Say No to Arranged Marriage

[Nibir]

I have seen both love marriages and arranged marriages in my family. I think the failure rate of love marriage in my family is as high as arranged marriages. Same goes for success rate.

Luckily my parents marriage clicked, despite being an arranged marriage. I have not seen much successful relationships in my family.

I don't think love marriage is all goody-goody. There are lots of reports of girls being duped by persons posing as lovers and later murdered.

This is one reason for which I support live-in relationships. I think a person should live in with different persons(lovers) during his/her lifetime and get to know each other intimately, and confirm whether they really can live together under a single roof. and understand each other really well. Only if the couple feel they suit each other well should they marry.(But then again, I have seen people's lives destroyed after live-ins)

Another important factor in a successful marriage is money.

[arvindiyer]

(30-Aug-2012, 01:36 AM)Nibir Wrote: Luckily my parents marriage clicked, despite being an arranged marriage. I have not seen much successful relationships in my family.

The criteria for identifying 'successful relationships' in the first place, are rarely explicitly stated and clarity on what constitutes success, both on part of the commentators and society at large, would render discussions on this topic more productive. It might be instructive to hear the responses of participants here to the following question: "If you were allowed to ask not more than three questions to a couple in order to gauge the success of the relationship, which ones would you ask?"

Failed relationships seem to be easier to recognize and recall than successful ones. This maybe an instance of the negativity bias which can distort our intuitive evaluation of the statistics of successful relationships.

(30-Aug-2012, 01:36 AM)Nibir Wrote: I don't think love marriage is all goody-goody. There are lots of reports of girls being duped by persons posing as lovers and later murdered.

Could you provide instances and samples from among the 'lots of reports' referred to above, in order to get a better sense of how widespread this phenomenon is?

As for instances of exploitation and worse, the toll of traditional marriages seems hard to surpass by possibly sporadic incidents outside of the traditional mainstream, noting the disturbing upward trends in dowry deaths in the 2000s. Here are some representative reports from the international press:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...-rise.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...an-wedding

[Nibir]

(30-Aug-2012, 08:19 PM)arvindiyer Wrote: Could you provide instances and samples from among the 'lots of reports' referred to above, in order to get a better sense of how widespread this phenomenon is?

Well, I think I might have gone a bit overboard with the "lots of" part, but reports of girls being killed by their lovers aren't that few. A quick search over the internet generated the following results

Married man kills lover

BPO girl killed by lover to avoid marriage

Lover kills girlfriend with poison

Girl killed by lover

5 week pregnant girl killed by boyfriend

Man who killed lover arrested

Man sentenced to life for killing lover

Apart from these, there are other reports of lovers being killed by jealous boyfriends or girlfriends

[Nibir]

(30-Aug-2012, 08:19 PM)arvindiyer Wrote: It might be instructive to hear the responses of participants here to the following question: "If you were allowed to ask not more than three questions to a couple in order to gauge the success of the relationship, which ones would you ask?"

Sounds like an interesting question. Let me try:

Q 1. Do the husband and wife enjoy spending more time with each other than others?

Q 2. Does both the husband and wife have an equal say in the decision making process as regards -
a) Purchase decisions. b) Raising children c) Interaction with society and d) Other important decisions in life.

Q 3. Do the couple respect each others opinions in life? Do both of them consider themselves equals?


By the way, why limit it to 3 questions?

[arvindiyer]

(30-Aug-2012, 11:47 PM)Nibir Wrote:

(30-Aug-2012, 08:19 PM)arvindiyer Wrote: It might be instructive to hear the responses of participants here to the following question: "If you were allowed to ask not more than three questions to a couple in order to gauge the success of the relationship, which ones would you ask?"

By the way, why limit it to 3 questions?

A single question would yield insufficient grounds for conclusions and a 10-question survey would cumbersome in conversation, so three seemed about right, that's all. Nothing fancy. That was simply to gauge what considerations were topmost on the minds of respondents, and influenced perhaps by popular notions of findings involving the everyday limits of memory.

[Nibir]

I think its not about arranged or love marriage but marriage that breaks societal norms and barriers that needs support in India. When an arranged or love marriage happens in India between a Dalit boy and a Brahmin girl or inter religious arranged between Christian , Hindu , Muslim and othr religions fully accptd by society, I will say that society has developed.

[Raz2802]

(01-Sep-2012, 04:45 AM)Nibir Wrote: I think its not about arranged or love marriage but marriage that breaks societal norms and barriers that needs support in India. When an arranged or love marriage happens in India between a Dalit boy and a Brahmin girl or inter religious arranged between Christian , Hindu , Muslim and othr religions fully accptd by society, I will say that society has developed.

Nibir, I fully agree with you!

Inter-communal marriage is a very important parameter to judge how progressive and clean Indian society is. But inter-communal marriages are common only amongst celebrities. Unless it percolates down to the common man there’s nothing to cheer about.

But there’s another parameter which I consider THE most important parameter to judge how “society has developed” when it comes to marriages: how MATURED a marriage culture it has.
The traditional society of ours has a “moronic” notion of a successful marriage! Do you know what it is? If a marriage has survived 20 or more years it means a very successful marriage! Period! Can you believe that?

Nothing can be further from truth!

In fact, the truth is just the opposite! Indian society is ridden with ROTTEN and MISERABLE marriages that survive for decades!

But how you define a “successful marriage” can be a bit tricky! It can vary from person to person. In fact, I’d prefer calling it the most “satisfying marriage” instead – which one can easily describe as “successful”.

By no stretch of imagination would I call a lazy, boring and mechanical marriage which has just existed for 30 years as a “satisfying marriage”!

In my opinion, a “satisfying marriage” (of, at least, 5 years) may exhibit the following traits:

1.Shared values and beliefs
2.Basic level of compatibility (psychologically and attitudinally)
3.Shared feelings of love & respect for each other
4.Prosperity

Of course, you may add other things depending on one’s long-term needs and desires (babies, sex, career, etc.) - but the above 4 are the most basic ones.

[kick buttowski]

arranged marriages have several funny(at the same time cruel) aspects as well...a lot of people frown upon their children
having relationships with opposite sex.in rural areas it is almost sinister to do so.so,the unlucky fellas have to admire the opposite sexes from afar.and suddenly one day they are told that they are of age now and will be marrying (on so and so a date with so and so a person.)how funny is that...until today you were supposed to play a ramdev..and now you will make babies..its like muzzling an ever growing explosive to let it off at a given time(naturally then the person is gonna have a blast.).this strategy though wont cut ice with nature..it leads to youth getting frustrated and sometimes violent and act unwisely.
atheists must have an added dilemma ..arranged marriages are solicited everywhere under one religion or the other..
where do the poor atheist go...

[Raz2802]

(30-Aug-2012, 08:19 PM)arvindiyer Wrote: The criteria for identifying 'successful relationships' in the first place, are rarely explicitly stated and clarity on what constitutes success, both on part of the commentators and society at large, would render discussions on this topic more productive. It might be instructive to hear the responses of participants here to the following question: "If you were allowed to ask not more than three questions to a couple in order to gauge the success of the relationship, which ones would you ask?"

Arvindiyer, my 3 questions would be:

1. Are they financially secured? (Because not matter how much you love each other, lack of money can gradually “eat” into your marital relationship)
   
2. Do they share equal feelings of love & respect & pride for each other?
   
3. How do they react to each other during disagreements and clash of interests?
   

The answers to these questions will prove (or otherwise) how satisfied and fulfilled the couple are in their marital relationship.