont know what to think…i have never been around Indians and i dont know what to expect…only from what ive read about the culture…i want to ask him more about it …but i dont want him to think that im getting doubts about him…it would probably be the easiest way to figure things out…but im to much of a coward..hence the reason i am here…asking complete strangers…maybe ill just start out with subtle hits then if he doesnt get it ill eventually just come out with it.*sigh* such a confused person right now…but even with all the confusion and doubt it seems alot better than dating white guys

indian lover, whuy do you think indian are better than white men? don’t say that! as for your bf, why can’t you just directly ask him? does he really want to do what his mom wants him to do? indian men may not cheat as much as white men do, and i agree that indian guys are generally much softer when it comes to women than white men, but in terms of thinking independetly, being able to solve problems as a husband, and appreciating woemn and their roles and their choices, and giving woman true attention and affection, indian don’t have much to offer. i agree there are many white men who’re bad, but trust me, i’ve been around a lot of indian men, and to even get to the marriage point, they usually want their mothers’ approval before even getting to the romance point! thus, they’ve a double-edged sword when it comes to stuff like showing their true devotion to their beloved. as i said before, indian men are generally much softer physically with women than white men, but they honestly make lousy life partners, and it’s not really their fault, it’s the arranged marriage system’s fault, since if you’ve to form a bond with that person after marriage, and there’s little concentration on emotional aspects or love, any affection that’ll be brought on will be mostly for the sake of it. at least white men can think for themselves, be able to solve problems(since they usually are encouraged to do so since the beginning of time as opposed to indian culture where parents come before everything,so they sacrifice it for their folks), and they can more often than not offer true romance to a woman, which is what i think we all need. most people in the world don’t want a mate mostly for paying the bills, raising the kids etc. they want a lover, best friend, soulmate, and that’s where i feel indian men cannot fulfill that role well. indian’s lover, why don’t you want to be with a white guy? you honestly don’t know how lucky you are. i’m 21 and i’ve never even had a serious thing with an indian boy. i just cannot jibe with them mentally. i want a man beside me for life, not just someone for the sake of marriage. you may get a husband via an arranged marriage, but you may not get a lover/bestfriend/confidante. it’s easy to follow tradition, and say i’m a good husband because i pay the bills, take care of kids etc, but it’s hard to take initiative and say i’ll be her lover and friend.

can anyone here give me advice on how to deal with my folks on my not wanting to marry and indian but a sri lankan? i want to go to australia to find a sri lankan man, and my folks will hate it, and they’ll start badgering me to marry an indian man when i don’t want to. i’m not mentally drawn or attracted to indian guys… i want a sri lankian man at all costs. can anyone help me? zack can you help me? what can i do?

zack, why don’t you believe me when i tell you i’ve had bad experiences with indian men? believe me, i’ve been around enough indian men in my life, and i feel they’re not right for me, i think they’re spoilt and i don’t feel i can get the happiness i need from them. don’t you think i’ve a right to find love elsewhere if i’ve been disappointed in relationships with indian men?

zack, like i said so before, NOT all indian men are like this,there are some good ones, but based on being around them for most of my life, knowing how the indian culture is, getting feedback from other people, i can say that a lot of them are cold and emotionally detached from their women. all stereotypes have some truth in them, or they wouldn’t be stereotypes in the first place. besides, when one grows up in a society, he acts accordingly to its rules and so thinks thta hey, if other men are happy with a wife who can work, cook, and clean, and what i mostly have to as husband is pay the bills, but not be her friend or lover, why should i not do the same? there’s no divorce, and she can’t live aslone as a woman. that’s how many indian men think. do you get what i mean zack? to be honest, i’m afraid to start a family with a man who thinks love mostly happens after marriage, since love may not happen, and the indian definition of love is familial love, not romantic love, which is very important in keeping alive the communication, trust, and intimacy between husband and wife. can you blame me for being afraid to begin a family with a man who thinks love happens after marriage?

girl you dont need to ask any one how u feel…obviously u have made up your mind…and seems like a fantastic choice…if ur family cant understand…elope…go to australia…make some love …then elope…sounds like a fantastic plan in my mind :P its what i would do in your situation..

indian’s lover, thaks a lot. i wish more peopel would understand like you do. it’s gonna be tough, going to australia and all, but i cannot stay here and have my life lived for me. my folks would never force me to be with an indian, but they’d try to guilt trip me or annoy the hell out of me to marry an indian man, and i don’t want that. it’s gonna be tough, going to australia to find a sri lankan, but i want to find my other half, and love and take care of him. hey, if these russian women can do it, why can’t I ever heard of russian mail order brides? these women are strong and all, and i must be that way as well. i wish that for all of you. never give up on love.

i agree zack, maybe that would be the best thing. just out of curiosity, how come you did this blog on arranged marriages? is it to help others or for personal reasons?

Nice website. Actually i had to do a paper for my class on arranged marriages,and came across this website.But I think most of the people make arranged marriages sound like so horrible or something. Arranged marriage is one where the families are involved in the decision making progress, and the final decision has to be made with the Two people(bride and groom)and that is Islam.And it is not like two individuals hasn’t seen each other till the day of wedding.
For kashmiri boy i can suggest that even if you don,t know your partner that much on ist day, you can be patient and get to know each other till both of you feel comfortable with eachother.
I don,t like the suggestion of getting drunk(even if it was a joke)
Arranged marriages are beneficial not only for the couple but for the society too.If my parents find a guy for me i will appreciate that, but yes if i like someone on my own i,m sure they will not force me for an arranged marriage.Just want to let you know that arranged marriages are not forced marriages(a ton of difference)

zack, you say that it may or may not be good to have arranged marriages in a society, but i think you might be mistaken, becasue when we decide to get married, it’s not just a personal choice whether or not to get an arranged marriage, since if there’s little dating involved in your society, then you might be coerced to accept this method, don’t you agree? moreover, the fact that you’re so limited b/c of the fact that it’s your parents choosing your life partner can actually backfire, since you may not be bale to fid that person via your folks. thus, how can you say it’s a personal choice to get an arranged marriage, since there’s a consequence that you may not be able to find that person via your folks and you may have to marry via the love marriage system? lastly, to all those who say that love forms after marriage, i disagree with that, since usually the love that forms in arranged marriages is usually familial love, not romantic love, which is supposed to be the universal concept in all cultures and peoples are the world. zack, you understand this last part? think about it, if in your culture, there’s little dating before settling down, any love that’s brought on will be brought on moslty for the sake of it, since it’s like whatever comes, comes, and you’re not given a chance to have a romance, which is why i don’t want to marry an indian man.

zack, i also feel this is a good site to spread the word to all my indian sisters going through the same problem as me, that they should go for sri lankan men, for they’re much more romantic, appreciative, and loving than our local men. can you help me pass on this messageto my indian sisters? i’ve been too used and abused in this male-dominated indian system, and i feel a sri lankan man is the way out, and i feel ALL indian girls should do that, don’t you zack? besides, what’s the worst that can happen if most indian girls married sihalese-sri lankan men instead of local indian men?

I just wanted to say, this is very interesting reading. You think that you’re in a world of your own when it comes to marriage. Marriage itself is a scary thing and divorce is even scarier. Who get’s married to experience a divorce? Too much emphasis is put on how it either works out or falls apart. I think people need serious advice on how to make it worth - no matter what type of marriage it was and no matter how bad it gets…how do you hold on to it?

My role in my project on arranged marriages in India is who pays for it and what is the financial process?

kerry, the girl’s family usually pays for it, the boy’s family also helps, but SOME indian families give dowries to the man’s family to take their girl away. i know of one indian girl and her family gave the groom $200 in dowry so that he could take their duaghter away, as per marraige custom. not all indian families are like this, but since this arranged marriage system is male-dominated, sometimes families have to give moneyu to the groom. and usually after they marry, they live for a couple of years in the guy and his parents’ house. my two cousins got married to two indian women 5 years ago, but they’re still living with his parents(to save money and as per tradition). my indian girlfriend in india got married two years ago, and she also lived with her groom and his family for 2 years before they got their own apartment. she actually got a nice handsome guy via arranged marriage, since her chances of finding a guy were slim, due to the fact that she was of a low caste,(even though she’s a good profession, as an industrial engineer), and he was very high caste. her mom was really worried since she was 21, and right after studies finish in india, they start talking of wedding bells? in fact, by age 26, most people there are already married, so she got lucky. kerry, that’s one of the reasons why i don’t want to build my future and family with an indian man. do you know after i’m 26, i’m pretty much considered an old maid, and that it’ll be very hard for me to find a decent man? most men want younger women, and if indian man cannot date, due to tradition, then i MIGHT be pressured to pretty much accept the 10th or 11th suitor due to tradition, and how stressful that is? there is so much pressure in this system, and i think it takes time to find that right person. i’d rather take my time, find my one and truly one, rather than go through suitor after suitor like an assembly line, and be pressured into making a choice in a time frame. either that, or it’s better to live alone than to deal with having a fixed friend for the rest of your life, along with being intimate with someone you cannot romantically connect with.

