Does The Church Have A Position On Arranged Marriages?

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For those of you who live in a culture of arranged marriages, how did you feel about this custom? Did you accept the marriage and how did it turn out? If you did not accept the marriage, what were the consequences with your family? Did anyone ever discuss the Church’s position on arranged marriages?

For those who live in countries where romantic love is reason for marriage, do you feel the Church can approve of arranged marriages between partners who accept the cultural custom and who can live in mutual respect in order to form a family unit for the propagtion of children?
 
Marriages contracted against the will of the nupturients are null and void. They don’t stand a chance in chourt courts and rightly so. Consenting out of obedience or respect towards the parents or family elders is already an argument for nullity.

What you need for a valid marriage is free, informed and sincere consent. It’s also deeply wrong to force someone into a sexual union he or she doesn’t want. That would be rape.

It’s nice if your family helps you find a good wife or husband, but it’s not their place to decide. And you don’t need your family’s or even your parents’ permission, either.
 
Amen!!! For a marriage to be valid, both parties must choose to be married to each other. There is no one else but the bride and groom that may enter into this covenant with God so it only stands to reason that an arranged marriage no matter the reasons would be invalid.
 
Well, I’m curious. Do arranged marriages have a less than 50% divorce rate, which is about the rate in the United States? Are the marriages generally happy or unhappy?

I once had a theology professor who insisted that ANY marriage could work–even arranged marriages–if the parties determined to make it work. Needless to say, there was a lot of flak from the students.

His point was that the marriage vows were a matter of the will, not emotion. Even though the partners might have been selected by the parents, the couple could still freely consent, if they chose; and if they chose, the marriage would be happy.
Arranged marriages sound counterintuitive in our western culture. Still, a 50% divorce rate would indicate that we’re not doing too well with our own method of selecting mates.
 
How about an arranged marriage that is acceptable to both parties who trust in their parent’s judgement? Is that valid if romantic love is not present at the time of marriage?

Was the betrothal of Mary and Joseph arranged by their families come to think of it? She was supposedly very young, say 14 and he was at least “of age”, let’s say older than 20. How could he have felt a romantic love for her at her young age and how could she have reciprocated back…mind you, this engagement was before the Angel appeared. Can we honestly think their families were not involved in arranging it. Could she have accepted the arrangement because it was a cultural custom? Was their marriage valid if initially arranged? (Of course, I don’t question it’s validity; I’m just curious about cultural customs and our modern day romantic love detached from family interests.)
 
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snowgarden:
How about an arranged marriage that is acceptable to both parties who trust in their parent’s judgement? Is that valid if romantic love is not present at the time of marriage?
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Sure it would be valid if both parties consent to the marriage. Love is a commitment. Romantic love follows commitment.
 
Jim G,
I think that the important thing to remember is that the divorce rate amongst Catholics that pray together and actually share their faith is less than 10 %. To be truly in line with the marriage covenant we are to honor God’s presence in that covenant. The shame is that too many of us don’t remember that after the vows. I am soon to be married for the second time, the first marriage was annulled for many reasons, some of which pertain to this topic; the first reason was he left the Catholic church and then left me. According to 1 Cor I am not bound to stay married to a non believer that leaves me. The second is his “other” wife(she was the first, I was the second), the one that he “forgot” to tell me about, or divorce before he married me. Obviously he was never free to enter into a covenant with me when he was still married to another. Third was his inability to enter into such a covenant due to mental illness. If he couldn’t understand the permanency of the covenant due to his mental capacity, he certainly couldn’t rightly enter into a marriage validly. I didn’t choose well for sure but I was prepared to stay in the marriage out of respect for God and the covenant I made with him and my husband. All bets were off when he walked out the door, although I did not seek divorce or annullment until years later just to be sure that these problems were not temporary. So now I am about to be remarried some 8 yrs after my divorce, what have I learned? I learned to choose wisely and find a man who places his faith in God above me as it should be. I am third in his life, but I don’t have a problem with that. His faith comes first, his daughter second, then me. It goes the same for me, God first, then my children, then him. We spend time together and with the big extended family in worship. To me this is a much happier and more stable relationship than I ever expected. I don’t believe that arranged marriages can have this commitment that is freely made and discussed well before the marriage takes place. If you ask me, the ends don’t justify the means at all.

Just my humble opinion…
 
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BlestOne:
I don’t believe that arranged marriages can have this commitment that is freely made and discussed well before the marriage takes place. If you ask me, the ends don’t justify the means at all.
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You may be right. I just don’t know of any data about the happiness of arranged marriages. In essence, it’s just Mom & Dad (or somebody else) acting as a dating service. God bless you and your family.
 
