Arranged marriages in western society?

Some of you white folk are a lot more narrow minded than you think.

By looking at their background, asking around etc.

Arranged marriage is optional. In islam, the kid can choose whoever they desire and don't need to ask the parents (although their permission is needed).

Some of you white folk are a lot more narrow minded than you think. Arranged marriages are probably one of the most thorough and solidifying methods of finding a spouse. If the guy and girl in question click on meeting each other and find each other's personalities compatible then both families get involved and provide some sort of relationship security through their involvement.
One of the great benefits of getting an arranged marriage is usually two people are put together based on them having equally desirable characteristics and that usually helps the longevity of the relationship, even things such as female and male disparity in mortality is considered where the women are usually slightly younger.

Western/ love marriages are usually based on emotional decisions made by people younger than 35 and occasionally you end up seeing the odd mismatch. The idea of being romantically involved with multiple people before you find your true soulmate also means there's plenty of space for mixing casual with serious relationships. While there may be some benefits most are overrated as many married couples realise the burden of expectation from a "love" marriage are almost impossible to live upto, on the otherhand the unknown of a arranged marriage leaves some space to breath, find your feet and adjust your expectations for a realistic future which almost always involves some level of compromise regardless of how much 2 people love each other.

By which you seem to mean "don't agree with me".



You must be aware this often isn't the case? I would be surprised if the majority of muslim parents would accept a homosexual, or even a non-muslim partner.

Arranged marriage is an important part of controlling children. And this isn't me slagging off Islam- it occurs across pretty much all cultures, including ours- Queen Victoria married off all her children, a royal tradition that outrageously didn't end until Charles and Diana.

Lets be honest, the whole thing about arranged marriage is about control, not letting your children forge their own way in life, but pushing them into following the same values as you. This isn't compatable with Western liberal values, and certainly isn't something we should encourage.

By which you seem to mean "don't agree with me".



You must be aware this often isn't the case? I would be surprised if the majority of muslim parents would accept a hits sexual, or even a non-muslim partner.

Arranged marriage is an important part of controlling children. And this isn't me slagging off Islam- it occurs across pretty much all cultures, including ours- Queen Victoria married off all her children, a royal tradition that outrageously didn't end until Charles and Diana.

Lets be honest, the whole thing about arranged marriage is about control, not letting your children forge their own way in life, but pushing them into following the same values as you. This isn't compatable with Western liberal values, and certainly isn't something we should encourage.

PRSOM!

Read post above urs which i quoted.

Except it really isn't about control. My parents gave me complete freedom to find the right girl and it would be important for me to make sure she could integrate into my home and my lifestyle but I have refused and asked for an arranged marriage, in the process I have never searched for any romantic involvement since I was a teenager.Is that control?

Um, I did. I also quoted it. I don't agree with it at all. It was a little incoherant- why would loving someone mean you were less likely to compromise? I'd compromise much more for my girlfriend, who I love, than another girl my parents picked for me.



Quite a deep question. Obviously it is, but it's control you have given them. The further argument would be that you have presumably been socialised to believe in arranged marriage, no one in my community would ever say "mother, father, find me a spouse!". That would go into the third, hidden face of power- influence.

Your parents would be fine if you bought home a white Christian or atheist then? That's great, but I don't think that's typical of what we're talking about. Parents who are arranging marriage will usually have some specific conditions.

Your trying to find some meaning in something that doesn't exist. They have absolutely no control over me, I make every life decision myself and occasionally influence there own decisions.

Specifically why I choose however I want but I'm not a fool so wouldnt even consider marrying an atheist and he realistic chances of me finding a white woman which would fit all my marriage criteria is near impossible.

The point is I would like for my parents to be involved in this particular life decision and consider their judgement of people and character to hold some strength.

The thing you are saying about compromise is genuine issue in many relationships and can lead to many people learning new things after marriage and developing bitterness.

I don't know about you personally, but most muslim's parents do have some degree of control over them.

That didn't answer my question. IF you did want to marry an atheist, would your parents totally accept that's your decision or not? You seem to be pretty caught up on linking race with religion, white Muslims are far from unheard of.

