Why do arranged marriages persist in many cultures?
I have friends who are Afghan who have had arranged marriages so this led me to be curious to ask, why does this practice still persist into the 21st century?
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What they mean is that there is a deep rooted segregation of men and women. Especially in rural parts of India, where you can get to your mid-20s without interacting with a person from the opposite sex (not from your family i.e.). There are no social settings where you can “meet people” and hence for marriage, arranged is the only way.
Endogamy is one of the practices that took root in Indian society as a way to enforce the caste system. Some scholars even call it the rationale behind the caste system. It’s got it’s roots in Hindu scriptures (not hating on the religion, but it does need reformation IMO).
P.S I think proximity to India, trade with India could have lead to the practice being observed in Afghanistan, but it also seems like Islamic clergy (majority practice this in Afghanistan) does not have entirely progressive views on this.
Some of this - and I speak exclusively from a layman standpoint of having worked extensively with quite a few Indian colleagues - has to do with whether an education system (or culture) prioritizes rote memorization vs critical thinking. India tends towards the former, the West mostly tends towards the latter.
Much simpler to persist the practice across many years when the majority of folks are explicitly taught to accept what they are told and not to actually consider it.
Context, I’m an American working for a large public company whose execs appear to have actually realized they got too aggressive with offshoring in recent years and are actually reversing the practice to a relatively sensible degree.
There is shareholder value in workers who come from e.g., a caste system, but there is also a significant risk to shareholder value when too many levels of decision-making are sent to places where that mindset is common.
There is shareholder value in workers who come from e.g., a caste system, but there is also a significant risk to shareholder value when too many levels of decision-making are sent to places where that mindset is common.
Very interesting. Can you give examples of how this became an issue?
This book review (never got around to reading the book itself) made me understand why people think “it’s tradition” is a valid explanation at least sometimes. I disagree still but i couldn’t find any counterarguments.
Others have already talked about the potential benefits of matchmaking, but not a lot of people have talked about marriage as a joining of families. There are lots of cultures where it’s normative to live together with parents and grandparents (which if you think about it also means aunts and uncles, cousins, etc.). There are lots of benefits to people who live this way - greater financial stability, access to childcare, healthcare, increased lifespan, lower depression - and so it makes sense. If you are bringing someone new into the household, it may be important for the heads of the household to weigh on or even choose the person or the family.
I understand in theory the benefits. But I practice for me It would be a nightmare. Being unable to get away from toxic family members would be horrible. And being the outsider… I’m dating you, not your family. I find the idea of “entering a new family” worrisome and distasteful.
I think throughout the history the amount of men that can’t marry because they lack social dominance was too much and societies developed strategies to overcome this issue.
Personally, I believe it’s a strategy to improve social stability and wealth, after too many failed marriages based only on initial physical attraction.
I know a young man who headed back to India for an arranged marriage. I expressed my extreme surprise that he would agree to marry someone he’d never met, and he said he trusted his parents to choose someone compatible. “After all, they know me better than anyone else.” I remain baffled, honestly. He seems an otherwise savvy, modern person. But there you go, happy to commit to a stranger.
I dread to think what kind of bloke my parents would have picked for me…
You don't commit to a stranger really. Normally you've met them and spoke multiple times and the families have spoken throughout both kids lives. I had a friend when I was young who knew her intended spouse from 7 years old and there was no plan to marry until she was finished with uni. She used to carry a picture of him in her wallet like we all had boyband members.
Even once you get to the marriage bit there's chances to say no then.
That’s an interesting concept: holding a pic of someone (presumably it gets updated every few years?) for like 15 years, imagining all these possibilities the whole time, and then finally meeting them and realizing, “nope not for me”.
I've tried to find out if they ever did marry but I can't find her online. I like to think she did though and it went well because she did really like the picture.
I saw the non marriage related choices they made when I was a kid. Like hell I’m letting them choose my life partner. You’re assuming all parents are rational and efficient, when many, even most of them are not. They are also just people, as prone to mistakes and bad choices as you or I. If I’m getting handcuffed to a bad decision I’d like if it was at least my own bad decision.
Being real, it depends on what people think marriage is.
There’s multiple concepts out there, which may or may not conflict with each other.
What really matters is the people involved agreeing on which concepts they will be engaging in. That’s the truth no matter if it’s arranged or not.
Now, when arranged = forced, that’s some fucked up shit. But the two aren’t inherently the same thing.