Hello. Does anyone know if any spanish countries still have arranged marriage. If so, which ones?

shef,
call me a pessimist, but i think love is overrated. after marriage the expectaions and attitudes are totally different.

i feel your ideals are a little romantic. but i think marriage involves a relationship of trust, understanding and harmony more than attraction, chemistry and excitement.

i know you wonder how you can be physically attracted to a ‘stranger’, but letting emotions in is like letting logic out. millions of people coexist happily (i mean really happily) in their arranged marriage situations and it is not some sick convoluted thing always associated with things like bride burning.

i am not your standard married pro-arranged-marriage goodie-goodie girl who always wants to be a good daughter and wife and is hypocritical about love marriages types.

i would suggest in your best interests that you dont have any negative biases about anyone or anything when it comes to deciding what you want.

i know when you try to voice what an arranged marriage is, it sounds like a deprivation of personal choice. if the concept of arranged marriages in general bugs you, dont let it affect your personal decisions.

i know that you might have been hurt by indian guys, believe me, i have had my share for a lifetime. but if you find someone with god’s and your parents blessings(i know it sounds callous but i am serious) there is no reason you shouldnt consider all your options for making your life better and less lonely.
with affection
eyedealist

eyedealist, i also feel love involves understanding, trust, and commitment, and that forms for me a good deal of romance. there are many healthy compnents to a relationship, and romance isn’t all what it’s about, but it is essentil for MOST PEOPLE, and if there is little emotional attraction and attachment, that can cause loss o trust amongst the couple, infidelity, and even lack of communication between themselves and their kids. personally, i agree, not all arranged marriages are bad, but i still feel it’s much more healthy to a relationship when you love somebody and develop feelings for them before you marry them, since you may not have that after you marry them. that’s also why why i want to love someone before i marry them. i want my kids to have two parents who sincerely care for each other(Not do so for familial ties), and so that they can have a kind, caring and devoted father, especially for my son(if i have one). also, in indian/hindu culture, it’s expected that a woman live with her husband and his family after marriage, so they often don’t really get to know one another when around so many other people, and that’s why i feel that it’s better if husband and wife live separately unless for some other reason after marriage, and that they talk of how they want to live together, not do everything for the sake of tradition. i also agre there are some indian guys who’re good, but they’re usually already taken, and/or there’s a group of hungry female shaks after them, as well as indian parents. Thus, i’ve decided to go another route. im gonna be 22 soon, and within 3 to 4 years, i’ll be considered an old maid, and it’ll be hard for me to find a suitable person. I honestly feel emotionally drained going to another culture and country to find a mate, but having a loving, caring, and independent, and trustworthy man is very important for me, and when i find the right man, i’ll do my best to be a loving, caring, honest, and devoted wife. i’m not a feminist, for i don’t mind cooking, cleaning, and caring for my man, but it that’s mostly what a marriage is about, i’d rather not get into it, especially since in india, a male-dominated system, one of the biggest reaons why these arranged marriages “work” is becasue of the idea of women mostly serving and pampering men, when i think it should be serving and pampering each other, not a one-way street. that’s why outsiders don’t often like our indian system. when was the last time you actively heard of people looking for an indian spouse, especially an indian man? i grew up around indians, and i’ve seen how these marriages can put burdens on the man and the woman, especially if you’re living in your spouse’s house with his/her parents around all the time, and the abuse of power. while western societies may not be perfect, and while even some other asian societies like chinese and korean have traditional values, they still have adapted to modern times, even back home. india is a big mess today mostly becasue indians cannot think for themsleves. why else do you think they’re desperate to escape from there and go to western countries. one of the reviewers i think Lost Love said they’re gonna use they system of arranged mariages to import more family members here, and i hope western governments put a stop to that. how dare any man or woman from india try to use us via arranged marriages to come here and do their bidding? i refuse to be a piece of property to be sold, or a ticket to america. i like to compromise in my marriage, and have mutual love, emotional understanding and attachment. true, not all arranged marriages are bad, soem are REALLY good, but from my own experiences and from the experiences of others, my thesis is that overall, the heartaches, struggles anddisappointments as well as the parental and societal pressures often outway the benefits of this system, regardless of the low divorce rate, which is a bunch of baloney, it’s not my intent to say that all arranged marriages are gruesome, i’m just telling you all who are crazy or so pro-arranged marriage of what you may be up against if you do decide to just go this route, and neglect to think for yourself. my best example of this is my cousin, she’s a lovely girl, and she just decided to let her folks find someone for her, and she didn’t date, and now she’s 30 and alone, she’s never even had a real date. her folks limited her to meet men according to their social class caste, money, etc., so she was limited, and those guys whom she met she couldn’t find any compatibility, and now’s she’s frustrated, and her folks often tell her she’ll be alone forever if she keeps rejecting “every suitor that comes to call.”maybe if she’d also looked for a guy she wanted and dated, maybe she could’ve at least had a good relationship by now. though dating doesn’t guarantee you a spouse, it certainly makes you more available to people, and so it increases your chances of finding the right one, instead of limiting yourself to your parents’ choices, who have their own biases. i feel knowledge is power and one needs all the knowledge she/he can get, otherwise suffer the consequences of ignorance as i have, as well as what my cousins have. i’m not saying indian girls are perfect, and it’s emotionally making me guilty to find someone like a sihalese-sri lankan man, but i’ve gotta do what i’ve gotta do. why is everyone so against me in my search for a sihalese-sri lankan man?

also, eyedealist and others, i repect you all , and care for you, and that’s why i’m writing this about arranged marriages, and see it for what it is, otherwise suffer the consequences. i also used to hink dating is mostly sex, and my folks can find me the right guy, but after seeing my cousins who’re now 30 and beyond, and how they cannot find someone via their folks, and also after i talked to a wise person, and he told me that i might also be one of them one day, i decided to open myself up, and date too. i think the best system is kids being able to date once they’re either 18 or in college, and their folks can also introduce them to diferent people, but no strings attached. limiting yourself is never good. before, i thought there’s something wrong with me, and that’s why i couldn’t find the right indian man. but after analysing this aranged marriage system, and seeing how the indian family model really is, i realized it’s not just b/c of me, but because this system is so cntrollng and limiting for us all, and i also realized it IS possible to find a good, sincere, and cating person if you expand your options. thus, i’m gonna find a sri lankan man, and who knows what results i’ll get, but it might be better than being stuck with an indian arranged marriage, where love may or may not for. what’s wrong with what i’m doing? i’m only tryig to educate others on this system, and if at least one person reads my posts and understands it well, then i’ve done my job well, and hopefully, others will also follow. perosnally this article called marriage at first sight disheartened me, especially for the congressional aide and optomotrist girls, who cannot find the right one b/c of their folks, and that’s why i encourage them to go for sihalese men, for if an indian man cannot think for himself, be on his own two feet, but a man from another culture can, then you should go for it. sihalese people don’t have arraged marriages or the caste system anymore and they also have low divorce, and that’s why i’m gonna marry with one. if an indian man cannot offer me much, why can’t i marry a foreigner like a sihalese-sri lankan man?

Your post states;

” “And many endure because the definition of success differs from Western ideas. Traditional Indians don’t expect a partner to be that improbable combination of soul mate/confidante/red-hot lover/best friend. “The husband-wife bond is one of reliability and dependability and complementary family roles – raising children, caring for elders,” explains Karen Leonard, author of The South Asian Americans and a University of California-Irvine anthropologist. “They may communicate very little in intimate ways, and it’s still a good marriage.”

Hence, they are married as strangers and stay strangers all their lives.”

I just want to point out that you may have interpreted that statement wrong. First of all, this passage only applies to Traditional Indians, not any of the other cultures or races which practice arranged marriage. Your statement of arranged marriage partners staying strangers all their lives is nothing more than a general assumption.
Secondly, the fact that the Traditional Indians don’t expect their partner to be all that is listen above implies that this belief is actually imposed by their culture and not by arranged marriage. There are many arranged marriages, and in fact I personally know one, where the couple work hard at both being parents and being intimate, eventually developing affection, if maybe not love, for each other.

That is all, thank you.

