ArtFennellReports. "Arranged Marriages - Part 1." YouTube. YouTube, 10 Apr. 2007. Web. 01 May 2013.
- This video is talking about the procedure of arranging a marriage and how parents influence the marriage in India.
Summary: Myths and Facts about Arranged Marriage
In her article “Myths and Facts about Arranged Marriage,” Gail Rosenblum discusses the fact about arranged marriage. She argues that arranged marriage is largely misunderstood by Westerners and she discusses the fact about arranged marriage. She states that one of the reasons of why people got misunderstood is because the media usually focus on tragic and couples in successful arranged marriages see no need to trumpet how they met. According to Rosenblum, many people can be arranger and arrangers need to consider many factors in bringing two people together. At the end, Rosenblum also points out that there is a difference marriage custom between western and eastern that for Westerners, they love first before they marry while most Easterners marry first and develop an intimate relationship.
Tianying Li
ENGL 113B
Professor Bieber
1 May 2013
Before I started to learn about arranged marriage, I believed that most people would hold the same idea as me that arranged marriage means the parents force their child into a marriage with a person that he or she does not love. In my mind, this kind of marriage, because it is arranged by others, means it cannot lead to a happy family life. However, after reading the stories from the book One Amazing Thing written by Chitra Divakaruni and doing research of arranged marriage, the results and resources I found have totally changed my attitude about arranged marriage. In fact, the results of arranged marriage are more successful than love matches. Although the practice of arranged marriages is widely criticized, there are more advantages to the custom compared to love marriages, such as a lower rate of divorce and a greater emphasize on the family rather than the individual.
For many years, arranged marriages were customary in both Western and Eastern traditions. Some religious and cultural traditions still provide for arranged marriages today. According to the article “Myths and facts about arranged marriage,” Gail Rosenblum states that arranged marriage remains the dominant form of matrimony in much of the world, rich and poor, cities and provinces, in India, Africa, the Middle East and east Asia. Yet, arranged marriage is a form of marriage, many people, especially in the West, haven’t even heard about it.
Actually, arranging a successful marriage is more difficult than perhaps expected. First, it has many intermediaries, such as parents, relatives, and close friends. Rosenblum argues that these intermediaries consider many factors in bringing two people together. Family reputation, vocation, wealth, appearance, interest, hobby, religion, and dietary preferences are all factors that are considered. Moreover, in countries like India, numerology may also factor in arranged marriage. The intermediaries take many factors into consideration because for couples to have a harmonious life it is important they have similar backgrounds and something in common. Arranged marriage often works best if a man and a woman have similar cultural, social, linguistic and religious backgrounds. It also helps if the man and woman in the arranged marriage share the same views of the roles of husband and wife, as well as how any children will be raised and educated. A common belief system increases the chance that a couple is compatible and helps them build on their relationship and strengthen their marriage bond. Their compatibility may eventually grow into a friendship and a marriage based on love and respect.
There are many stories of successful arranged marriage which show us that arranged marriage can be more successful than what many expect. Many people believe that marriage which is not predicated on love cannot lead to a happy life in the future. However, in the book One Amazing Thing Divakaruni narrates Jiang’s love story. Jiang is an old Chinese grandmother, who tells the story of how she fell in love with an Indian boy named Mohit but she was not allowed to marry him. The main reason that she could not marry Mohit is because neither family accepted the other as a spouse for their child. Mohit’s father thought the fact that Jiang was neither Hindu nor Indian would bring shame to their family. Jiang’s father also told her that “Can fish love birds?”(76) Later she married Chan whom she knew nothing about him before married him, but she finally found herself to love him after her husband got sick. Eventually, she was aware that she got such a wonderful life because of Mr. Chan’s keeping his promises and taking good care of her. From her story, we can see that love is not enough to get married, in addition, time can build love between each other. Although in an arranged marriage people marry someone he or she does not know well, they can build love and have a harmonious family.
Moreover, in the article “Arranging a Marriage in India,” Serena Nanda tells us a story of a real experience of arranged marriage in India. Nanda cannot understand why people would like an arranged marriage, but then she talked to an Indian girl, Sita, who was waiting for her parents to arrange her marriage. Sita told her that she does not want to spend a lot of time seeking a man to marry. Instead she believes that her parents would arrange a marriage for her after considering all the factors that are important for a successful marriage. As our parents are older than us, they have much more experiences than what we have and perhaps more insight. Generally, each parent loves their child and wishes the best for their child, which includes choosing the most compatible spouse.
One of the initial advantages of arranged marriage is that arranged marriages have a lower rate of divorce. In the article “I'm happy with an arranged marriage - the risk of failure is lower,” Gitangelithe Sapra reports that 40% of "marriages made for love" still end in divorce. By contrast, the rate of break-ups of arranged marriages in the Asian community is only around 5-7% which is far lower than love marriages. As we begin to think about the reasons why people get divorced, it is not surprising that “love marriages” have a higher divorce rate. From the article “Hunting the elusive marriage-killer,” Tara Carman and Douglas Todd list that the divorce is generally due to ten reasons, confliction between each other, location, less connection are included in those ten reasons. However, these issues are usually accounted for before marriage in arranged marriages. For example, both of the man and the woman do not want to move, that bring to their decision that will not pick their spouse whose location is far away from his or her. In other words, if their location is close to each other, it’s better for the woman to come back home to visit her parents because often the woman will move to live where the husband’s family lives when they get married. Carman and Todd suggest “for a marriage to be successful, couples need some kind of common interest” and not just physical attraction. The relationship counselor, Shechtmans, also emphasizes it is essential for couples to share common core values. Obviously, arranged marriage can definitely avoid those things happened and take those facts into consideration before setting up a relationship.
