What Arranged Marriage Can Teach Us
Arranged marriage offers three keys insights into finding true love.
Dating and relationship advice from arranged marriages!?
I know, it might sound strange.
But for my book, First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice From The Wisdom of Arranged Marriages (Fireside, 2008) I spent five years researching arranged marriages and talking to over 300 women from Canada, the US, the UK, and across Europe about their experiences.
The majority of women whom I spoke with seemed so confident in their relationships (especially compared to our general environment of relationship angst). Surprisingly, what I was hearing really seemed to apply to my own relationship issues.
My book does not defend arranged marriages or suggest having one (I didn't!). Instead, it looks at the success of arranged marriages (a 5-7% divorce rate versus the US average of 50%) to see what we can take away from this overlooked tradition to apply to our own dating and relationship lives.
Here, a few valuable lessons I took from the arranged marriage model:
1. Stop Drifting! Decide What You Want From Dating.
We research colleges, plan our careers and even comparison-shop for groceries, but most of us are still incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of objectively thinking about what we want from our boyfriends or partners.
Instead, we just drift into relationships with the men that we happen to meet and be attracted to. Arranged marriages are specifically designed to prevent this type of infatuation or short-term thinking.
Before any potential candidates are considered, families decide the values and characteristics that potential partners should have to see what type of life the couple might have together.
Making a list of what you are really looking for in a relationship and partner will change the way you date! It will help you recognize the right men for you, figure out where best to meet them – and what you need to do to interest them.
Deciding to have a relationship with someone is a big decision– isn't it time we started to treat it like one?
2. And Then Go Find It.
Too many of us still expect that our dating and love lives will follow the plot of a Hollywood script – that one day Mr. Right will just walk into our lives (with no effort on our part) and sweep us away to our personal happily ever after.
Could it happen? Maybe.
Will it? Probably not.
In contrast, arranged marriages are all about proactively finding the right partner. Once a family knows what they are looking for in a potential partner, they spread the word through family, friends, colleagues, newspaper ads, online sites, and professional matchmakers.
Discussion
Reva, I really liked this article and please don't get discouraged by some of the comments above. It is true that arranged marriage has its own pluspoints and that we can learn from each other. I personally kind of like the idea of having a system that picks out a great guy without the girl having to sell herself short. This is in no way similar to 'selling your daughters' or some crap like that; it just means there's a systematic way of finding a guy with characteristics most girls in the West look for too; smart, educated, well-placed and from a good family. At least girls in such systems don't have to sleep with dozens of men, go through the emotional stress of hooking up & breaking up several times before finally settling for 'the one'. To me the Western marriage results from personal choice and arranged marriages are more of a collective choice where the whole family thinks for you. But if you have a loving family, can that really be so bad?
This was a very interesting article.
I think that there are both good and bad aspects to arranged marriages. I personally know four couples where the arrangement has worked out very well. I also have seen where arranged marriages have been disastrous--Women married to men who were mentally disabled, or to someone who was emotionally abusive. Given that the western world hasn't found the perfect solution for marriage (50% divorce rate), one should not look down at such a tradition. Suffice to say that arranged marriages work best when both families strive for the happiest match. If the goal of such a marriage, is for political or monetary gains solely, the chances are greater for an unhappy situation.
Interesting topic. How one conceptualizes "self" can differ from culture to culture, and I think this is the barrier to adopting these principles in the US. In India (and other countries), there is encouragement to develop a communal self, that part which is connected and supported by extended family and community. In the US, we don't have this communal self to the same extent, we emphasize development of an individual self that is differentiated from one's parents. I do not believe either is better or worse, just very different. I think this would make it very difficult for a family in the US to engage deeply in this process without guidance and areal commitment to let go of ego - and without being a really happy, supportive, healthy family to start with.
Those are two very interesting terms; 'individual self' and 'communal self' and I think you pinpointed the difference here. I also think the lack of 'communal self' is the reason why family ties are not as strong in the US or in Western culture in general. If 'I don't like him anymore' or 'She doesn't turn me on anymore' is reason enough to divorce and break up a family, what exactly does that say about how family is valued here? I'm sorry for Dana, but that 50% divorce rate is there for a reason.
At least in the American/European world, one can get out of a horrendous relationship - this isn't always true elsewhere. The divorce rate doesn't give a true picture of relative happiness.