BlestOne, I’m so glad that you’ve found a man who loves you and God! I hope that you and he will be very happy together.

DH wants to arrange our children’s marriages. (the first is still inside me) We’re at a sort of compromise: we will look for a good young man (or woman - whichever sex Baby isn’t) and with Baby’s consent, we’ll sort of nudge them along. Thank God it’ll be many years before Baby is old enough to seriously consider marriage! We’re hoping that most of our children will be priests, monks or nuns while realizing that the world needs holy marriages, too. BTW here’s a great prayer for married couples: cora.dashjr.org/prayers/coutri.html

Remember: the family that prays [the rosary] together, stays together!!

my Mother my Confidence,
Corinne
 
Oh, this is Daddy’s big plan…Yep, you think a lot of things when they haven’t even been hatched yet. It’s like the Luvs diaper commercial…You imagine all sorts of things, set all sorts of plans. Then, you have the real baby, realize what life really is, and move on.

I think a better plan would be to pray for your children’s future vocations, whatever that might entail (single life, marriage, religious life, or priesthood), and any future spouses, whoever and wherever those spouses might be…We might have gotten aorund to it late, but that’s what we do. :gopray:
 
An arranged marriage basically says “I love you because I’m obliged to, I’ve made made a commitment to, but you’re not special, you could be anyone”. The marrage is not a statement of any personal connection in particular - yeah some here would like to reduce that to romantic fantasies - but I think it matters to marry someone you already love or at least know and admire with a hope to really love in the future. Not a stranger. I’m sure they ‘work’ quite well, for a number of reasons, - family and societal expectations probably make sure they do. But does that make them right?
 
In the past, when social conditions were different, it sometimes worked. St Elizabeth of Hungary’s very happy, arranged-for-political-purposes marriage is an example. After the marriage had been arranged when she was four, she moved to the court of her future husband. They grew up together as best friends and ended up falling in love before they got married. Just because a marriage is arranged doesn’t mean the people are strangers or that there’s no love there.

As strange as the idea is to me, and as much as I feel arranged marriages are a bad idea in this day and age, I can’t rule them out as universally a failure, an impersonal agreement for convenience’s sake, or somehow wrong. And as has already been pointed out, marriage would not truly have been contracted if the spouses were forced into the marriage in any way.
 
KiwiCatholic86 said:
In the past, when social conditions were different, it sometimes worked. St Elizabeth of Hungary’s very happy, arranged-for-political-purposes marriage is an example. After the marriage had been arranged when she was four, she moved to the court of her future husband. They grew up together as best friends and ended up falling in love before they got married. Just because a marriage is arranged doesn’t mean the people are strangers or that there’s no love there.

As strange as the idea is to me, and as much as I feel arranged marriages are a bad idea in this day and age, I can’t rule them out as universally a failure, an impersonal agreement for convenience’s sake, or somehow wrong. And as has already been pointed out, marriage would not truly have been contracted if the spouses were forced into the marriage in any way.
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All contexts can go wrong because of its cultural background

Lack of love of any kind introduced in the household/society

Lack of balance of any kinds of love described by the Church

The church’s teachings

All which many societies have deprived Themselves of, leading to hyper romance or cold materialism and of course when we say this society loves to accuse us of imposing a theocracy
 
Retro_Ace said:
All contexts can go wrong because of its cultural background

Lack of love of any kind introduced in the household/society

Lack of balance of any kinds of love described by the Church

The church’s teachings

All which many societies have deprived Themselves of, leading to hyper romance or cold materialism and of course when we say this society loves to accuse us of imposing a theocracy
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:eek:** This thread is over 10 years old! ** This might be a record for resuscitated threads!
 
Irishmom2 said:
:eek:** This thread is over 10 years old! ** This might be a record for resuscitated threads!
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LoL… I started reading the thread without noticing the date, but then started seeing familiar usernames that I hadn’t seen in a while, and that prompted me to check out the date. I’m always happy to see old familiar “handles” coming back, but alas, it was just an old thread!
 
I have never seen the Church take a position on arranged marriages, and I don’t think there is an official position on its rightness.
Some people are confusing arranged marriages with forced marriages. Of course in an arranged marriages, both people would have to consent to the marriage by their own choice. As I understand it from from I have read about it from the past, if one of the parties will not accept being married then it will not occur. And of course the priest would refuse to marry such a person if he knew of it because people cannot have a legitimate marriage if they do not enter into it from their own choice.
My wife’s parents had an arranged marriage (in the Philippines). They went to their fiftieth anniversary celebration several years ago, which their children arranged.They are both gone now, or I would ask them about their own case.
 
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