Another benefit of arranged marriage is that an arranged marriage tends to be more about the family than the individuals in it. Two families or groups will be connected with an arranged marriage. Both of the family or groups can get the benefits of the connection between two families. Generally the marriages will be closer and more harmonious because both families approve of the other. Gitangeli Sapra says there is a writer who is white, western and single holds the idea that “It's great that there is so much family involvement and that the people who care about you help you to find a husband”. It is less risk to find a spouse if you have many arrangers like your parents, relatives, and friends.
As far as I am concerned, arranged marriage is not a forced marriage, the procedure of arranging a marriage is more precisely than what we thought. It has its benefits for young people who don’t want to take more time and energy to find a spouse. People cannot regards arranged marriage as an illegal behavior, in my opinion, it can be considered as a shortcut for people to find a right man to build up a relationship with in their future life. To me, I will not disagree with this practice after I get to know what arranged marriage is and how it works. Comparing to love marriage, arranged marriage is more conservative and stable.
Works Cited
Carman, Tara, and Douglas Todd. "Hunting the Elusive Marriage-Killer; there are Many Reasons Why Couples Divorce - Starting with Influence of Extended Families." The Vancouver Sun May 26 2012. ProQuest. Web. 13 April. 2013.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. One Amazing Thing. New York: Voice/Hyperion, 2009. Print.
Nanda, Serena. “Arranging a Marriage in India.” One World, Many Cultures. Ed. Hirschberg, Hirschberg, Terry and Hirschberg, Stuart. New York, NY: Pearson Longman, 2009. 424-433. Print.
Rosenblum, Gail. "Myths and Facts about Arranged Marriage." Star TribuneFeb 10 2008. ProQuest. Web. 12 April. 2013.
Sapra, Gitangeli. "I'm Happy with an Arranged Marriage - the Risk of Failure is Lower." Sunday Times: 16. May 04 2003. ProQuest. Web. 12 April. 2013.
Annotated Bibliography
Carman, Tara, and Douglas, Todd. "Hunting the Elusive Marriage-Killer; there are Many Reasons Why Couples Divorce - Starting with Influence of Extended Families." The Vancouver SunMay 26 2012. ProQuest. Web. 13 April. 2013 . In this article, Carman and Douglas argue the reasons why couples get divorced. They mention that if couples all live in different location, it can be one of the reason caused the divorce. Carman and Douglas also suggest that the key to a good lifelong relation-ship is to develop a genuine interest in one’s partner. They list a lot of marriage killers that caused couples get divorce. Moreover, in the article, they have a clearly claim that to keep a good relationship requires knowing yourself, and your partner.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. One Amazing Thing. New York: Voice/Hyperion, 2009. Print. In this book, Divakaruni collects the stories of nine people who are trapped in visa office because of the earthquake. These people have totally different characteristics and they shared their stories one by one. The story of each of them all discussed different problems such as education, marriage and culture which we have not thought about that. In this book, we can see there is a story related to family and marriage. It suggests that love is not enough to get marry and love can be built by the time.
Nanda, Serena. “Arranging a Marriage in India.” One World, Many Cultures. Ed. Hirschberg, Hirschberg, Terry and Hirschberg, Stuart. New York, NY: Pearson Longman, 2009. 424-433. Print. In her article, Nanda discusses the benefits of arranged marriage. She argues that arranging a marriage need to take a lot of facts into consideration such as both their families’ background, their personalities, their salary and also both of their education standard etc. She says she was disagreed with the people who want to take arranged marriage before she did some study on it. In addition, she mentions that arranged marriage has its benefits that it has exceeding lower divorce rate.
Rosenblum, Gail. "Myths and Facts about Arranged Marriage." Star TribuneFeb 10 2008. ProQuest. Web. 12 April. 2013 . In the article Rosenblum argues that arranged marriage is largely misunderstood by Westerners and she discusses the fact about arranged marriage. She states that one of the reasons of why people got misunderstood is because the media usually focus on tragic and couples in successful arranged marriages see no need to trumpet how they met. Moreover, she also points out that there is a difference marriage custom between western and eastern that for Westerners, they love first before they marry while most Easterners marry first and develop an intimate relationship.
Sapra, Gitangeli. "I'm Happy with an Arranged Marriage - the Risk of Failure is Lower." Sunday Times: 16. May 04 2003. ProQuest. Web. 12 April. 2013 . In the article Sapra suggests that arranged marriage is better than dating with others. She refers president of the family division, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss supports the concept of an arranged marriage and believes it has many advantages. She states that 40% of "marriages made for love" still end in divorce and the rate of break-ups of arranged marriages in the Asian community are far lower. Also, she declares that she would like to have an arranged marriage because it's great that there is so much family involvement and that the people who care about you help you to find a husband.
