I
can see a clear line between those who have never gone through the
Marriage process and those who have gone through the process. Marriage
is one of the scariest things for anyone. Your whole life will be in for
a change and if you end up with the wrong guy/gal your life will be
ruined. Thus, I can see why people are nervous about arranged marriage. A
rational person should be nervous about any kind of marriage.
I have seen a couple of negative instances in the extended family when I was a child. Then I got quite determined to marry the girl my own way. Since that time I have been researching on various ideas on this topic. I crossed through my nervous teens and reached the US. In the US, my view on this topic completely went 180-degree. Here are some reasons my volte-face:
Thus, when I went back to India in 2010, I told my parents that I will change my earlier decision and now it is time to find my girl through the arranged marriage route. However, I decided to keep the overall thing quite rational and that was quite useful. After two months of conversations with different girls, finally found my girl. My best decision.
In 2011, I married the girl whom I love the most in my life. But, like most Indians, my love started after our engagement. Same is the case of my cousins, close friends and most of my extended network. Here is the condensed experience from my observations on modern arranged marriages in metropolitan India. The reality in rural India is little less ideal, but the wings of change are appearing there too.
Arranged marriage is especially predominant among those of us who have moved to the US (for work/study) who have seen how both systems work. I used to be a proponent of "love" until I moved to the US a few years ago. Also, some of us have graduate degrees and have both professional & financial freedom to pursue our life. So, it is not like we are getting into arranged marriage because somebody put a knife in our necks, nor are we taking this due to irrational reasons. We are willingly entering the game and reaping the rewards from the system.
Positive aspects of arranged marriage:
1. In urban India, arranged family is becoming more of a "family arranged date". It is not too different from finding a girl/guy yourself through other dating means. The family goes through an extensive profile matching process (including education backgrounds, interests/hobbies, height, weight, earning capacities, food habits etc) that also involves the bride & the groom. Before the "date" happens an enormous amount of filtering & back end work has been done to make sure things stick.
[Sidetrack: I was really apprehensive of arranged marriages and during my teens I swore to get married only through love.
But, as soon as I met my future wife in an arranged setting, I knew why
the process works. Now, the only scary thing in our marriage is the
scary faces we put to each other ;-). I have observed about 30 odd
marriages -- in my friends & family -- 95% of them arranged and they
have similar experiences]
2. The process overall is more objective given that a group of people try to figure out the various things that goes into making a marriage work. On the other hand, a guy meeting a girl on a date with no background information has to make a subjective decision on the fly. In any human interaction, typically the first few minutes influence the dynamics of the whole relationship. Also, given that humans are not so rational when it comes to love and you decide very early in your life, the decision variables could be something that might not align with your long term interests.
3. In a typical non-arranged marriage, you are generally on your own. That means when the relationship experiences rough weather, you might make spot decisions that you could regret later. In arranged marriages you have a support network that you could utilize if needed. It is like having a mentor & adviser in a start up. This ensures that marriages don't end due to short-term stupidities.
4. In non-arranged marriages, you are likely to have incomplete (or worse misleading) information to decide. Let us say you are going out with a classmate and you like her. But, at that stage you might not have a lot of information about the family background and the surroundings that influence the other person's subconscious. By the time you have all the information, your relationship might have gone too advanced to back out easily.
Thus your decisions could be based on surface characteristics such as beauty, hobbies and outer personality. In arranged marriages more effort is made to take the factors that make up your character -- by putting more emphasis on the family and cultural setup. This is better for the long term - when beauty and other surface characteristics adapt or disappear.
5. Arranged marriages lets Indian geeks be geeks. In the US and elsewhere, many geeks have to force themselves to somebody else to woo the opposite sex. In Indian arranged marriages, geeks are generously rewarded -- the bigger your accomplishments are (not necessarily wealth) the better your chances are in getting the bride/groom of your choice. That means a greater motivation to succeed. Also at a point of time in life when American & European students are busy in either setting up or agonizing over their relationships --- Indian geeks have their lifeline in mind and proceed to fill up the Phd & MBA admissions in the universities without getting their lives interfered by the courtship process.
6. The "love" system places too much stress on the teens & tweenies in looking for their future spouse. Not having girlfriend/boyfriend adds undue distress at a time when you have to use your energies to climb up the education & career ladder. In an arranged marriage, we agonize a lot less and focus on building our career in early 20s that will come handy during the bride/groom selection process.
7. In India, marriages are about the joining of 2 families. Unlike the West, our family forms a huge support system in India. Our parents take a greater part in raising their grandchildren, helping us out with our first house & car, and in general a big source of joy during the festivals. My father-in-law doubles as my business mentor and mother-in-law & other in-laws help us in various ways. In fact, when we moved back to the US - they packed the whole stuff up while also doing a bulk of the shopping. Though these are not always the case for a few others, it is better to have a strong family base rather than just focus on the chemistry between the couples. Of course the chemistry is important, but arranged marriage can do a better job in also ensuring a stronger bond between the families.
