Would West be Better Off with Arranged Marriages?

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Arranged marriages are NOT a good idea! They are forced relationships, not ones entered into voluntarily by both parties. And if either or both parties loves somebody else, and is prevented from marrying him or her, the resentment is going to fly right back to the parents or other authorities who denied them their chance(s) to be happy. The couple forced to marry against their will is going to feel cheated, and the parents will get blamed for it – and rightly so.

The exception would be a marriage of convenience (also known as a “shotgun wedding”) when the bride has been impregnated out of wedlock and the purpose of the marriage is to give legitimacy to the unborn child.

Except for that situation, people should ALWAYS be allowed to choose their own spouses, for better or worse. Parents have no right to interfere in the affairs of their children’s hearts.

And, if they love their kids, they won’t.
 
JanR said:
Arranged marriages are NOT a good idea! They are forced relationships, not ones entered into voluntarily by both parties
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This is not always the case. I have several friends from other cultures who had marriages arranged. They were not forced to go through with them, they chose to, after meeting and communicating with the prospective spouse for a very short (by Western standards) time. It worked out well for them.
JanR said:
The exception would be a marriage of convenience (also known as a “shotgun wedding”) when the bride has been impregnated out of wedlock and the purpose of the marriage is to give legitimacy to the unborn child.

Except for that situation, people should ALWAYS be allowed to choose their own spouses,
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It’s odd that you’d make some exception for this.
Priests would very likely refuse to perform such a “shotgun wedding” nowadays.
Legitimacy of a child is not a big issue nowadays either.
 
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If their freedom of choice is honored, then that’s a different story. That doesn’t always happen with arranged marriages.
 
Arranged marriages need not have an element of coercion.

Prospective spouses are introduced but the choice to go through to marriage is a choice made by the prospective bride and groom.

Actually the dating services nowadays are a form of arranged marriage services.
 
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JanR said:
The exception would be a marriage of convenience (also known as a “shotgun wedding”) when the bride has been impregnated out of wedlock and the purpose of the marriage is to give legitimacy to the unborn child.
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A shotgun marriage can be granted an annulment since it is not considered a valid marriage. Coercion is coercion no matter how noble the intention.
 
JanR said:
The exception would be a marriage of convenience (also known as a “shotgun wedding”) when the bride has been impregnated out of wedlock and the purpose of the marriage is to give legitimacy to the unborn child
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Fortunately, not many people care about illegitimacy in the sense that the child is not ostracized as once was the case. “Illegitimate” is such an ugly word. They were born and someone loved them enough to have them.

I wonder what the divorce rate on all of those shotgun marriages are. I think there would be a lot more divorces if that were the reason people got married.
 
JanR said:
They are forced relationships, not ones entered into voluntarily by both parties.
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In the “Matchmaking” series my wife is watching, often one or both parties aren’t interested in specific people they are introduced to and move on, so they do have control over their choices to some degree, although in in some cases the mother has far too much influence for my liking.

I was mainly focusing on the level of family involvement in the choice of spouse that seems to take place in Indian culture and pondering on whether that would be beneficial or not in our culture, especially the ability of a parent or sibling to point out valid concerns that might not be on the radar of their loved one who is looking for a spouse.

It’s mostly just a hypothetical exercise on my part to see if we could potentially learn anything from other cultures (in this case Indian) in regards to dating and marriage or whether there is nothing new under the sun, so to speak.
 
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Tommy999 said:
especially the ability of a parent or sibling to point out valid concerns that might not be on the radar of their loved one who is looking for a spouse
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I would say that if parents have a good relationship with their children, they would be open to hearing a parent’s concerns if there were any. But not if they beat them over the head with it. 😉
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The “shotgun wedding” you condoned isn’t freedom of choice. You’re contradicting yourself.
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In some cases, it may be the ONLY way to get the parents to respect their children’s freedom of choice. If the parents of either or both families are determined to forbid a loving marriage between the two parties, and to break them up no matter what, an intentionally planned pregnancy may force them to either give their consent or risk a scandal. Not the best option by any means, and the only other option is to elope, and with today’s technology, it would be way too easy for parents to track down the couple.

As for forcing a marriage of convenience, I was thinking back to what happened with my grandmother and biological grandfather. That was in the 1920s, and the culture and society were much different back then. It could be that they both had agreed to the marriage for our dad’s sake, but I don’t know that.

I had heard from relatives who were alive during that time that Grandma’s family had disapproved of Grandpa, and may have tried to stop them from marrying.

Nonetheless, that marriage ended in divorce after only three years.

Even today, children born out of wedlock are sometimes discriminated against. It’s better for them if that can be avoided. Ideally, of course, couples should marry first, THEN have kids – but if it turns out otherwise, I feel they have an obligation to marry for the sake of their unborn child. It’s still what’s best for the child that counts.

The exception would be rape, of course. No woman should be forced to marry her rapist!
 
In close knit Orthodox Jewish communities, a type of Yenta still exists. But, they are a matchmaker not a marriage maker. It’s a way for several smallish communities to find likely marriage candidates outside their own community. The Yenta is familiar with multiple communities and can give the young people a good idea of who is available. Also, it gives the parents a way to vet any perspective suitor and to learn what kind of a family they are from. Not a typical American style way of meeting potential mates but the community mostly approves of it. No one that is matched is required to marry by any means. For communities where maybe half of their neighbors are also related to them, it’s really needed in that respect as well. Everyone is assured of the matches being Jewish and kosher. Often these communities are even more strict than the usual.