I am white European and have married an Indian guy raised in the US. Marrying me he went against his parents and traditions. The consequences have been disastrous. His family has treated me like a was a piece of ….for years. Now I have decided that not dealing with them is better than being constantly mistreated. We are a happy couple and got together because we love each-other. The more I have found out about the hypocrisy of the Indian culture, the more I got disgusted. They have very little feeling and they only care about their money. They feel superior to any other race and are so close minded it makes me sick. I had it with their arrogance and ways of life. The less I am involved with them the happier I am. Anyone who got into a similar situation, I am sure will agree!! Good luck to all mixed couples, Indian plus any other race…you got lot to face from the Indian side…!

paola, i’m so sorry about your case, and i hope that you find the one who really loves you. everyone keeps telling me that it’s me, and that i’m wrong in going outside for my marriage, but can you honestly understand what i’m going through? do you think i’m bad for wanting to marry a sri lankan? i want the one who’ll be my friend, companion, and trusting partner for life, and i hope to get that. was your guy HIndu like me? i’m just curious that’s all. what do you think of my going to look for a sri lankan man? do you know how sad i feel, from your own experience with indian men? i’ve ben to europe, and it’s very nice. how are european men compared to indian men? do they act like gentleman? what european country are you from? i went to england, italy, france, germany, switzerland, holland, belgium, vatican state. just curious. thanks.

Shef,
I am still married with the Indian guy…and the marriage has lasted so far over fifteen years !! He is a wonderful person, loving, caring, responsible. But he had to go totally against his family in order to stay with me. He refused to have an arranged marriage. He wanted to be freed of having to marry someone of his same race and/or parent’s choice. Although many people will say that there is no pressure, I have seen so many cases where Indian girls and boys, not to displease their parents, will accept an arranged marriage. And if they go against the current, they are cut out of the Indian community. We tried to be friends with other Indian couples, but in spite of many efforts, they see us the “mixed couple”, and many are ashemed to be our friend. And there is also all that complicated “casta” system to put into the picture…! I am from a well-off highly educated background family, yet I am not Indian and my in-laws consider me and my relatives worst that a bad disease!! But I learned not to get hurt anymore so I no longer care. What counts for me is what I have: a husbund I adore, sweet and open minded. We have a bright, handsome son and we are very proud of him! I strongly believe you need to follow your heart. Only when you feel so strongly tied to someone, that you can share the most intimate and deep emotions, that you are ready to give up everything for that person, you have found the real meaning of life. What is a life without love? Shef, fly free - be happy. Is not the shade of the skin, the religion, the culture that can guarantee anything. Is what is behind, in each of us, the soul, the spirit, the good.
And regarding Europen men, well they come in all types. One thing for sure, their families will most likely treat you with respect. And if you look for “romance” (which is fun!) southern guys like Spanish and Italian are the best! By the way I am from Switzerland.

paola, sorry, i guess i misread your post and thought you broke up with him. i’m happy you’re with him, and that you’ve a beautiful son. your country, switzerland, was lovely. swiss guys are also cute, a lot of them. maybe if i don’t find a sri lankan, i can find a swiss man? you think i’ve a chance with a swiss man? i want to go there again. i’m sorry you’d this to go through, but that’s how indians and many others are. i know of a jewish guy who maried a catholic girl, and they disowned him too. thus, it’s not just indians, so i don’t want you to think it’s just indians who’re like that. but you know something, i still think it’s easier for an indian family to accept their daughter marrying a non-indian, since in our hindu custom, the son passes down his lineage via his last name, and he’s still the head of his family, not the girl, who the folks just give away, so i think it’s easier for an indian girl as compared to an idnian guy to bring home a non-indian, don’t you think? think it like this-like with lions, the male lion has the whole pride backed up after him, not the lioness, who has the role of hunting and caring for the cubs, so there’s more pressure on the lion to keep the pride intact. or with wolves, where the alpa male has his whole pack geared for a fight if another attacks him, where as the alpha female doesn’t since she’s not the leader of the pack. same with us indians. when i marry an indian man, my husband will only marry me, for the most part, since in our system, it’s the guy who takes the girl away to his house. thus, indian men have more strings attached to them when it comes to marrying out of his culture, when i don’t. the real reason why indian girls are discouraged from marrying outside is becasue the folks want them to stay within their own, and also becasue they feel she’s a “loose girl” if she has a boyfriend. it’s sexist, but i’m not following it, especially when indian men don’t have much emotional attachment to offer me when it comes to relationships. also, one last question: how were his parents able to irritate you so constantly, like did you live with them after you married him? in our custom, the wife lives with her man and his family after she weds him. so, did they do that to you because you lived with them? i’m sorry they gave you trouble, for nobody deserves to be disrespected. i’m not a selfish person. i love to cook clean and take care of my man and his family, but i also want his affection, friendship, and understanding in return. do you think it’s easy for me to leave behind my family and go to another country to find a man of a different culture and settle down? but i must do it, for a caring an honorable 50/50 relationship man is what i want. that’s what i mean by romance. i’m not talking of sexual romance, but of friendship and companionship, since if you don’t have that, you may not be able to communicate with each other enough to make adjustments and compromises needed in marriage.personally, paola, i’m kinda jealous of you european girls, since you’ve men wannting to cater to your needs to make you happy, when in india, the men expect their women to work, cook and clean, and still deal with the abuse of their in-laws, all the while when they as men just work, help around the house whenever they can, iase thek kids, but give us little communication and friendship. who wants that? what a waste of a life. even though there are bad european men, if i’d to compare our men to your’s, i’m still envious, since your avg. swiss is still a prince who respects women, while our men don’t that much. be lucky to have such treasures amongst you.

eyedealist, i remember you saying you’d to decide on a deadline whether or not to accept an arranged marraige, and i’m curious to know what happened. what have you honestly decided to do? plese try to respond, since this is a very important post for you and other indian girls especially to consider, at least i think so. aalso, i feel chemistry, attraction(emotional, not so much physical), and excitement are also very important in a marriage, not just understadning, adjustment, since you can still mostly do that with a roommate. besides, the former attributes are just as important in a marriage, since you are gonna spend the rest of your life with that person, and if there’s little or no romance involved, and little excitement, then there can be a loss in communication, and thus can distance the husband and wife. spouses must be friends, i really believe that. moreover, you say understanding and a healthy relationship involves trust and underatanding, well my question to you is this: how can the undertstanding and trust develop in the marriage if there’s little comunication and freindship between the spouses? understanding and trust does involve a lot of spending time together and doing things together, otherwise making compromises and sacrifices may not develop if there’s a loss in communication. i think it’s total hypocracy in indian culture that compromises are made because of spousal love,. since in our culture, spousal love is usually familial love, keeping things intact for the alliance of the 2 families to stay intact.
i deserve more than that. i deserve eternal commitment, love, and understanding from a man, and if an idnian man cannot give me that, i’ve to go elsewhere. i’m an adult, and i cannot stay with indians and be miserable. it’s hard and emotionlly drainign for me to leave my folks and life in america to find a sri lankan man in australia, but finding a good partner, starting a commited relationship for me is very important, and i must do it, no matter what.
as for not going for indian men, there is that 2% of indian men who’re good, but i’m not gonna wait around for that miracle boy to come, i’m gonna go down under and try my luck. besides, as an educated woman, i don’t think i can connect with a man from india who believes marriage is mostly caring for elders, raising kids, woman serving him, especially the last part. indians say our aranged marriages work because of compromise, well, most of that compromise or at least a good majority of it is made by the owman, who has to serve the man to keep him happy. in fact, in our hindu culture, it says a woman should never be allowed to do a thing on her own, that she should be dependent on a man. well, i don’t want that. i want a man who’ll treat me as apartner, will respect me, and will be exciting and fun to be with, along with understanding and trust. most indian men have nothing to offer me when it comes to this. and as shown by a lot of the posts of other women, indian men do almost everything their mothers tell them to do, and that’s wrong. i don’t mind him loving his folks, but a wife should also be important, since he’s with his own family now. and as for being provider of the family, i don’t think a lot of idnian men do well in that either, not when a lot of them ask for or even accept dowries, when it should be the MAN NOT THE WOMAN who should provide for the family, don’t you think? at least white sri lankan and western men can think for themselves and provide for the woman. also, another reason i think that indian men aren’t right for me and don’t make good providers for women is their desire to live with their folks forever after marriage. it’s one thing if you cannot afford to live on your own, and need financial help, but if it’s for some antiquated tradition, that’s not being responsible, since you’re dependent on your parents financially, living in their house and all, and they can and do often manipulate their sons’ money, as with what happened to my dad and mom when they lived with his folks. what can i have in common with a man like this? i don’t have any problems if a man loves his mother, in fact, if he loves his mother then he’s very likely to respect his wife, but it’s only when men take advantage of that and be a slave to his folks that i draw the line. i love my folks too, but if i’m married, he’s my man, and i cannot do everything they want at the expense of my husband and his integrity. personally, i think a man from india doesn’t want a wife, he wants a slave, if you look at things from this point of view. indian men aren’t for me, for the most part. they hae some good qualities, lie they’re usually not physically abusive to women, and they don’t have vices and they do try to compromise and listen to the woman, but these things come with a heavy price, since they’re a double-edged sword if it’s about being the head of the family, respecting and appreciating what a iwfe does for him, and being her friend. sure you can say i’m exaggerating, and maybe i am to an extent, but still, there is A LOT OF TRUTH in what i’m saying, from experiences of my own, from other’s experiences with indian men, and from general knowledge about the indian culture. thus, while there are good decent indian men, i can guarantee you the more indian men you’ll meet, the more the above description and qualities of them will end up being true. so, for the politically correct crowd, i want to say i’m not saying that these qualities are aplicable to all indian men, but a good majority of them. as proof of this, i can name you the varous posts made by foreign women who cannot find the strength in their indian men to stand up to their folks and fight for love. what does that tell you? usually, where there’s smoke, there’s a fire, and in this case, the smoke is massive, which says a lot. a lot of indian men feel indian women are mostly for being submissive, virgin wives who’re mostly there for cooking and cleaning, while they can screw around with any other non-indian girl, and get pleasure when they themselves as men usually have nothing to offer a woman, i believe. good luck to india and it’s attempts to advance in this world, for it has a LONG, LONG way to go. Unless indians learn to advance with the rest of the world, think for themselves, it’s always gonna be the way it is.

