Arranged Marriages

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No really...
What's the general opinion? Do you respect the culture of others and say: "Yup, whatever" or do you think that this is a genuine human rights violation and that people, in this day and age, should be able to pick who they want to marry?

Just wondering. If you think this aint in the news then remember that last year David Blunkett had a go at people using arranged marriages to get Green Cards to the UK. Was he right/ wrong?

The floor is yours...

(Just for the record I'd go for an arranged marriage with Hilary Woods ex-JJ72 but I suspect that's not the point...)

― Calum, Sunday, 13 April 2003 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's fine if all parties are involved of their own will.

A couple of good college friends are of Indian descent and very modern American girls. However they are open to arranged marriage. They point to the success of their parents own arranged marraiges as being better than most marriages based on romantic love.

― That Girl (thatgirl), Sunday, 13 April 2003 21:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I think everybody should have a marriage arranged for them if they are still single by the age of, say, 45. It would save having lots of people getting lonely and grumpy in their old age. Murders might increase though, so there's possibly a bit of a downside.

― C J (C J), Sunday, 13 April 2003 21:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I read a woman from some ethnic community where arranged marriages are common once, talking about this topic. She said that she thought arranged marriages were often a good idea, but was against forced marriages. I can see her point to some extent. well, to a large extent, as forced marriages are obviously a bad idea. arranged marriages, where your parents suddenly produce a spouse-to-be for you... well it's probably as likely to work as anything.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Sunday, 13 April 2003 21:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't like the idea. Isn't marriage about romance and falling in love?

I watched a documentary on this once and the girl was being forced into it... but it struck me. If she actually picked a white guy as her arranged marriage I oculd see her parents would go nuts! So isn't this racist?

― Calum, Sunday, 13 April 2003 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

An arranged marriage is a forced marriage you're allowed to say no to.

If she actually picked a white guy as her arranged marriage... her parents would go nuts

That could not happen. In an arranged marriage the parents choose your potential partner.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 13 April 2003 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

In cultures where this is the norm marriage is not viewed as being about romance. It's about social contracts and the love maybe comes later.

― That Girl (thatgirl), Sunday, 13 April 2003 22:11 (twenty-two years ago)

"I don't like the idea. Isn't marriage about romance and falling in love"

yeah and then breaking up in two years like in the US

― Esquire1983 (esquire1983), Sunday, 13 April 2003 22:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Not true - in the programme I saw the girl actually arranged her partner over the internet, but even so - would the parents allow a black man or a white man to be 'arranged' as part of the marriage? And, if not, is this not institutionalised racism.

If someone gets married and breaks up two years later then isn't that there own fault? I once spoke to a lady who was escaping from an arranged marriage, I wonder if she would have liked the chance to 'break up in two years' if it didn't work out?

― Calum, Sunday, 13 April 2003 22:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Institutionalised racism? You're joking right?

― D Aziz (esquire1983), Monday, 14 April 2003 04:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Forced marriages are bad in my book.

I don't see any problem with arranged marriages - and most of the anecdotes I've heard are along the lines of girl sees sexy boy, finds out who he is, gets in touch with his female cousin/aunt/sister etc. to find out if he finds her sexy too, if so send a few notes to each other and smile from a distance or meet each other in group settings then get other relatives (cousins, siblings, aunts/uncles) to talk to parents about it, respective parents meet and if they agree it's okay then marriage goes ahead.

Seems quite civilised and very similar to how boyfriends & girlfriends get together anyway, except that usually it's friends not relatives that are the go-betweens in athiestanglowestern culture - no doubt due to us having a very small number of relatives and not hanging out with the ones we do have.

Not much different to a guy asking a girl's dad for permission to propose to her except that they haven't been alone together yet and the guy doesn't approach the father himself.