In a million years I wouldn’t have let my parents pick my match…other than as a curiosity as to whom I’d be matched! 🤣. They sure would have never picked my husband…47 yrs married. Nor would a Yenta have matched us!

I do think that if people want to try and be matched, why not? To try and shift society into that type of arrangements, well, it has to happen organically or else it wouldn’t be accepted at all.
 
@Tommy999 I think if one does not come from a culture where arranged marriages are the norm, it’s going to be virtually impossible to expect people to be comfortable with the idea. I know people from south Asian cultures who had arranged marriages, and some of them have certainly turned out to be very happy. It’s not impossible. I know a Nigerian couple who didn’t exactly have an arranged marriage, but their dads were both policemen and were best friends and decided it would be a good thing if their son and daughter married each other, so they arranged a scenario in which they would meet (I know, if they were best friends, it is odd that their children had never met each other before). Clearly the two dads had great intuition as they did indeed get married and they are very happy together.

The other consideration is what would happen if the parents can’t be relied upon to arrange or agree to a good marriage. If my mum had been allowed to find me a husband, she would have either (1) decided I wasn’t allowed to get married anyway, (2) chosen a husband based on her own interests, i.e. what could he or his parents do for her or how would our marriage impact on her, or (3) chosen a husband based on her own idiosyncratic prejudices.
Irishmom2 said:
Fortunately, not many people care about illegitimacy in the sense that the child is not ostracized as once was the case. “Illegitimate” is such an ugly word. They were born and someone loved them enough to have them.
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I hope that that is the case now. I grew up illegitimate in the UK in the 80s and 90s and the stigma remains with me to this day. Even just typing this, I am thinking, “Do I really dare to admit to having been illegitimate?” It’s something I’m still embarrassed to admit to if the subject comes up. One of the issues was that my parents obviously have different surnames, and I had my mum’s surname (I now have my husband’s surname, which was very important to me). People would ask whether my mum was “Mrs [My Surname]” or “Mrs [My Dad’s Surname]”, and I’d have to explain that it’s “Miss [My Surname]”. Or they would refer to my father as my stepfather. Other kids would also make comments about it. Somebody once asked me, “What’s it like, being a b*stard?” I really hope it’s not longer like that.
 
Thanks, Patty. I was not familiar with Yenta until after creating this thread. I learn something new every day 👍. Thanks for that.
 
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What’s funny is that the term Yenta amongst Jews nowadays usually refers to a nosey busybody! I wonder how THAT notion came about! 😂😂😂
 
EmilyAlexandra said:
If my mum had been allowed to find me a husband, she would have either (1) decided I wasn’t allowed to get married anyway, (2) chosen a husband based on her own interests, i.e. what could he or his parents do for her or how would our marriage impact on her, or (3) chosen a husband based on her own idiosyncratic prejudices.
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Yes, this I also see as a flaw in that approach to arranged marriages. It’s only as successful as the motives and abilities of those involved.

It kind of reminds me of homeschooling. I’ve met some homeschooling kids who are far ahead of their peers and who have benefited greatly from parents who know how to do it well, whereas I’ve also met kids who are deficient compared to the norm based on the parents being in over their heads.

I assume the same goes for families trying to set up arranged marriages - some are more capable than others.
 
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No, I don’t. Western parents just need to find an alternative to helicopter parenting and hands-off parenting, which both have been historically disastrous. In both cases, the children do not receive much-needed support from their parents, but rather a false sense of compassion.

Young people are so lost today. The Greatest Generation was perhaps the last to offer their children guidance, and since the cultural revolution of the '60s we (generally) no longer see that happening. Instead the children are raised by secular institutions (and, in more recent years, Internet personalities as well), and naturally are terribly lost and confused.

There’s no need for arranged marriages. Just strong parents.
 
Sarcelle said:
It used to be expected in Italy. Franca Viola was the first to refuse to marry her rapist. Apparently this was expected in Italy. Why didn’t the Church speak against this?
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For a variety of cultural reasons, including that many of the abductions were not against the girl’s will (some of them even seem to have just been attempts to save the costs of a big wedding) and even when they were against the girl’s will, prior to the 1960s the girl who had been abducted would not have been considered marriageable by any other man and she would have been a financial burden on her family, who might have suffered other economic and social repercussions (such as all the younger siblings being unable to marry because the older one remained unmarried). The Church was also concerned about children being born out of wedlock.

This academic paper is pretty interesting, including the stories of men who abducted the wrong sister from a family and were forced to marry the one they had taken rather than the one they wanted - they weren’t allowed to exchange girls after they took one out of the house, even if no sex had taken place.

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4841&context=gc_etds

In the case of Franca Viola, she was able to marry the man of her choice after her rapist was jailed, and Pope Paul VI also met with her at the Vatican and praised her courage.
 
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Peacemaking said:
Regarding the Gospel in the Stars several have written on it but I enjoyed reading the book God Prophetically Named the Stars on the God’s Kingdom Ministries dot net site.
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Astrology is superstitious nonsense.
 
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