Thank you soooo much. I have to write a paper for one of my classes and this helped me soooo much. Is it true that in Japan, arranged marriage is more like haivng a blind date, since the girls get to choose and stuff? I just wanna know =D

aikuchi, can the people date on their own in japa, or is it like india, where they can’t realy find a person on their own, (most but not all the peple, though things are changing now), like in japan, if you saw a guy or girl you liked can you date them, or you have to wait for your folks to find you somebody? i had a japanese girlfriend, and she said that in japan, they don’t really have arranged marriages anymore, they have it like people can find their own mates, but if they need help finding someone, they can just have their friends or famoly set them up on dates or stuff. is that how it’s mostly like there, what she told me?

Hi
For my religion project for school, im doing it on arranged marriages…would you all answer a question for me?

Do you want to be placed in an arranged marriage?

Would you put you kids in one?

Im a Canadian and i dont know much on the subject and am open to anyones thoughts…

Thanks

zack, when you said that if a marriage relationship is that mostly of two roomates, and that can result in stuff like loss of intamcy, which is important to most people, did you mean loss of intimacy in the sexual sense only? or did you mean loss of intimacy also in the meotional sense, like for example loss in communication of two spouses? i ask you this because intimacy isn’t only sexual, you can have emotional intimacy as well.

I think Arranged Marriages rule. The women obey the man and thats exactly the way it should be. Sex is just a bodily function and a man needs a virgin bride to deflower.

I think in the east arranged marriages last for the same reason they work in the first place. Which is FORCE… Even in so called concents, mostly either the bride or the bridegromm are not entirely convinced, but the society culture is so opressive that they can not even in their widest dreams think of raising their lack of interest. Similarly divorce is not in the culture, even when there are problem, they fight it out and continue hanging on. This aspect however is healthy, because as they hang on for some time, life changes and it becomes possible for the partners to reunite. But in my view arranged marriages are a society dogma. My parents are doing this to me, but I have no option, because in India, there isnt dating culture and it is very hard to find a girl in places that I go, since the proportion of working women is quite less. Also of the small proportion, many also have oppressed brought up and are not open for going out and experimenting and finding their own parnter. So I have to resort to parents help to get a girl. But here, if I like a girl and parents dont, they have the tactic of blaming it on the astrologer. If I hate a girl, but they like it they would talk me through and force me into marrying her. God save this country.

ram, i’m so sorry for you, but why don’t you find a woman of another culture to marry, like a sri lankan girl? they usually don’t have arranged marriages anymore, and are more open-minded than indians are. go on the internet at eharmony.com and find a sri lankan girl. i’m a gujarati-hindu-indian girl in america, and i plan on finding and marrying a sinhalese man. even though people will hate me, i need true love, and i must find it. true love for me is friendship, trust understanding, romance and compromise, and in india, you’ll notice that there’s little romance between spouses, and that’s why there’s little intimacy, isn’t that ture? also, since you’re in india, why does everyone there keep saying that it’s changed so much in idnai, and dating is so common there? i went there 3 years ago, and dating wasn’t common at all. is all this exaggerated? also, is it true that most people in india(rich, middle class and poor all included) still live in joint families? they said that once boy and girl marry, they live separately, but i didn’t see that at all. i think most still live with their folsk after marriage. do they? also, what do you think of my marrying a sinhalese man? am i doing the right thing, if i cannot find a suitable partner in indian culture?

ram, are you gujarati hindu like me? just curious, and that’s why i’m asking. what did you mean by the working proportion of women is also very less? most middle class families educate their families now, so how can women not be working? did you mean that most women are educated, but because of social pressures, they’re forced to stay home and take care of their families because of families, etc?

Salaaaam! Long time no see! ok I am now married to a Muslim man and studying Islam fervently. I DESPERATELY need to find a Muslima (lady of course) in a successful arranged marriage who speaks English. I need help understanding this culture and concept. I don’t think I’m allowed to put my email address here, so if you can help me, maybe you can contact the blog owner (Is it Zack)? and he can give you my email address. Inshallah someone will read this and be able to help. THANKYOU~!

shama, are you muslim yourself? were you married once to a muslim man?

paola, sorry to hear what you have endured, but i have also heard of similar cases with maarrying indians. how did you experience all this abuse from your indian spouse’s family? why do you think indian culture is hypocritical?

To eyedealist: i feel you don’t have any right to criticize shef and her desires to marry non-indians. frankly, after the experiences that many of my indian freinds have endured, i don’t blame her at all for looking elsewhere for love. a marriage involves harmony in emotional aspects too, not just roomate type aspects of paying the bills, caring for elders, etc. i odn’t take the latter lightly, for it needs presence, but so do emotional attachment and attraction. no wonder you can’t decide for yourself if you can love your true man or not. and if i also agree with paola that a lot of indian culture is full of hypocracy, and that many indians don’t have much feeling. lastly, if india is so good, why do they flee to western countries?

i think marriage is whatever two people put into it, regardless of whether it’s arranged or not. however, the only tie breaker between arranged and love marriages is that in love marriages, since you’ve the freedom to find your own spouse and time to get to knwo him/her, you’ve more options rather than being limited in arranged marriages. also, i think indians need to put a sock in it when they say love marriages are mostly about sex, infatuation, and materialistic aspects. knowing how indians are, i think they’re very hypocritical to say that, since they, like paola and others have said, have a very limited mindset and are greediest at times for money, wealth, and power.

zack, i want to ask you something: did you mean that there could be a loss in intimacy in arranged marriages meaning just physical intimacy, or there could be loss in emotional intimacy as well? also, maybe you didn’t read the cultural definition of arranged marriages there. they said traditional indians don’t expect each other to be best friends/lover, etc., but that’s there culture, not arranged marriage, is it? also, whjat about other societes that have arrnaged marriages, and they can try to learn to develop intimacy after marriage? isn’t what you said a generalization?

lastly, zack: i know indian bashing isn’t good, but idealist kinda hurt my feelings too, with her insensitivity

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On one hand, some aspects of arranged marriages could be positive but only so long as the choice is totally up to both of the people who might marry and not at all up to those who tried to bring them together. (I’m thinking about how we can so easily be mislead by people we meet on our own into thinking they are good for us, or that they are even serious at all about us, when they are not). But no matter how careful people are, I don’t see how family members, or any other outsider for that matter, can be totally objective about such a completely personal matter involving two people who must share their lives together at such an intimate level. Although the couple themselves can make mistakes when left to their own decision making, at least they may have a better chance of getting to know each other before making that final commitment. No one on the outside can know what is best for them: I’m thinking also of how we can so easily be put on the wrong track or make terrable mistakes when being influenced even by mere advice from others concerning relationships or other personal matters.