― toraneko (toraneko), Monday, 14 April 2003 04:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I like the idea of arranged marriage. It's a little mysterious and takes finding a partner out of the hands of the one to be married. (Especially if it's with a childhood friend) Being put into a marriage has it's own sort of romantic charm. (It's like "Right now we don't have much feelings for each other, but we will be together for the rest of our lives so...")

― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 14 April 2003 04:49 (twenty-two years ago)

"'I don't like the idea. Isn't marriage about romance and falling in love'

yeah and then breaking up in two years like in the US "

Yeah, basing a marriage totally on romance and falling in love is what makes people get divorced after they no longer feel that romance or feeling of love. (which almost certainly will occur at some point) I think the people that are married for a long time know how to deal with the changes in their relationship better.

― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 14 April 2003 04:54 (twenty-two years ago)

when I was younger and felt that I was terminally unattractive, I wishes I lived in a society with arranged marriages, as I felt they would give me a chance of getting some.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 14 April 2003 08:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I have one question to those in favour of this:

If you had agreed to marry right away the first person you went out with purely because they were attractive how would your life be right now?

I'd have hung myself.

In terms of my comments about insitutionalised racism, if I was to ask a girl out from some of these families which practice arranged marriages I can tell you I'd be turned down as a white man. What is that if it is not racism? You don't see arranged marriages where the girl gets to pick a white or black fellow do you?

― Calum, Monday, 14 April 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Arranged marriages have far more to do with families than the couple involved. The real issues are money (how much a good degree and good looks are worth in the marriage market) and family honour.

I have a friend one who was extremely unhappy for two years (living with a mother-in-law who treats you like a slave isn't a good start, a husband who climbs into bed and asks "why don't you have tits like Filmstar X?" doesn't help either) and was finally allowed to return to her own parents after a couple of suicide attempts, a miscarriage and months of sneaking out to phone boxes, sobbing down the line and being begged by her folks to stick with it for the sake of family honour. I also have a friend who is under considerable pressure to marry but has decided to do her PhD instead (her sister was regularly beaten up by her arranged hubby - don't know whether this has anything to do with her choice).

I also have two (female) friends who are extremely happy with their arranged marriages. As far as I can tell the only thing they did to deserve marital bliss was get lucky.

― Madchen (Madchen), Monday, 14 April 2003 14:58 (twenty-two years ago)

The pride thing is called 'izzat' and according to all my Asian friends who have families who believe in arranging marriages - whether you're Muslim, Sikh or Hindu, middle-class or working-class, all seem to go in for it to preserve family assets - you can pretty much do what you like as long as the neighbours or your dad doesn't find out. Pretty much like people of all races and creeds did until women became 'individuals' and not 'property' (umm, Jane Austen was all about arranging your own marriage on a budget). I know tons of girls and boys who sowed wild oats with the normal adolescent/twentysomething partners but come the end of university, sat down with their parents and picked someone out who shared religion, social class and ethnic group (and may have even been a cousin of some kind). Yes, in the context of a truly multicultural society, it *is* racist, but in a religious family of any kind, part of your creed is to propagate within the faith, so...

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 14 April 2003 15:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think that's the reason they'd turn you down.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 14 April 2003 15:23 (twenty-two years ago)

several of my gay/lesb friends used marriages etc to get citizenship in the uk: since they are my friends and i like them, i think this is a nice idea => they were kind of "arranged marriages" (seeing as they had to live together for ages to prove it wz "real", they had to be able to get on a companionable way — obv they cd fuck who they liked => since this wd be a pretty good get-out clause in lots of non-arranged marriages also, i think my friends are leading the way in evolving the "arranged marriage" concept towards something everyone shd try)

it doesn't seem insane to think that yr mum/dad relatives might have a better idea who you'd be happy with than you do. when yr still a teenager, yr usually an idiot abt these kinds of things, and fixated on bodyparts or fast cars or sex or whatever, instead of fun to be with, good at creating a stable mutually supportive space blah blah...

pre-DNA tests etc, lots of married women chose their shared gene-pool from outside the marriage, having chosen the husband for sensible, home-making, bill-paying, kid-raising type reasons: best of both worlds, you get smart, exciting, pretty kids, and a kind doughy stay-at-home non-snooty guy who loves em and raises em well

haha "romance" = marketing tool for hallmark/interflora/catering industry

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 14 April 2003 15:49 (twenty-two years ago)

mark - in responding to your thread the simple suggestion seems to be not to a) get married whilst still a teenager and b) only get married when your grown up enough to know what this entails.

