arranged marriage

After careful reading of a friends blog I’m finally going to write something in response to some thoughts and feelings that have arisen in me. This has to be in two parts because I’m afraid some of it contradicts itself hehe!


Part I

Ok, so this person is Indian and has just recently married in an arranged marriage, from what I gather the parents of the prospective couple matches them up according to horoscope and job (i.e. so they are a match I presume).

Now to me in my culture and society this seems a little strange and unlikely to work out – I mean, how accurate are horoscope matches? I know Russell Grant does a pretty good job, but...

And job? What does career have to do with love? Yes, to live together in the modern world you need money to survive, but does equal money and status really matter for a relationship?

Anyway, reading what he has said, it seems that this matcheroo was set up and he went to meet the girl, shared coffee, talked for a couple of hours and then got married a couple of months after. They had a nice honeymoon and are now trying to thrash out a life together.

How can two people be matched up on paper, talk for a tiny amount of time, and then spend their entire lives together? Ridiculous? Preposterous? Silly? Read on...


Part II

Now logical old me would say “yes – that is silly, that just won’t work out”. But, I have to cast my mind back to how I met Bri (the man I live with and will be living with for the foreseeable and beyond future).

We met on the internet – through a profile site, basically you have some information and photos on a profile and you can message other people. So, in a sense – you details down on paper.

We messaged a few times and decided to meet up. We had one date, shared a pizza, and talked for a number of hours.

The next day I changed my myspace status to ‘in relationship’, rang him up and asked him to come over a day earlier than our arranged second date, and by the day after that we’d already exchanged the Immortal Words (“when two lovers woo...”).

Is that so different from what happened to the people who had the arranged marriage? I suppose the only difference is that it was our choice and not that of our parents, and there was no pressure that this ‘had’ to be the One. It just turned out that way.

Things like this always make me ponder...