I know a situation where an Asian man’s parents pressured him for some time to marry a girl they got along with well, even though, after living with this girl and spending time with her, the man found her to be abusive and controlling in a relationship, and he found he could not love her romantically. By pressuring him endlessly to marry this girl, and following him everywhere to try to ensure he didn’t meet anyone else, a situation occurred in which the guy was forcibly separated from the woman he truly loves, who also loves him, and forced to spend his life with the girl who treats him so badly that he seldom can stay in the same city as her. Although this is not an arranged marriage in the traditional sense of the word, it is still a marriage he was forced into by his parents and against his wishes. It has been more difficult for him to break away from it because his culture says that to go against what his parents want would be very shaming.

sheva, thank you. what you said is precisely what i mean. that’s why i don’t want an arranged marriage, or even an indian man, for that matter. i’m not able to mentally jibe with them. i’m so into outdoors stuff, like taking long walks in nature, going to the beach, etc., and i’m also into talking, being affectionate with a man, and into romance, and companionship with a guy, but most of our men are so not into that stuff. i agree that making sacrifices in marriage and dependibility is very, very, very important, but so is companionship, romance, and emotional compatibility. i hate it when indian parents keep bothering us about divorce rates, and lack of intimacy as not a big deal. it’s a total lie. in my culture, any girl who’s not married at 26, 27 is an old maid, and will be pressured to get married fast. since i’m 22 now, and don’t have anybody, so that means, in 4 years, it’s gonna be VERY dificult to find a great guy, since number one, you’re limited by whom your parents want, and number two, people are rushed into getting married on a deadline, and so there’s too much pressure, which often prevents you from getting to know that person well before you settle down. also, as educated girl raised outside of india, it’s hard for some of us to find much in common with our men, since they often want a second mother to care for them, and don’t want real communication and partnership between spouses. thus, along with how indian men are, i don’t want to marry one. this breaks my heart, but i must do it. My folks are gonna freak when i bring home a sri lankan, but i’m gonna fight for it.

hi..i want to tell you guys my story about my “arranged marriage” i don’t really consider my marriage as an arranged marriage because i was told since i was 13 years old who i was going to marry..and i had no choice but to except it.

i knew of him but never actually spoke to him before our wedding. he was in pakistan and i was here in the US. one year after i had graduated highschool (age 19) my parents decided it was time for me to get married. yes, i was scared and confused when i found out that suddenly was i gonna get married at the age of 19 (still a child)
to sort of a stanger.

i was so embarassed to tell my co-wokers and friends about me getting married to someone i hadn’t even talked to. so i told them that i was leaving to visit family back home for 2 and half months. some of my friends and co-workers still don’t know that i’m married. i just tell everyone that i have a boyfriend in paksitan.

anyways… i just want to say that i have never been happier!! i love my new husband. he is the most sweetest, caring, loving person i have ever met. it’s too bad that he is not with me at this time because he’s visa is still not approved and it’s been almost a year since i haven’t seen him.
he makes me feel like i’m the most beautiful girl in the world. not only does he have a beautiful face but also a beautiful heart. i really really miss him and hope to see him soon:)

so from my point of view, i think arranged marriages are great! it makes life a little bit more interesting:) im happy, my husband is happy, and best of all our parents are happy.

I am glad to see this thread still active. I am one of the victims of arranged marriages. Although I don’t really want to see myself that way. I can relate to many of the stories I have read here, and it is painful to be able to see both sides of the coin. Especially when it hurts me on such a deep emotional level.

I have been involved with a Sudanese man for nearly 3 years. The more I read, the more I realize I am not alone in my story. there are mnay people, men and women, out there, who share my experience. How do people manage? am talking about people who are involved with people who are involved with or committed to an arranged marriage. By best friend of the last 3 years, Anis, is getting married in two days to his cousin. He only told me 4 months ago, that he was engaged. I went through hell in the last 4 months. I guess he still felt he had a decision to make, but in many ways was really decieving me, and playing a game. I know in his heart, he wanted to be with me, but in reality he would say: love and marriage have nothing to do with each other…or things like marriage kills the true love.

I know his priorities. As a good muslim his priority to please his parents and not let them worry is second only to his praise of allah. But still? Then how can he reconcile his own individual interests with those of his community? He does’nt. He can’t. If he was cut off from his community, he would probably perish in an emotional sense.

He always seemed very devoted and commited to me, which is why I fell in love with him. But he would say things like, even if I reverted to Islam, his parents would still not accept him. It seems that his cousins and uncles, really made all the arrangements. But he has been talking with his fiancee, since before we met.I think the family pressure, his fear of allah, and his commitment to Islam, all pushed him into accepting this as his fate.

Our relationship was rocky. But I always blamed that on this feelign I had. His inability to commit. I always felt it.

Now I am left to pick up the pieces. I should have gotten out a year ago. That was when he started talking about having two wives. That was a big red flag. I do feel used in many ways. I am trying to not feel like a victim, and understand that in some ways we are all victims in the situation. I know his fiancee, really wants out of Sudan. After reading many of the posts, it clarified in my mind, a bit, about how there is a bit of a familial conspiracy of getting people out of these warn-torn countries in crisis.

But if I had known in the beginning I would never have dedicated so much time and investment into a relationship that was obviously going nowhere fast.

I just wonder how successful their relationship will be, if I remain in his heart? Or is this not difficult for a man to reconcile? Before he got onto the plane, he told me he will always love me, and never love anyone like me ever. Perhaps he is just trying to make me feel better?

Anyways it is sad, and still rather shocking for all the people who knew us a couple.

hi everyone. I have an upcoming project for my global history class. I was wondering if any of you would be willing to share some statistics with me regarding divorce rate in arranged marriages versus marriages that are not arranged, average ages of the girls and boys, etc. ANY type of quick info that I could sahre with my class would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

I think arranged marriages are bad women should chose who have to spend the rest thier lkives togther.

I’ve just finished reading over your article and found it very interesting. Currently I am in grade 9 LA, and part of our final exam is an inquiry project. I chose to research the question ‘Should arranged marriages be a respected tradition in Canada?’. I thought your website had great information, which I strongly benefited from. However, I still have a few unanswered questions I was hoping you could answer for me. It would be very much appreciated.
1) How common are arranged marriages right now, and in which parts of the world?
2) Do arranged marriages conflict with any other religions? (I.e. Against women’s rights because women are sometimes abused)
3) What religions support/take part in arranged marriages?
To contact me, you can e-mail pinkswirls@rome.com. Your answers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time!
Megan

hey you forgot one reason why arranged marriages “work” in india: the indian woman is at the husband’s feet and is also at his mother’s feet, sicne they spend a lot(or even sometimes all) of their lives living with the husband and his parents after marriage. is that a marriage, or like a living arrangement made between two people in a house full of others? can you always really get to knwo someone when people are watching you? that’s one thing you forgot about in idnain marriages. and i’ve heard of examples of indian woman running away from bad in-laws from that. thus, this is also a big factor in deciding why arranged marriages have low divorce rates: you get to live as roomates, not as man and wife, with in-laws always around you. believe me, men from idnia don’t want a wife, they want a slave. it benefits the man, but at the woman’s expense.

Hello there! I am 14 years old, and Sri Lankan, and I was born and still living in Canada. I’ve seen a lot of arranged marriages so far, and a couple of rare love marriages too. This is what I know of personal Sri Lankan arranged marriages:

From reading these comments, I am happy to learn new things about arranged marriages in India and how other people feel about. Though one thing that slightly gets me angry is that Indian girls think that Sri Lankan guys will fight for you, or aren’t so into arranged marriages etc. TRUST ME, I’ve visited Sri Lanka and learned from much people, most sri lankan guys aren’t like this. They may like you but usually will always go with their parents wishes for choosing a bride.

Luckily my cousin fell in love with a boy who was from the same village and her parents accepted. See some families prefer to have their children married to someone who came from the same village. Example. Karavathee (spelled it wrong I think :P) is a village my mother is from, so an arranged marriage was taken place with someone who lived in that exact same village. Also this leads sometimes to incest (EWW), since far related cousins may marry etc. This still works in Canada. If a boy’s parents is from Karavathee then probably those parents will either look for a girl from the same village here or arrange a marriage in sri lanka to bring the girl here to canada. Of course this type of wedding doesn’t always happen, but is common to me.

Also Sri Lankans can actually have a say (well most can) on whether they like the bride or groom. If the parents arrange for a bride, and the son does not like her, then they will look for one that the son prefers.

Love marriages are acceptable but rare, since most families have an ‘honour’ to uphold.

And what is my future? Who knows, I’ve never talked with my parents about this and only time will tell……

Hope to see more interesting comments :D

nirthikaa, if what you say of sri lankian guys is true, then how come i’ve seen quite a few ari lankan guys marry women of their choice? are you from the city or village? i’m not saying arranged marriages aren’t present, but i think they’re not the norm anymore, for the most part.

Shef, I am not saying that all sri lankan guys are like this. If the girl fits the family standards then they will accept her.