That's fair. But I'm saying, the typical way an arranged marriage works is not the parents saying "marry who you want", and the child then saying "no, I don't want to, you arrange something please". The arrangement is something that is considered normal in the community.

I agree, which is why I'm a big advocate of having a long relationship, including living together, before getting married. Surely an arranged marriage is going to have more new things and more compromises, typically?

There is a difference between arranged and forced. Arranged marriages are when the parents find you a spouse that they think is compatible. If you really like them, you get to know them. If you don't , the matter isn't discussed again.

Let me ask you a question, do your parents have any control over you?

Also an interesting link I found just now and though I don't believe it is conclusive, I do think the views expressed have some credibility, let me also add that I don't think arranged marriage is the only solution but western societies attempt to shun it as backwards is also ridiculous.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363176/Why-arranged-marriage-likely-develop-lasting-love.html

In my family it's more like the parents just introduce you to someone and whatever happens from there is your decision... So long as it's not haram obviously

(unfortunately I think the relationship I have is probably going to fall into the haram category but hey my parents are cool with it)

Just wondering what people think who come from a western background think of it, if it was adopted in your country would you be ok with it? Say you still had to option to find someone yourself.

Not in any major factor, no. I can date who I want (male or female, any race or religion) for example.

I was asking in general, i.e do you think your parents have any control over you, for example have they influenced your upbringing in anyway?

I can guess the answer from your repeated dodging of the question (ever consider a career in politics?), but I'll ask again "IF you did want to marry an atheist, would your parents totally accept that's your decision or not?".

A career in politics would be possible except i think politician are absolute scum. Anyway I think it's almost impossible for me to say if it would be okay with them unless it really happened and I got a legitimate reaction from them.

Do you not think adults should be able to make major life decisions for themselves? I don't really understand why you don't feel you're capable of this, and that you're better off enlisting your parents' help. Surely you know if you like someone better than they do? I don't think you can pick a partner by a list of criteria- background, age, wealth, race, religion, etc.

Under this scenario they don't pick who I get married to. In reality they don't even find the girl on some occasions. They are most likely going to take the help of some semi-professional match maker( some sort of real life match.com search engine) in order to broaden their search. The end decision comes down to me and it may even be possible that when it comes down to it I end up rejecting upto or more than 30 potential partners. Usually picking being with the same sort of life ambitions as yourself helps in strengthening marriage, Very difficult to live with some long term if their pace of life is different to yours.

Attraction and love are not things that can be broken down into empirical data. You can have someone who seems perfect for you on paper, but you just don't click with. The best partner for you might be someone with qualities and a background you wouldn't expect.

That may be true, but in reality humans are extremely good ad adapting and mentally creating a situation where their existing one is perfect. Simplified that means that there may be 1000's of perfect matches for you out there in which all types of races,religions and careers fall into that category but there is likely to be a high clustering of these people in one particular group and in order to make the process efficient its best to search in that group alone.

It's natural we would see it as backwards, as it's something that was predominant in our history, but we have moved on from. I don't think Western values are always best- the way Asian families care for their elderly in particular is admirable. But I think the concept of arranging marriage contradicts the individualist and romantic values that are extremely deeply rooted in our society and culture, and that the chance of us moving back to that system is virtually nil.

It's my own twisted opinion that romance is a mugs game but for sure I wouldn't say either way is the right way in fact both ways works perfectly well for some people and turn ugly for others. Discounting for forced marriages as I have never witnessed one I would say that I have seen 4-5 "love" marriages hit the rocks hard and fall apart while only remember 2 arrange marriages ended in divorces. That is not empirical evidence but the attitudes and reasons for the break ups in the love marriages worried me deeply and made me question the intentions and mindset of the people entering those marriages

They tell you to never talk or accept anything from a stranger yet it's ok to live with one, this blows my mind!

Everyone's a stranger until you get to know them. same theory applies to dating multiple different strangers, in fact mathematically speaking you're more likely to run into a weirdo that way.

Yeah but to spend the rest of your life with a stranger you know nothing about...

Why don't you know anything about them? are you gripping guys of the street and chucking them into the national lotto machine, last one left gets to be the groom. LOL