When it comes right down to it, “marriage” is just a word for a formalized union between people that is recognized by the community/state. How the people involved get there is kinda meaningless. A carefully arranged marriage in a culture where marriage is done for practical reasons is no worse of a concept than two random drunks in vegas getting hitched just because. It’s not even a worse concept than two people that love each other choosing to formalize their bond (and it doesn’t even have to be romantic love, good friends can sometimes a marriage make).
I’m not saying the culture in Afghanistan is good or bad. I do have my doubts that the marriages arranged are done so in a healthy and equitable manner, but that’s a separate issue from assuming that arranged marriages are somehow a relic of the past and that it should die out. They still exist because people want them to.
But then it’s still just arranged dating at best. Maybe the parents look for someone who is interested in entering a marriage in the first place, but that doesn’t make it an arranged marriage IMO.
It's not dating exactly, but there are dates involved. The parents pick someone that you're intended to marry, they bring them round and go "here, we think you should marry this person". You get chatting with them, go out for some dates, in the modern age you're probably texting each other etc, but it's not like western dating where you're just seeing how it goes, you're deciding if you want to marry.
After a short while you would say 'yup, this seems good'.
I mean I’m aware that this isn’t like western dating but it’s still not an arranged marriage. Saying that this is an arranged marriage is like having your parents pick out a hairdresser and calling it a haircut.
Yes, language is subjective, cool that you seem to be learning that today. So no argument as to why it would actually be an arranged marriage, despite the described scenario not necessarily ending in a marriage?
Sorry mate. You don’t seem very bright. If you look back through this comment thread you’re the only one talking about dating and whatever. I said it’s subjective several comments ago.
Yes you did, and when you said that, you implied that “arranged marriage” could also mean getting help with dating. You never mentioned dating explicitly, but how else do you think your original comment should be interpreted?
You’re getting personal now, which is a telltale sign for someone who has no arguments for the point they are trying to make.
I didn’t grow up in one of those cultures, but agree, there could be advantages. Notably, younger people are likely to focus on physical attraction, whereas marriage is a life long partnership that requires a lot more. Family can step back a little to pay attention to other compatibilities. Family can start from a position of knowing both participants, rather than meeting someone completely unknown. I don’t know how it usually works, but it could. As long as it’s not forced, the goals are for the peoples happiness, the participants have a veto, I can definitely see advantages.
As a nerdy, introverted, shy, guy, bring it on. I have plenty to bring to a relationship, but not in finding someone to relate to
It’s not clear to my why you draw parallels with slavery. Spending a massive sum on the days is not an intrinsic prerequisite for marriage, neither is a dowry.
All marriage is, is a formal public oath between two people to spend the rest of their lives together, to look after each other and to share resources.
As an institution, it has many benefits including to the married people’s health. It also negefurs the state in that the mutual commitment to care it tends to reduce healthcare and social costs. So the state may provide some benefits.
The main disadvantage is that she stacks the dishwasher wrong.
Absolutely. And it’s an oath is just a commitment to work at it, and not just throw up hands at the earliest opportunity
There is no right to the rest of someone’s life on either side should they change their mind or evolve in different directions;
It’s not a “a right to another’s life” it’s a commitment to a shared life. And yes, that commitment can not work out, which is why divorce is now thankfully pretty easy.
that is slavery
Not using any common definition of the word, no.
I have no right to stop them. This is true equality and freedom. It is a fundamental human right.
See, divorce - above. Some marriages don’t work out, or are abusive. That doesn’t mean there’s no value in marriage.
How does gay marriage fit into your claims of misogyny? I have at least 3 sets of gay friends who, after decades of waiting were delighted to make formal public promises to each other.
My argument has nothing to do with the sexes like this. Western cultural misogyny is a subtle blind spot overall. I’m willing to bet in many cases both parties are at risk of mistreatment. My point is about autonomy, so there is no difference in that vain, your still signing over autonomy to an arbitrator as a superior controlling entity.
im lost as to how you consider it slavery when it’s supposed to be a consensual and mutual legal agreement of partnership. keep in mind that in most cases, either party can exit the legal partnership whenever they want through the process of divorce.
if either side does not want the marriage, then sure. but having a dedication to a loved one hardly constitutes “slavery”.
So, your actual problem is the legal expense and legal hassles involved in divorce?
Many/most of these are to do with the painful untangling of shared resources and responsibilities that come from sharing a life and resources. Marriage simplifies many things for two people - ‘we own this thing together’ becomes much simpler with marriage. The legal process of negotiating whether 20 or 40 or 50% of the house belongs to partner A is what tends to cause the pain.