I am born in Canada but I come from a village. Actually most people in Sri Lanka come from a village, even if they live in the cities now.

Also the guy might actually marry a girl that his family doesn’t accept. I guess I was way to rash in writing the comment before.

My friend just told me that her cousin married a chinese girl. She also said that no one in her family accepted him at all, and everyone thinks the girl is ‘mean’. Shef, I am not saying that all sri lankan guys are like this. If the girl fits the family standards then they will accept her.

I am born in Canada but I come from a village. Actually most people in Sri Lanka come from a village, even if they live in the cities now.

Also the guy might actually marry a girl that his family doesn’t accept. I guess I was way to rash in writing the comment before.

My friend just told me that her cousin married a chinese girl. She also said that no one in her family accepted him at all, and everyone thinks the girl is ‘mean’. <– she said a bad word for that so I am just saying it in a nicer term.

Shef are you tamil? Just wanted to know :).

Well for the most parts, arranged marriages arent as strict but they still happen. The parents will search everywhere for a suitable bride or groom (traits include: village, family’s reputation, education, home skills such as cooking etc.) and then show their kid. If their son/daughter likes the person and the person likes them back then it becomes a marriage. If not then the parents search for another person. So arranged marriages are looser, as in now the people can meet their future wife or husband and see if they like them.

One question I have shef is that you told me that the sri lankan guys got to marry people of their choice. Were the girls sri lankan or a different culture?

nirthikaa, i’m sorry if i offended you. it’s just that i know of a lot of sinhalese people who said that they try to marry within their own, but they can find their own spouse and date once they’re around 18. these are mostly people from the cities and subarbs. they’re all honest people, and so they wouldn’t lie to me. now, i know that they may have come from bvillages, but they’ve been living in coties for ceades so they’d know. i’m not doubting you, just telling you of sinhalese men and womani know of. moreover, i read up on sinhalese culture in sri lanka, and they said that arranged marriages happen mostly in villages, or in the cities, the guy and girl might just be introduced to each other, and tkat their time to get married, but no time limit usually on when to get married. i love the sri lankan people. they’re usually nice people, and it’d be an honor for me to marry a sinhalese man. are you trying to discourage me to marry a sinhalese man? i wouldn’t go to sri lanka to find one, probably australia or london. what’s wrong in that. there are good indian men, but they’re already taken in western countries, thuis leaving girls like me without much brighter chances for a partner, or they get caught up in money issues and all, so they cannot offer some of us indian girls the love and long-term commitment we need. that’s why me and some of my other indian girls are going for sinhalese men, or white men. moreover, at least in your sri lankan culture, usually, after guy and girl marry, they get their own house/flat, not physicaly with the parents. of the indian men living in america, around half of them still want their folks living with them and their wives permenently after marriage. now, there are good qualities in indian men, like they’re not usually physically abuse, they respect their parents, they’re educated, and they work hard financially. however, when it comes to long-term commitments and lvoe, it starts to create a rift between us. they’d rather have a girl like to do things mostly their way, and they don’t offer much emotional commitment. they’re also not as romantic nor as caring towards women as i want men to be. thus, i can conclude that i get along well with indian guys in terms of dancing, having klunchm, studies, etc., and they’re good for short term fun, but not for long-term relationships. are you sri lankan-tamil? as for your last question, “One question I have shef is that you told me that the sri lankan guys got to marry people of their choice. Were the girls sri lankan or a different culture?” the girls were indian. why?

Oh shef you didn’t offend me at all. I was just asking :D.

I guess I never heard of it because the guys you are talking about is sinhalese.

Anyways I asked if the girls were a different culture because some parents won’t mind if their kid marries someone that is close to their religion like indian, pakistan etc.

I didn’t know some of the stuff you said before, so it’s nice that I learned something new.

Also I am not discouraging you from marrying sri lankans, i just wanted to input my view on them. Sorry if it might have gone too far. :(

nirthika, are you tamil? i’m gujarati-hindu indian. what did you mean by “I guess I never heard of it because the guys you are talking about is sinhalese?” i don’t take offense, so don’t worry. no apologies. it’s just that you kinda scared me, knowing what i’ve been through with indian guys. that’s okay. anyway, this is what these sinhalese people told me, and they’re not dishonest people, so i believe me. please let me know? thanks:)

nirthikaa, let me ask you somrthing: did you know that growing numbers of indian girls in the UK and other western countires are going with sinhalese-sri lankan men? this is because of the relative shortage of indian men, as well as the fact that quite often, they’ve been disappointed in relationships with indian men. if i cannot find a sinhalese guy, i’ll go for a white guy. my uncle himaelf said that we have to stop indian girls in the UK from marrying whites and sinhalese men, for “if we don’t do anything now, then in 20 or 30 years, the indian culture may die out, and indian men will have a shortage of indian mates to choose from.” he saw the biggest threat coming from sinhalese and white british men, and indian girls in the UK go for them partly because they appreciate the fact that their non-indian spouses treat them more as partners in a marriage and give them more attention and aren’t too tied around their mother’s apron strings. even though the relative number of indian girls marrying white and sinhalese men is still small now, (at least in america), it’s growing, as more and more indian girls are marrying out. please let me know what you think of all this. thanks. :)

Yeah I’m Tamil. See I hardly know anyone who is sinhalese, so I didn’t know that they wouldn’t mind marrying indian girls etc. Also about the indian girls marrying out, I personally don’t mind. Maybe parents and elders do not understand how sinhalese and white people treat their spouses differently. Also I feel it would be ok as long as if the indian girl and white/sinhalese boy have a kid, that they at least try to teach their children their religion. I totally sound confusing now….:D It’s fun talking with you shef!!

nirthikaa, you sound very intelligent, not confusing at all. it’s fun to talk to you too. if you want to know about indian girls marrying out, there are two articles in these two websites that said that indian girls in america
are marrying out, and one said that it has reached a point in america where around 50% of indian girls raised in ameirca in certain areas are marrying out. hey, maybe my uncle was right, maybe in 40 years, the indians really might become servants and the british, americas, sinhalese and other non-indians take over. lol.:) this is the first website i think you should read: http://www.vivaaha.org/ht_mixed_marriage1.htm
the second one is http://indiafamily.net/talk/messages/12485/12933.html?1131823166

the second one is where indian peoples talk to each other, and have input on arranged marriages, money, etc. and somewhere in one of the topics, it said 50% of indian girls married out, and though i don’t remember the exact one, if you navigate through the topics, you’ll find it. these things are a must-read.

I just wanted to say something about this.From my experience I have seen arranged marriages work better than dating and that stuff.Because of dating young boys and girls are led astray in western culture.Also many women are having sex at an early age because of dating and all that stuff.They become pregnant before marriage and thus end up as failures.

Arranged marriage helps young people to make right decision and thus lead good honest lives.

Remember parents only think of the good of their children. They only want the best for their children.It is always advisable for children to listen to their parents so that Indian society will not become spoilt like Western society.

I am one of the women interviewed for the Washington Post article quoted in the original blog. I’ve skimmed over most comments and have to put in my 2 cents. I am 33 years old and have learned one thing: there is no right way to get married. Arranged vs. Nonarranged? Meeting two times vs. dating 10 years? Who is to say??? Either will work if one believes firmly in the institution alone. The divorce rates are lower in India not because the marriages are arranged but because it is not a litiginous society like the west.In addition women are not as educated as the they are in the west. The marital problems are all the same in every culture. If divorce in India were as easy and accepted as in the west, and the women were as educated as the women in the west, then the rates would be the same or even higher.

Hello every body, i hope all are fine. i am searching for marriage links thats why i came on this comments page,thanks…yes i am against any kind of forced marriage, but here i am looking for life partner,so if there is any good girl sweet lady want to marry me, she is welcome with open heart…if you want to know more about me please email me on imdeeplover@hotmail.com or you can se my profile on liyakatali.hi5.com ok so please come join me tell me about you and ask what ever you want and be mine.thanks liyakat ali,really imdeeplover on any dot com.goodbye

yes well i think that it is unaxceptable..i think love comes naturally you cant force paople to marry. you bloody bastards shouldnt make them marry like that you fk*** pigs!!!

My family is very liberal about marriage and I was brought up that way, but wisening up along the way I figured as a female it’s much safer for my parents to determine who’s a good match for me. I see it in a practical way:

1. Decision to live “ever after” with a stranger (and by this I mean non-mahram) is a grave responsibility. I don’t think based on all my nary a 21 years of life, I have the wisdom to decide that.

2. My parents having been in a marriage for nearly 2 decades, would know what the nitty gritty stuff it takes to make it work AND they (should) know me better than anyone else, seeing that they gave birth to me and brought me up (all these years).

