Arranged Marriages
To most Westerners, an arranged marriage seems an affront to their notion of a free-will choice of a love based marriage. The tradition of arranged marriages to join royal and wealthy families for political, military and business gains has been more or less replaced by the notion of love marriages where the partners choose their marriage partner. … Keep Reading → Arranged marriages are still common in South Asia, the Middle East, East Asia and India. In many of these contemporary arranged marriages, the expectation is one of having a successful marriage partnership and jointly raising a family and not the romantic bliss of many Western marriages that end in divorce. While in the past an arranged marriage was negotiated without the couple meeting before the marriage, many of today’s arranged marriages allow the couple to get to know each other and approve or reject the union. Arranged marriages are more prevalent in cultures where men and women live separate lives and do not mix in open society and have little, if any, opportunity to get to know suitable partners much less engage in dating. Marriage arrangers can be parents, elder statesman, family friends, clergy, matchmakers, or older relatives. In arranged marriages qualities such as education, family history, religion, diet choices, age, first language, family reputation, wealth, career, horoscope or numerology, and psychological compatibility. Explore the concept of an arranged marriage in this Hub.