No my actual problem, as described, is autonomy. I’ve yet to see anyone that seems to fully grasp the point I am making. It is a subtle difference.
In writing science fiction for a hobby, I have explored a lot of this recently. I can’t say that I have it all figured out or am some kind of expert. I’ve explored the idea of systems where there are the resources and systems in place to arbitrate without the need for any absolute laws, a place where the guidelines are communicated clearly and a reasonable and just outcome is possible without an arbitrary binary law. With a lot of idealized assumptions glossed over for the sake of conversation, any system that addresses the needs of more people amicably is a better system.
The way marriage is set up presently, it is made for the needs of a majority, but there are many outliers. If you consider this system in abstract, there are 3 people in the marriage; person A, person B and the superior member of the arbitrator as a governing stakeholder. The role of the stakeholder is to uphold a set of complicated laws that may or may not fit the situation of the individuals. In essence, the stakeholder takes away the autonomy of the individual, more or less equally. To our culture, we ignore this loss of autonomy and the neglected outliers. If these types of oversimplified laws were superseded by a system where it is unacceptable to have minority outliers, and the law can flex to the situation in a deterministic, unbiased, and just way, it changes everything about the system and institution of marriage. This is hard to think about in a modern context without a detailed story to explain it by example. The entire system in the present is based on a loss of autonomy. I consider every loss of autonomy to be a form of slavery. That is not to say it is some binary good or bad. It is hyperbole intended to stress a weak spot in present culture. We largely fail to culturally understand how important autonomy is and all the places where we have given it away to others.
I grew up in places where no one had the money to get a divorce, and where it was used as a form of control and abuse. I’ve seen it making people miserable because of stupid choices they made long before their prefrontal cortex was developed. It mostly harms the people at the bottom.
If you trace back in time, marriage has always had an element of misogyny and loss of autonomy. It was far worse in the past. I think that line of evolving change will continue and people of the future will look at the present much as we do the past. Asking myself how that will play out in the distant future, I believe the answer is a much better social awareness of autonomy. This is the trend line that we are on, and improvements have been made, but those will continue into the future. The present is not some benchmark of perfection.
The way marriage is set up presently, it is made for the needs of a majority, but there are many outliers.
Firstly, of course many people cohabit very happily for a lifetime, there’s no requirement to get married. They settle their affairs with bespoke agreements property contracts and wills. It works fine for them - it’s just a bit more complex than the standard package that marriage presents , but not a real problem.
Bottom line -for people who want to get married, there’s marriage. For people who want to formally merge most of their financial affairs and tax obligations, there is civil partnership, for everyone else, there are bespoke legal and financial arrangements and contracts.
No compulsion, no loss of autonomy (other than mutually agreed) and certainly no slavery.
In a less individualistic society the benefit a family gains by curating who an individual member can wed is seen as well worth it to occasionally have to emotionally and sometimes even physically beat them into submission because they genuinely hate their partner.
For some of my friends in the US, finding a nice person to date is difficult. An arranged marriage means 1.) they are recommended to a suitor and more likely to be taken seriously, 2) the suitor is recommended to them, so they are less likely to be a waste of time, and 3) someone else is also at least a little invested in the relationship. Given the above, and that the actual people involved still have to consent for the relationship to progress, an arranged marriage actually makes a lot of sense.
It’s kind of like a dating app (which also recommends a match), but if the algorithm was human and actually worked to your benefit instead of to make money.
It’s probably worth mentioning that an “arranged marriage” can mean anything from when two families agree to marry off their children without their children’s consent, to when families play match-maker and set their children up on dates but their children get the final say.
In India, for example, you get both, with the former being more common in conservative, rural areas and the latter more common in urban and middle-class areas. So it’s not a one-size-fits-all situation.
As to why it persists? Practicality, I suppose. If you want to get married, it helps if you filter out all the people who aren’t serious about settling down. Plus it’s not like love marriages have a superb success rate, given how common divorce is nowadays.
In fairness divorce rates are high because of young people getting divorced because they realized they shouldn’t have gotten married while they were still growing out of their early adulthood.
The only reason arranged marriage societies seem to have a higher success rate is because divorce is rare since who someone gets married to is often determined by family standing and the party who wants a divorce is often browbeaten into compliance to not jeopardize the benefit of that marriage tie.