This was my disposition. What actually happened is that they did a hands-free and it was up to me to find someone (despite I told them to look for someone). I met my husband and I had the complete liberty to go out and see him and determine compatibility and (financial) capability.

So without my parents’ protection/security, I had to manage on my own, which I think I did pretty well considering I had no restraint. I got to know him over a period of 5 weeks (a few encounters and sampling intellectual discourse) and made it clear that if he feels for more from me, the next step is nikah (then I dismissed all communication). The next thing I knew my father told me he came to ask for my hand.

We are now married almost 2 years and we have a 6 month old daughter :)

I know of 2-3 cases where in an arranged marriage the girl found out the guy is impotent. Funny thing is, the guys parents usually know about it but foist the guy on her, and assume she will stick with him due to the societal stigma of having a divorce.. our parents agree arranged marriage is a gamble..u need a lot of luck to actually chance on someone u can tolerate.

All of my aunts and uncles were arranged (I have a lot!) and they are all still happily married. We have exactly one love marriage in my parent’s generation (my mom’s cousin) and she is divorced because of an affair on the part of the husband (my ex-uncle). Ironically, he chased her for about 5 years in India before she finally agreed to marry him. They did date and all that, even lived together for a couple years before getting married. But in the end he crapped out on her. The only single aunts or uncles that I have are because their husbands or wives have passed away. Personally, I don’t mind arranged marriages although I am not going to do it. If anyone else wants to, by all means. Some people on this thread are making it sound as if the kids have absolutely no say in who their parents choose for them, but that’s not true at all. Nowadays, parents have become a lot more open-minded and will let their children approve or disapprove of the person.
Also, it’s not like ALL women lose all their independence. All the Indian moms that I know are some of the most independent women I know. They all have jobs, they hang out with their friends, etc. Obviously, that’s not to say that ALL arranged moms have their independence, but plenty still do.
My parents aren’t going to arrange me. They told me that I get to choose my own man, he just has to meet my parent’s approval, hehe. He can be of a different race, religion, etc. Right now, I am dating a white boy, they have met him, and he’s even stayed over at my house, and met some of my extended family. Ha, I don’t think they think I’ll marry him, but if I do, they will support me 100%. Btw, my generation has already started with the interracial marriages in my family.

Maybe I just lucked out and come from a damn good family…

hi, i’m a british sri lankan man married to an idnian girl raised in england, and by marrying me, we both went through a huge nightmare. Her family condemned her, and made life a living hell for both of us. I’m an educated sinhalese man from a good family, but because i’m not indian, her family treates me like garbage noww, for six years. I didn’t know much about the indian culture except when i went to england to study as a teen. There, i met a wonderful girl, and we marreid becasue we truly love each other, and share a common culture/religion and values on life in general. I’ve learned a lot of the indian culture, especially on how they pretend to be angelic on the outisde, but are very ruthless, and into their status and money on the inside, and are so stubborn and close-.minded that it makes me wanna puke. after beign humilated by her folsk, i’ve decided that not dealign with them is much better. Not all indians are like this, but as the number of indian people you meet increases, the more and mroe this will be true, guaranteed. My advice for everyone: i think it’s better not to get involved with an indain person, for these situations keep on happening over and over, so it’s not worth it. I love my wife, and couldn’t ask for someone better, but lucky for me she fought for me and all. To someone else, think about it a thousand times before you marry an indian person.

Why do indian people get romantically involved with others if they know they cannot go against their culture and traditions? Why dopn’t they just stick to their old traditions. At least then thwey won’t waste others’ time and break their hearts. They make me sick. Disgusting.

hey my name is Faiza and i am a student currently studying sociology and i needed some help!!! im doing coursework on arranged marriages and if they are still among young muslims, and i was wondering if anyone can just give me their view on arranged marriages and if they are still among young muslims in the 21st century it would be great hlp!!!!!! make sure it is your opinion i dont need any facts ! thanks
this will hlp me get thr grade that i am looking forxxxx

Heeey.. I feeel that arranged couples smell :D
Love Yooo Baybeee x x

wel erm thnx 4 tht im sure it will hlp me get my A tht im lukin 4 lol nah really i actually need ur views so plz do try 2 ryt mre than 2 wrdz on it thnxx
xxxxx

Im an Indian American Christian (25 yrs old, came to USA in 94 and I’m totally Westernized) and I have been dating a Russian Jewish girl for 3 years (She came to USA when she was 6)

My parents are having FITS about the relationship. Recently, she asked about our long term goals, cultural, religious clashes, etc. Both of us won’t convert and she wants to get married in a hall rather than a church. I’m willing to compromise but my parents are not. They think that all white girls wills teal my money or leave me when im sick or cheat on me, etc.

I’m very depressed and so is she. WE both want each other a lot and I hate the notion of liberal arranged marriages. My mom even wants me to register online and look around for potential wives. She doesn’t care if the girl (Indian) is born in USA or abroad - as long as she is Christian and from our state in India (Kerala). She says that its good to keep culture in a marriage.

My point to her was that when I get married (lets say to an Indian girl), our kids are a) not going to speak native tongue b) never going to India (maybe once ever) and so on. Indian culture will DIE once the 1st generation indians get old. The current 2nd generation Indians (either born here or migrated when they were young) are very Westernized. Even if the 2nd generation Indian marry another Indian, the cultural values won’t be as strong.
Indian girls brought up in the USA can’t cook Indian food, the kids can’t speak the language fluently, most of them won’t even go to India on their own.

My point is, my parents are making a big deal I think, but if you think about it, my kids will be just like another American kid.

To add to my previous posts, yes, arranged marriages are good in teh sense that your cultural, religious values are still there, but you do it at the risk of losing your sanity so speak.

Arranged people barely have sex (true, sex is not an importante part of their upbringing), rarely go out in public, have dinner outside, etc. These things are “important ” to 1st generation Indian kids brought up in the USA.

Satisfy parents or satisfy yourself?

maxin, good luck. i hope you have the guts and the courage to do what’s right. For me, i’m gonna go against my folks, but I DEFINITELY DO NOT WANT TO MARRY AN INDIAN MAN. I WANT A SINHALESE BUDDHSIT SRI LANKAN MAN, AND NOTHING BUT THAT. i’m determined to find a good sri lankan guy, for i’m afraid of idnian guys and what they’ve doen to me. I wish it to all idnain girls: go for sinhalese men. they’re great. Sri lankan men are my one and only salvation.

one more thing: i also agree with the others and when they say the indian culture is full of lies and hypocrciy. they do have no heart and only care abiut themselves and their money. i advise anyone: don’t marry into the indian cultue. it’s not worth it.

My experience of aranged marriage is that they suck.
I am a britsh indian girlin a 4 year relationship with a catholic.My parents would/ could never accept this in their single-minded attempts to find me an indian husband. Not only of the same religion but the same caste as well. Being from a small caste, they are struggling to find me a partner in the western world and so for the past few years have been making trips to India to find me a partner.
Being fairly westernised but respecting my heritage, I struggle to see how they believe I am able to make a marriage to somebody from a completely different background and culture work.
My current partner has been great. He has always known that we can pbably never be together forever because he has endured first hand the pressures which come with this culture. I would not want him to have to endure the negativity which he would inevitable get from my family.
Strange as it may seem, respect for my family makes me not want to go against their wishes but they are making a big mistake as 1. I already have feelings for someone who they would never accept 2. The pressure they are putting on me to marry an indian from the indian subcontinent is affecting my decision 3. They are of the opinion that I can make it work with someone from a completely different culture.
I have always hoped that over time my parents would ease off the pressure and ask me what exactly it is that I want to do and respect that. The pressure however just gets more and more intense.
I completely understand the positives of the arranged marriage system. Where the family checks out and filters out the potential partners, the whole family gets behind the marriage to make it work, etc. And I do agree that arranged marriages work for a huge number of people, but the victims of this system are those who choose not to conform to this tradition.
I do wonder how many of these marriages come about as a consequence of pressure and emotional blackmail, how many of the people in these marriages have been as gutless as I have to stand by their true love in favour of their familys honour and wishes to marry a true stranger, and how many divorces have been averted as a consequence of social pressure.

wow

I am very upset by the arranged marriages. I am in love with a Pakistani man who has been engaged to a girl by force and is expected to marry soon. Unsure if there is a way out of this I feel terrible. I do understand that arranged marriages can be good, but if you do not wish it and are in love with someone else how do you live that life? Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to pick my husband as I always encounter problems with those I do attempt a relationship with, but can you really be happy with a complete stranger?

