Yeah, but there’s a flipside to that too.
Do you think it is okay for a 20 year old woman to be married to a 60 year old man because he has money and their families want the marriage to happen for their own selfish reasons?
Do you think it is okay for the parents of a young man who thinks he may have a vocation to the priesthood to push him towards marriage?
Do you think it is healthy to marry (and be expected to have sex with) someone you hardly know?
I mean, it wouldn’t be too horrid if all parents were to truly have their kids best interests at heart and to consult them and try to make it someone they would be happy with, etc. But, not everyone is a good parent…not every parent does have their children’s best interests at heart.
Both situations have their benefits and issues.
Well, there is nothing humans can create on their own that does not go wrong at some time or in some place. We do not, for instance look to the death of Socrates or that memorable chant “give us Barabbas” and draw from these two miscarriages of justice the conclusion that democracy has issues and is best left untried. So, it is pointless to here attempt to argue that there exist no possibilities for abuse of arranged marriages. What we need to ask ourselves is whether this system is preferable to the one we have now.
That some parents are less than loving towards their children is as regrettable a reality as that those still in the early morning of their adult life tend to be unduly idealistic. The thing is that the latter is much more endemic than the former; youth will
always, by the nature of their disposition, be predisposed to irrationality as a function of their inexperience but parents will not necessarily use their children towards their own ends. That parents know what is best for their children and can direct them towards it will always be more likely than that some twenty-something will be capable of inerrantly making some grave and life-changing decision.
As for the specific problems you have mentioned, like a marriage between two people who possess an extreme disparity in age or the propriety about sexual relations between a husband and wife who hardly know each other. As for the first, I think of it as an unlikely result for a person whose parents have his best interests at heart. In the second case, I see no problem with a husband and wife being expected to have sexual relations in the absence of familiarity, in fact, I see several advantages not the least of which is the reawakening of the idea that intercourse is a duty and a responsibility of marriage, not a recreational activity.
In all, it seems that the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks as concerns arranged marriages.