Great report by CNN on this subject: http://cnn.com/video/?/vi
8. Finally, the question assumes that in a non-arranged marriage you really know the person whom you are ending up with. The reality is that we don't. Most of us are often irrational in decision making, adapt with changes in environment and very poor judges of people. The person you loved in high school might be a totally different person in late 20s. It is better to honestly realize the non-deterministic aspect of human nature and learn with work with the complexities.
Negative Aspects of Arranged Marriage
A Couple of you guys pointed out that sometimes arranged marriages do not work. Absolutely.
I'm assuming that both sides have a choice (to love or to go for arranged) and if there is a choice, I'm saying arranged marriages are no worse than the alternatives. And if there is no choice, you have a problem bigger than the institution of marriage and requires the intervention of law enforcement.
Tips to reduce risk in an arranged marriage setting
Marriages of all stripes are risky and requires a leap of faith. Arranged marriages are no different. Here are some tips to reduce the risk:
Best Practices
3 Tips to get arranged marriages to work better:
Conclusion:
Arranged marriages are not a panacea and cannot cure the society of its ills. I can only compare it to its alternatives. In a philosophical sense, we don't choose most of the stuff that really matter to us. We neither choose our parents & siblings nor our race & country of birth. We still manage to love them for the most part. If the couple involved in a partnership are open minded and are prepared to love the other person regardless of the minor chinks in their personalities, marriages - arranged or otherwise, work.
I have seen a couple of negative instances in the extended family when I was a child. Then I got quite determined to marry the girl my own way. Since that time I have been researching on various ideas on this topic. I crossed through my nervous teens and reached the US. In the US, my view on this topic completely went 180-degree. Here are some reasons my volte-face:
- A few of my friends started getting married. Most of these guys were attractive in every sense - athletic, well educated, well earning guys who had patience. They could have gotten the best of the pick without an arranged system. However, they went arranged.
- I worked a bit doing research for a law office in Florida. I wrote about 50 articles on Divorce for them. At the end of it, I got really sick. There were far too many issues in any kind of marriage.
- I dated a couple of women when I first came to the US and found the experience overall quite superficial. A few of my Caucasian friends at the lab agreed with me. I found the dating process was no more scientific and rational than the arranged marriages I was used to.
- Finally, I got to travel around the US and stayed with a number of American families. I got to learn a bit more about how they marry and why the marriages fail.
Thus, when I went back to India in 2010, I told my parents that I will change my earlier decision and now it is time to find my girl through the arranged marriage route. However, I decided to keep the overall thing quite rational and that was quite useful. After two months of conversations with different girls, finally found my girl. My best decision.
In 2011, I married the girl whom I love the most in my life. But, like most Indians, my love started after our engagement. Same is the case of my cousins, close friends and most of my extended network. Here is the condensed experience from my observations on modern arranged marriages in metropolitan India. The reality in rural India is little less ideal, but the wings of change are appearing there too.
Arranged marriage is especially predominant among those of us who have moved to the US (for work/study) who have seen how both systems work. I used to be a proponent of "love" until I moved to the US a few years ago. Also, some of us have graduate degrees and have both professional & financial freedom to pursue our life. So, it is not like we are getting into arranged marriage because somebody put a knife in our necks, nor are we taking this due to irrational reasons. We are willingly entering the game and reaping the rewards from the system.
Positive aspects of arranged marriage:
1. In urban India, arranged family is becoming more of a "family arranged date". It is not too different from finding a girl/guy yourself through other dating means. The family goes through an extensive profile matching process (including education backgrounds, interests/hobbies, height, weight, earning capacities, food habits etc) that also involves the bride & the groom. Before the "date" happens an enormous amount of filtering & back end work has been done to make sure things stick.
2. The process overall is more objective given that a group of people try to figure out the various things that goes into making a marriage work. On the other hand, a guy meeting a girl on a date with no background information has to make a subjective decision on the fly. In any human interaction, typically the first few minutes influence the dynamics of the whole relationship. Also, given that humans are not so rational when it comes to love and you decide very early in your life, the decision variables could be something that might not align with your long term interests.
3. In a typical non-arranged marriage, you are generally on your own. That means when the relationship experiences rough weather, you might make spot decisions that you could regret later. In arranged marriages you have a support network that you could utilize if needed. It is like having a mentor & adviser in a start up. This ensures that marriages don't end due to short-term stupidities.
4. In non-arranged marriages, you are likely to have incomplete (or worse misleading) information to decide. Let us say you are going out with a classmate and you like her. But, at that stage you might not have a lot of information about the family background and the surroundings that influence the other person's subconscious. By the time you have all the information, your relationship might have gone too advanced to back out easily.