A very well written and balanced article. However, I can not be as balanced about this issue so I warn in advance that this may offend.

I see arranged marriages as being part of a greater problem in the culture: that of unbounded filial piety. The word respect is used by parents when teaching children about behaviour towards them and other adults. But this is the wrong word, what is actually required is blind obedience, and this obedience is expected to be eternal. Children remain as children even when they are adults. Independent, personal decisions are only valid with parental consent and the will of the son or daughter is not considered to be relevant. This to me is the very opposite of respect. Respect should be allowing people to make their own decisions, but offering your advice and experience to them, and being there for them if things go wrong even if they did not take your advice. Not bringing “shame on the family” is seen as paramount in making decisions, but is there not no greater shame than denying someone their own freedom? Without the freedom to make choices, we lose that which makes us human.

A lot of the posters see the arranged marriages as being equivalent to being set up on a date by friends. The big distinction is that friends do not pressure you into doing things you do not want to do and, crucially, there is no expectation to decide being married shortly afterwards or never seeing that person again. The spectre of choice offered by arranged marriages is often to choose between the lesser of two evils rather than a completely free choice. And that is even when people are not being forced physically or emotionally into making a ‘choice’.

As with most things in life, marriage has both appearance (wedding ceremony, ring on finger, dowry, certificate, etc) and substance (love, honour, respect). The difference between Western and Eastern relationships is, in general, summed up by the ordering and importance of these facets. However, appearance is almost always valued far too highly everywhere in the world in most things. Successful marriages are the ones with great substance, and this substance can only be achieved through experience. Indeed, the substance of marriage can be achieved without actually being married, and ideally that is when the decision to introduce the appearance should be made. But the arranged marriage is focussed on the appearance, and the substance can only be achieved through luck and hard work. As you said, marriage can be seen as a rite of passage into adulthood. People are expected to do it, as a duty, or risk being labelled as a failure in life. So people get married just to tick a box on life’s checklist, not because they actually want to get married. Again appearance triumphs over substance!

“Grow to love someone”, “Love isn’t important”, “That’s the way we did it”. These phrases are used to excuse an idea that is known to be an abomination and an insult to the human spirit. The root phrase “That’s the way of the world, just accept it” is used to attempt to maintain the status quo, without thought or debate, and enslave people into someone else’s vision of the future. This is more an issue in general about the sins man is capable of indulging in, and the vain search for legitimacy in allowing this indulgence. But no one should just accept something, if we did that we would still be living in trees. Yes, some traditional ideas may be optimal, but be sure that is the case before accepting them.

I am more an idealist than a pragmatist, but I do understand that in reality issues abound when people want to assert their free will. All the more complicated are the emotional issues. But if there is one thing to make a stand on, its the right to choose with whom and how you want to spend your life. Those who deny you that choice will cause you pain and suffering. We only get one chance at life, and we shouldn’t let other people try to live it for us.

For those that an arranged marriage has lead to a very successful and happy marriage, then they have had very good luck and may that luck continue. But even one single person being denied free choice and having to endure a life of torment and anguish trapped in a miserable marriage gives enough reason for me to condemn the arranged marriage system as barbaric, twisted and evil.

James- You couldn’t have said it more accurately. I am an Indian woman who completely rejects the concept of arranged marriage and agree with you 100 percent!!!

i am a pakistani boy and wants to mirrage a muslim girl who lives in uk with her parents and her parents wants to call me in uk for mirrage with her doughter and setteled with them

NO offense by I think that some of you pro-arranged/forced marriage supporters only feel that way because you are incapable of attracting a mate of your own…got to have ame and abu do it for you. Grow up already. Are you so ugly or such an idiot that no one wants to marry you unless they are forced? Who would want to marry someone with such low self-esteem anyway?

And, what is up with the arranged cousingenious marriages? IF your grandparents were first cousins, and your parents were first cousins and then you marry your first cousin..guess what…your spouse is actually closer bloodwise to you than a cousin and is more like your sister/brother. Absolutely Pathetic I am sorry to say. Stop the haram primitive cultural practices.

Hey, doesn’t anybody feel sorry/empathy for that girl devika koppikar and her optometrist friend who’re victims of this arranged marriage system and her family? Did they deserve this in the name of tradition and “less divorce?” Anybody care to comment?

Zack, thanks for a well-written essay and starting a well-reason discussion. I’m the child of an arranged Muslim marriage and would like to offer my insights.

Arranged marriages can work and they can also fail. Love marriages can work and they can also fail. The point of a generalization is not nitpicking the exceptions, but the higher principle: Should people have choice about who they marry?

Yes, in my opinion. It’s a bit like democracy vs. dictatorship – arranged marriages smack of “We know what’s best for you”. Sure, the results can be ok sometimes: after all, not every day was awful in the life of a slave. Heck, some could even stay inside the house! But do those good days justify the system?

When looking at why a potentially system exists, see who stands to benefit from it. Who seems to have more issues with arranged marriage – guys or girls? (It’s pretty obvious from the comments here).

Older men can marry younger girls against their will. They can have multiple wives. They can force them to be submissive as “that’s the way it’s supposed to be”. They can beat them without fear of divorce – after all, the dictator gets 99% election rate? Who’s going to complain, and what happens to those who do?

Guys, imagine a system where women could have kids even until their 50s. What would you say if your parents foisted a cranky, unemotional, overweight hag on you? You’d revolt. But think about what girls are expected to suffer.

I’m sorry to be melodramatic, but I see arranged marriage as the remnant of an archaic, patriarchal system where women are considered property. It encourages people to live life like a business transaction and not experience it. Yes, lowering expectations is one way to be happy – yet I don’t see many people becoming homeless to “really appreciate” what it’s like to have food and shelter. I say this because I think love (not romantic, but deep affection) is as necessary to a happy life as food and shelter.

I’m thankful for my parent’s marriage because they had me, but there is no love. My dad utterly lacks social skills and can be mentally absuive. In a dating society someone would figure this out quickly, and at least expect. My mom loves her children and that is what makes her happy – and we all know this.

Let’s put it this way – would you buy a house without looking at it first? (3 BR, 2 bath, nice garden). Well that’s what arranged marriage is like (25, fair, nice job). Sure, it can work out but it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. And 3-4 high-pressure meetings in front of your parents is not a good way to know someone. It’s like looking at a brochure with a real estate agent – who’s interest do they have in mind? Yours – for you to be happy? Or theirs – not to be embarassed by having an unmarried child?

Think about how long it takes for someone to truly become your friend from all the acquaintances you meet (weeks? months? years?). Why would your spouse magically be different, and you’d know if you like them after the 3rd day?

Unfortunately societal pressures are so great that arranged marriage continues. But just because the dictator occasionally provides food doesn’t mean it’s an ideal system. Everything has ups and downs, but the downs are much more bearable when they were your decision to make.

sl guy, i totally agree. do most peopel also agree that people should have a choice on whom to marry? i think so.

hi my name is zara and i need some help on my college work as ive read ur veiws and i believe that you lot can help me.. basically could you help me answer my question, which is ’ how is marriage seen in a multicultrual society? and do you think it has changed ova the years?
please get back to me and it would help me
thanx

Most people (70%) get married between the ages of 20 and 30.

Some people (15%) get married before the age of 20.

Some people (15%) get married after the age of 30.

Some REAL deep stuff here, wow.

Anyways, I’m doing a project for my sociology coursework which involves arranged marriages - it also involves a questionnaire and I need as much people to fill it out (which would probably take you atleast 5 minutes to do)

If you don’t mind helping PLEASE contact me (ASAP)
my email address is loudsilence@hotmail.co.uk

Thank you!

hi im doing a debate on are arranged marriages better and im on the negating team…any good points someone can help me with?
this must be done by monday….any help would be much appreciated
if you can help me please contact me asap
my email address is Raydelgirl@hotmail.com

I am a white college student in Cali. I have an arranged marriage. We have been together for 3 years now, and I cannot say everything is perfect but yes we are falling in love. I believe that God should be the center of a marriage and for my husband and I that is really why we are married. We would not be still together without God cause we do not have very many common bases but that is the amazing thing because we are learning to really love each other. Our relationship is not just for us it is for God and for our families, who love each other so much. Did I menchine he is full Japanese.

It is hard seeing all of my friends try relationships and then get their heart hurt but then go try again. My heart never really was hurt like that cause I have a guy that has been committed to me in the first place.

Great post!! Loved it. All that I would have written myself.

I have had many friends who have had arranged marriages and from my observations, they do better than love marriages when it comes to divorce…love marriages are a relatively new way of marrying.

Check out this awesome student documenatry on arranged marriage.

http://www.vancouveriam.com/videos/caa28d371db1

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