I find arranged marriages to be racist. I find aspects of all faiths to have their dubious sides though. I still can't believe some folks thought the UK was being racist when it banned female circumcision.

― Calum, Monday, 14 April 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark's right that citizenship, visas, etc -- the reasons many gay people get married -- also feature strongly in economic migrant arranged marriage, making an interesting parallel between the two. I married a Bangladeshi who was being pressured very strongly to enter an arranged marriage. Sure, money and family honour played their part, but when she was sent from London to Bangladesh to get married I have no doubt that her British citizenship was seen as her biggest asset, and was being used by the family to spirit the man of their choice into the elite family of British Bangladeshis. (Unfortunately I ruined this scheme by snatching my girlfriend out of the situation. We then had the standard western two year marriage.)

If it's racist, as Calum says, to consider marrying people only within selected racial groups, is it then sexist to consider marrying only people of one gender? Or in the modern world, have we reached the stage where we can 'set marriage free' from both race and gender constraints?

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 14 April 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

like i say, the kinds of arranged marriages set up by my gay/lesb friends seemed a pretty good idea — they produced friendships, and companionships and interesting kinds of households/set-ups which the standard Romantic Marriage Orthdoxy were bound to be terribly bad at, with its somewhat daft conviction that someone's favourite sex-partner-for-life MUST BE AND WILL BE their best friend-and-companion-for-life AS WELL AS BEING an excellent home-maker, child-raiser etc etc... much more sensible to spread these tasks around, and (if yr in any doubt) take straw polls of yr friends, neighbours, family, as to what's most likely to make you happy and above all NOT LONELY

If you include "forced" and "racist" in the definition of Arranged Marriages, everyone here's going to be against them. But they obviously solve certain sorts of problems also, or they'd have fizzled out centuries ago. Obviously the question is, whose problems do they solve, and does this include the actual couple getting married? But actually you can ask the same question about non-arranged marriage: whose problems is it solving exactly, and what problems does it cause along the way?

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 14 April 2003 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

In theory the practice seems racist to those with few friends in the groups which practice it most, which is in itself a kind of institutionalised racism. In practice it's just not, unless the parents call your white boyfriend a kaffir.

'Romantic' marriage has only been a goer as an idea since the 20th century. Before that - and in most cases where money and social status still mean something to people of a certain class or peer group - there was/is plenty of unofficial arranging going on, and some de facto set-ups. What do you think people go to be debutantes for?

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 14 April 2003 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

When Arranged Marriages Fight Back:

http://www.lifetimetv.com/images/shows/weddings/royal/expect/expect_top_photo.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 14 April 2003 17:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Ah yes, the fairy tale wedding of kd lang to David Sylvian.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 14 April 2003 19:12 (twenty-two years ago)

As raised above, there is a difference between arranged and forced marriages.

Re: issue of racism. A person willing to accept an arranged marriage accepts or is willing to accept certain ground rules, that they would be (or perhaps, should be) with someone who shares their religion, cultural values, is from a similar background, etc. I would hesitate to label someone racist for those beliefs. In some cases it may be recognition of racism in society and unwillingness to deal with that, it may be that they genuinely believe that it is important to have certain shared values in order for marriage to work. Unless you get something like suzy’s ‘kaffir’ example then it is harder to bring racism in as those are reasons that most ppl would accept in a dating situation as well.

― H (Heruy), Monday, 14 April 2003 19:38 (twenty-two years ago)

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