Thus your decisions could be based on surface characteristics such as beauty, hobbies and outer personality. In arranged marriages more effort is made to take the factors that make up your character -- by putting more emphasis on the family and cultural setup. This is better for the long term - when beauty and other surface characteristics adapt or disappear.
5. Arranged marriages lets Indian geeks be geeks. In the US and elsewhere, many geeks have to force themselves to somebody else to woo the opposite sex. In Indian arranged marriages, geeks are generously rewarded -- the bigger your accomplishments are (not necessarily wealth) the better your chances are in getting the bride/groom of your choice. That means a greater motivation to succeed. Also at a point of time in life when American & European students are busy in either setting up or agonizing over their relationships --- Indian geeks have their lifeline in mind and proceed to fill up the Phd & MBA admissions in the universities without getting their lives interfered by the courtship process.
6. The "love" system places too much stress on the teens & tweenies in looking for their future spouse. Not having girlfriend/boyfriend adds undue distress at a time when you have to use your energies to climb up the education & career ladder. In an arranged marriage, we agonize a lot less and focus on building our career in early 20s that will come handy during the bride/groom selection process.
7. In India, marriages are about the joining of 2 families. Unlike the West, our family forms a huge support system in India. Our parents take a greater part in raising their grandchildren, helping us out with our first house & car, and in general a big source of joy during the festivals. My father-in-law doubles as my business mentor and mother-in-law & other in-laws help us in various ways. In fact, when we moved back to the US - they packed the whole stuff up while also doing a bulk of the shopping. Though these are not always the case for a few others, it is better to have a strong family base rather than just focus on the chemistry between the couples. Of course the chemistry is important, but arranged marriage can do a better job in also ensuring a stronger bond between the families.
Great report by CNN on this subject: http://cnn.com/video/?/vi
8. Finally, the question assumes that in a non-arranged marriage you really know the person whom you are ending up with. The reality is that we don't. Most of us are often irrational in decision making, adapt with changes in environment and very poor judges of people. The person you loved in high school might be a totally different person in late 20s. It is better to honestly realize the non-deterministic aspect of human nature and learn with work with the complexities.
Negative Aspects of Arranged Marriage
A Couple of you guys pointed out that sometimes arranged marriages do not work. Absolutely.
- In some instances, families might put their priorities in front of yours. That is something you have to guard yourself against. Show them that you are good in your decision making and stand firm on your top priorities.
- Even in some arranged modern arranged marriages, prospects don't take an active part in decision making and understanding the variables involved. Either they are too shy or too bored. It requires more active role of the people involve. This is something that is fast changing though.
- In many India villages and in some urban locations, there is outright force to get married to a certain person with no choice. However, I would argue blaming arranged marriage for this would be akin to blaming the bullet for the murder. When there is a coercion you have a bigger problem to worry than debating about arranged vs. love.
- Arranged marriage perpetuates the
institution of caste. Since arrange marriages predominantly happen
within one's religion, caste and language, it doesn't allow easy
crossbreeding in the society. However, it could be argued that even in
the US and Europe where there are very few arranged marriages,
interracial/inter-cultura
l marriages are an exception rather than a rule. Also, many of the "love" marriages in India follow the same caste/religious boundaries too.
I'm assuming that both sides have a choice (to love or to go for arranged) and if there is a choice, I'm saying arranged marriages are no worse than the alternatives. And if there is no choice, you have a problem bigger than the institution of marriage and requires the intervention of law enforcement.
Tips to reduce risk in an arranged marriage setting
Marriages of all stripes are risky and requires a leap of faith. Arranged marriages are no different. Here are some tips to reduce the risk:
- Be proactive in the spouse search process. Don't let your parents autopilot. Remember, arranged marriage works best when it is a family arranged date and not when it is a family mandated marriage.
- Before saying yes, get all the data points. Use social media search and find all possible connections. If you don't have a lot of common links and the spouse' family are total strangers, you could use the private services to do the background check that have specialized services for this. Also, request a medical report before the final go. These are becoming common practices in metropolitan India.
- Try to get a few month gap between the engagement and the wedding. That is the period when you can really get together and see if there are any major surprises. I know of a couple of relatives and friends who pulled out in this period. It is a little painful but not as bad as a breakup or divorce.
Best Practices
3 Tips to get arranged marriages to work better:
- Always get your expectations to a realistic level. If you don't look as good as Brad Pitt, don't expect an Angelina Jolie either.
- Take enough time to understand the girl and her background before a proposal. Get a lot of data before you even meet the girl.
- Keep your mind open and be flexible.
Conclusion:
Arranged marriages are not a panacea and cannot cure the society of its ills. I can only compare it to its alternatives. In a philosophical sense, we don't choose most of the stuff that really matter to us. We neither choose our parents & siblings nor our race & country of birth. We still manage to love them for the most part. If the couple involved in a partnership are open minded and are prepared to love the other person regardless of the minor chinks in their personalities, marriages - arranged or otherwise, work.
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