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arranged marriage / love


shootingstar

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Since tomorrow will be Valentine's Day, here's something a little different (probably for this forum):  arranged marriages

https://torontolife.com/city/life/case-arranged-marriage/     Several profiles of Canadian couples as of now.

As I might have mentioned once upon a time here in this forum:  my mother was a picture bride.  My parents' marriage was not quite arranged.  But yes, my parents corresponded by snail mail for few months, exchanged photos and my father proposed by letter.  There was no Internet, skype. Long distance phone calls in 1950's were very expensive.  

When my mother landed in Toronto International Airport from China, she met her future husband for the lst time.  They married 2 wks. later.

I was born over a year later.

I sincerely have a real opinion about arranged marriages:   it only works if 1 partner ultimately defers to the other. And it works best if each partner is kind and respectful to each other even if the marriage is traditional..  

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16 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

I think the odds favor being at least as successful as how most of us are doing it.

Random, I'm sorry it's super tough right now in your divorce and little girl is caught in midst of all this.  

BAck on topic:  my mother knows how incredibly lucky she was since there was no domestic abuse and she married a mild tempered, patient guy who became family ad hoc conflict dispute family negotiator, a very real  human bridge between parents and children... 

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3 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

There is a glaring problem with the arranged marriage.  Most of the time, I don't think the bride and groom have sex before they wed.  This is no go for me.  I would never marry someone, before I was absolutely sure, they could help me hit a high note.  ? ?

?

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9 hours ago, shootingstar said:

Random, I'm sorry it's super tough right now in your divorce and little girl is caught in midst of all this.

That has nothing to do with it.  I worked with a number of Indian people in the early 2000's who were in arranged marriages, and the odds of success seemed just as good, if not a little better than the semi-random picking we do.  It was what it was, so acceptance of the situation seemed good.    People often get married for the wrong reasons.  This necessitates the question of "what are the right reasons?"  Anyway, I suppose someone else arranging it for you is just as good as you doing a job you aren't trained to do properly.

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33 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

There is a glaring problem with the arranged marriage.  Most of the time, I don't think the bride and groom have sex before they wed.  This is no go for me.  I would never marry someone, before I was absolutely sure, they could help me hit a high note.  ? ?

I think EVERY marriage can go the distance of "until death do us part".  It might be a great marriage, an awful marriage, a so-so marriage, whatever, but if the folks involved stick it out - good or bad - it will keep going until someone dies. So, you could suck it up and be married for fifty years to a couch potato with no night moves and a disinterest in anything you enjoy.  That's how it was done the world over since the beginning of "marriage".  I'd say it is only since the past 50-100 years that the US and some other countries decided "love" had much at all to do with marriage, and god knows it has only been in my lifetime where a marriage of ""equals" was thought a good or even reasonable idea.

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1 hour ago, Razors Edge said:

I think EVERY marriage can go the distance of "until death do us part".  It might be a great marriage, an awful marriage, a so-so marriage, whatever, but if the folks involved stick it out - good or bad - it will keep going until someone dies. So, you could suck it up and be married for fifty years to a couch potato with no night moves and a disinterest in anything you enjoy.  That's how it was done the world over since the beginning of "marriage".  I'd say it is only since the past 50-100 years that the US and some other countries decided "love" had much at all to do with marriage, and god knows it has only been in my lifetime where a marriage of ""equals" was thought a good or even reasonable idea.

You are making no sense at all. 

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Just now, Dirtyhip said:

You are making no sense at all. 

TL;DR for my post is that marriage was not about love or compatibility for centuries. Only in past 100 years or so, has "I would never marry someone for ..." been really a legit thing.  Arranged marriages are just some of those things that are past their prime in the US, but still lingering in the developing world. You are lucky to be a 21st century American!

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12 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

TL;DR for my post is that marriage was not about love or compatibility for centuries. Only in past 100 years or so, has "I would never marry someone for ..." been really a legit thing.  Arranged marriages are just some of those things that are past their prime in the US, but still lingering in the developing world. You are lucky to be a 21st century American!

Shakespeare.  The rules have been broken for centuries.

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11 hours ago, Randomguy said:

I think the odds favor being at least as successful as how most of us are doing it.

This is my thought, too.  I'm OK with the idea, but not with great mismatches in age or power - like child brides marrying 40 year olds. That's not far removed from kidnapping or slavery.

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9 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

I seriously doubt, I would have had an arrangement to have married someone like my husband.  He is so rare, and truly special.  I might have been forced to marry a crappy cyclist.  Maybe even one who rides a recumbent.  Ick.

I like recumbents, don't you defame them!

The shop I worked at in Chicago sold them, the manager had a couple.  I liked riding them, weird-ish as they were.

9 hours ago, Dirtyhip said:

There is a glaring problem with the arranged marriage.  Most of the time, I don't think the bride and groom have sex before they wed.  This is no go for me.  I would never marry someone, before I was absolutely sure, they could help me hit a high note.  ? ?

That wouldn't have mattered at all, you are responsible for your own thrashing about in an arranged marriage.  You would just go get a boyfriend, I imagine that kind of thing is fairly common when arranged is the rule.

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