Love/Arranged marriage

November 2006. I had been in India for only a few weeks, and I was attending English classes every afternoon of the week days. After a couple of classes, I could be somehow understood and I finally decided to take part of this big debate. With my western mind, my position was pretty clear and there was no way I could find even a tiny positive facet of arranged marriage. Ever since, I have seen so many situations and heard so many things about the subject that I can no longer say that I am 100% in favour of one or the other kind of marriage.

My arguments back then were straight forward: you grow up, complete your education and get married to the girl you are in love with and who also is in love with you. Most of the time, you are supposed to have met her while in high school or college. Your parents and other members of your family have not got to spend a lot of time with her, so they really can’t judge and say whether she is good enough for you. You know by yourself that she is the right one anyway since you managed to stay with her for a long time.  I was 19 years old when I thought that way. I also thought several other things that I considered absolute truths. I am now almost 25, and what I am absolutely sure of is that I know less about life than I used to think.

I simply realized over the years that things do not always go the way we want. Actually, they rarely do. Put this into the subject, it means that love marriage does not guarantee a successful marriage. Except the fact that your family may not accept your loved one, you may realize at a late stage that you got married for the wrong reasons, like beauty, money and popularity. I could give hundreds other reasons like the difference of culture, the lack of communication, jealousy, and so on. On the other hand, many successful marriages I have heard of and also witnessed mostly begin the same way: two best friends eventually become a couple and then tie the knot. 

Let’s analyse this case: the couple is made of two people who met randomly or not, became friends and then best friends, spend a lot of time together, got used to each other and ended up in a love relationship. We can say that the marriage become successful because the relationship between the husband and wife has very strong foundations. But wait a minute: take two people from two families that know each other and share the same values, religion and opinions, introduce them to each other, let them spend a lot of time together, get used to each other and eventually get them married! Isn’t it what arranged marriage about? Oh well!

Unlike what it looks like, I did not try to do some mathematical deduction to prove that arranged marriage is actually almost the same as successful marriages. I am unfortunately not that good in mathematics. What it proves is that my 19-years-old way of thinking was certainly not an absolute truth, even though it works in some cases. Arranged marriages may even have a higher chance to be successful because the families are always there to guarantee that everything goes well through constant checking and advises. Now I am not saying either that arranged marriages are perfect. What happens when one of the people really is boring? Nobody wants to spend a lot of time with a boring person. What if the age difference is too high? And most importantly, how will be the sex life if one of them does not feel the slightest physical attraction for the other? These are some questions that will never be asked in a love marriage since those aspects of the relationship have already been mutually accepted. 

The subject of love and arranged marriages is one that I had no doubt my way of thinking was the right one. Accepting today that I was wrong makes me entirely reconsider the way I see life in general. And I think it is for the best!