Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Arranged Marriage

This post is dedicated to Cameron, because he asked me to explain my views on arranged marriage.
Disclaimer: this post may or may not reflect the author’s deepest convictions about love and marriage. It may reflect the author’s intent for you to perform a double-take and have a headache thinking about this issue.
I’m a huge fan of arranged marriage for a number of reasons, but I must first explain my definition of arranged marriage.
Steven’s definition of arranged marriage: letting your parents choose your spouse for you.
That concept is horrifying to a lot of you. I find that concept appealing for a number of reasons:
1) The current dating setup is far too stressful. You have to guess whether or not someone likes you before you ask them out (unless you’re willing to be rejected).
You have this awkward dating period before you have the DTR (Define The Relationship) talk.
There’s too much room for self-deceit, and too much room for emotions to cloud your judgment.
2) Arranged marriage puts the responsibility of choosing a spouse into the hands of my parents. My parents are older than me, smarter than me, and wiser than me. They can see past my feelings of infatuation, and my mom would really prefer to choose my wife anyway, because only she really knows who’s good enough for her little boy. (The true answer is that no girl is good enough for her little boy, but eventually the desire to have grandkids will win out, and then she will want to choose my wife for me.)
3) I trust my parents’ judgment.
Some of you may not trust your parents’ judgment, in which case you’re not in favor of arranged marriage at all. That’s understandable.
Some of you trust your parents’ judgment but don’t like arranged marriage for other reasons:
1) You don’t think arranged marriage leaves room for love. I think this argument comes from a flawed understanding of what love is. People who subscribe to this argument think that, while love may come after marriage, marrying someone you’re not in love with is so not romantic. What they fail to understand is that you lose your twitterpated feelings after marriage and have to learn to live with someone. Arranged marriage is just like that—except without the twitterpated feelings to deceive you. Which sets up my conclusion…that I can’t share yet, because it’s my conclusion.
2) You think I don’t want to man up and ask a girl out. Fair point, but wrong. I’m afraid of many things, but rejection by a girl is not one of them. I get knocked down, but I can get up again…and again…and again…
3) You’ve seen Fiddler on the Roof.
Conclusion I could go into more depth on this subject, but my attention span is wearing out.
Final two thoughts:
1) My thoughts about arranged marriage are irrelevant for me because my parents refuse to arrange my marriage
2) If I manage to get married, I could always arrange my kids’ marriages.

1 comment:

  1. Being a parent is about training up your child in wisdom and truth for their adulthood. At some point kids have to make critical decisions and choices themselves.

    Marriage is an adult issue and so I think that the son or daughter needs to be the one to make that choice.

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