Were divorce not so stigmatized that you yourself literally cited it as a failure metric of love marriages, arranged marriage societies would likely see even higher divorce rates than love match societies, as love match societies will exhibit low to moderate social pressure to seek marriage, while arranged match societies can feature families shopping suitors as soon as the kid hits legal age of consent, and maybe even before then if they’re especially sprung on controlling their kids’ life.
US divorce rates would be cut down by requiring a prenup to get a marriage license. Arranged marriage societies would see marriages and families implode across the land if abused spouses ever felt reasonably safe that they could divorce without being ruined for it either by their family, the courts, or the vigilante lynch mob their STBX calls up in retaliation for them trying to escape.
Because there are still places in the world where men think they’re entitled to basically own another human being simply by virtue of having been born with a penis?
Wow, look at those downvotes! I guess a lot of you guys think you’re entitled to a wife wether she wants it or not lol
You guys do realize that an “arranged marriage” is not a matchmaking service, you just get stuck with someone you may possibly literally hate for the rest of your life lol
You’re simply wrong. Arranged marriage is not a strict definition of no consent. In fact, a lot of the time the girl has the final say in going ahead after an initial exchange of photos and talking face to face, at least that’s how it works in cities and urbanized areas.
The reason you have this myopic view is that you’re misled into believing that arranged marriage is forced marriage by watching horror stories on the news. We all know the News cherrypicks for shock factor.
I have this view because the state I live in is still backwards enough that arranged marriages still happen here. I’ve known several people who ended up getting married this way and not a single one of them was happy about it.
Except that “arranged marriage” is a matchmaking service in many cultures where both people need to agree to get married. And in many cultures, “arranged marriage” means both the man and the woman are forced to marry regardless of whether the man doesn’t want it or the woman doesn’t want it.
There are indeed cultures where “arranged marriages” only happen if the man consents and the woman’s consent isn’t considered.
I believe the downvotes are because of how many different meanings there are to “arranged marriage” and your comment implies that the only type of arranged marriage is the only man’s consent and no woman consent version. Your follow up comment also implies that divorce isn’t possible for arranged marriages, which, again, depends on the culture of the arranged marriage.
As another comment on this post explains, in urban middle class India, “arranged marriages” are when your parents are a dating app and set up meetings with people and both people getting married need to consent.
Indians themselves, being a former British colony and thus speaking some degree of English, use those exact words. This isn’t a translation of an Indian phrase or someone else labeling Indian marriages “arranged marriages”. Middle class Indians split marriages into two categories. “Arranged marriages” and “love marriages”.
“Love marriages” are when the partners themselves hit it off, date, and marry.
“Arranged marriages” for middle class indians are when the parents set up meetings, and if both partners agree, they get married. Not much dating with that one, just a couple of meetings, then get engaged for a year (can vary), then marry. Either partner can stop this process at any point. After marriage, legally, either party can file a divorce. This is less common and more frowned upon in older generations but legally quite possible.
For poor Indians in really rural areas, “arranged marriage” means something different. For them, both partners are forced to marry regardless of their wishes if their parents feel strongly enough about it. Legally, they have the same rights, but the societal pressure makes it effectively forced for them.
The above is true for all religions in India except Islam. Muslims have some weird special laws and seperate civil courts and law. The Quran states some laws about divorce and other stuff and there would have been more riots and protests during the government’s formation if they weren’t allowed to follow the Quran’s laws. Some of these special laws have recently been banned, it’s very complicated and I don’t know much about the situation as I don’t live in India.
I also have some Chinese friends whose idea of what an arranged marriage is is very similar to the Indian middle class.
And if both India and China have similar views on arranged marriage, I’m guessing that some parts of South East Asia also have similar ideas. That’s easily over a quarter of the earth’s idea of “arranged marriage”.
I think you are getting downvoted because you framed it in terms of ‘entitled to get a wife’. It it is usually similarly beneficial/problematic for both partners. I have a work colleague from India who is probably going to have a marriage arranged for him in the next year. It’s not something he particularly wants, but it’s traditional so he’ll probably go through with it. It doesn’t really feel like he is benefitting from the patriarchy 🙂
Yes… and someone to their liking has the possibility to be a more stable, longer lasting relationship. Plus, they’ll come with a stronger support network.
So if you think of a marriage as being to promote stability and perpetuate humanity, arranged marriages make sense. If you think of a marriage as something based solely on romance, the experts are obviously the people getting married.
Personally, what I’ve seen in western society is that people tend to live common law, and when a couple feels like they’re fairly stable together and they want to have children, then they get married.
This obviously doesn’t work in a society where you don’t get to try out living with someone first, or where birth control is frowned upon.
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