In Favor of Arranged Marriages

Compared to “love” marriages (marriage after falling in love), arranged marriages have a much lower divorce rate. In the United States, about 50% of marriages end in divorce.

When a person marries for love, they see one side of a person before marriage and there is really no way to know how they will act after marriage or during parenthood. Often times people believe the signs of being in love are lust or that excited butterfly feeling. After being with a person for a long time, that feeling may go away. If a couple got married based on that feeling of “love”, once it goes away they don’t know how to be together, or they believe that this means that they must not love each other anymore. If you put that together with arguments and hard times, it is easy for a couple to say that they are not soul mates and they were not meant to be together, leading to divorce.

Arranged marriages do not start the same way as love marriages. They don’t begin their relationship with that excitement. They first learn to live together.

In addition, arranged marriages usually move a young woman to a young man’s home where conditions are very similar and her lifestyle will be alike in her new home. The same for the man: his lifestyle does not change much. When these two people get married, they are at a state in their life that it is easy to adjust to this new routine. On the other side, in the United States, people are encouraged to be independent and learn to live on their own before they choose to co-exist with another human being. This can make it more difficult for a couple to adjust to a new lifestyle of being together.

***This picture is us taking an elephant ride around the Mysore palace.

Thoughts of marriage from the beginning

My relationship with Pramod forced me to think about marriage right from the beginning. This is not because he put the idea of arranged marriage into my head, but because I didn’t want to ruin his life. As far as people in his community are concerned, at 23, Pramod is getting to be the age to be married. Like I mentioned before, his father and relatives had been encouraging him to marry throughout our relationship until our engagement this summer. One factor which increased the urgency for his marriage is the fact that his mother died eight years ago and his sisters are both now married off: this means that culturally they need a woman in their home to domestically take care of him and his father (even though they are actually doing fine just the two of them).

As an American, it is acceptable for me to experiment and date. I am allowed to take my time and really get to know a person before I decide to get married. I can even live with a person before marriage or decide not to get married. Neither of these options is acceptable in Pramod’s culture.

It is not alright for Pramod to hold off on an arranged marriage only to then break up with me somewhere down the road. By being with me, he has been putting his life on hold for something that most members of his community cannot understand and will even criticize—love before marriage.

***This is a picture of me and Pramod during our engagement ceremony.

Indian Films

The Indian film industries (Bollywood and others) are very puzzling to me when comparing them to real Indian life. Many of these movies are about falling in love and how true love conquers all.

A normal premise of a movie goes like this:
The hero and heroine meet by chance and fall in love and there is usually some aspect of their lives which is keeping them apart (they are of different social classes, one of them is already engaged to be married through an arranged marriage, etc.). In the middle they are forced apart, there are sad songs and lots of crying. In the end of the movie, something happens and the two who are in love end up getting together.

What I don’t understand is how so many people can watch and love these movies while in their actual lives they would never dream of marrying someone who they fell in love with. Yet, the movies portray love as if it is the only thing that matters in life.

According to Pramod, when Indians watch these movies they wish they could be in these situations. They want to fall in love. It is a desire in them as it is here in the US. However, they know that they cannot give into that desire and so nothing comes of it. Movies are a way to experience it without the social consequences.

A Study of Arranged Marriage

All of the blog entries so far have been based on my own experience in India and talking to people I know who are more familiar with arranged marriages. The information presented here comes from a book review.

There are a few commonly held myths which are dispelled by this article. First, arranged marriage does not always mean that the bride and groom meet for the first time on their wedding day. Sometimes parents or relatives will introduce a couple who will then go out on a few dates in order to get to know each other with the prospects of marriage on their minds. Second, forced arranged marriages do happen, but not on a normal basis.

Reva Seth wrote this book because of her interest in the fact that arranged marriages are organized after considering more than just love, intimacy, and sexual attraction. After interviewing more than 300 women who had arranged marriages in the US, UK, and Canada, Seth concludes that the first thing that happens in an arranged marriage is that the couple will get to know each other and build a life and family together. This process is easier and moves more smoothly if the two have similar backgrounds, goals, and expectations. After building a life together, the affection and intimacy grows.

In her book, Seth argues that arranged marriages are more durable than love marriages. In order to be happy, a woman does not have to love the man that she marries. She says that “common interests are less important than shared values.”


Pais, Arthur J. “Reva Seth speaks up for arranged marriages." India Abroad [New York]04 Jul 2008: Community News.

***This is a picture of my friends Mukta and Ajay during their engagement ceremony.

Arranged Marriage in America

There is a woman from India who works with my dad and since my departure for India three years ago, we have spent increasing amounts of time with her. I will call her Lakshmi for privacy purposes. Lakshmi moved from India to the United States about twenty years ago, when she first moved here to marry her fiancé who she had never met.

Now, Lakshmi has a daughter who is in college. This daughter has been raised in an Indian household with Indian parents, but she grew up in the United States. I decided to find what Lakshmi planned to do about her daughter’s marriage.

Lakshmi told me that she would like to arrange a marriage for her daughter to a boy of the same class and caste. This boy could be American, like her, or he could be Indian—in which case Lakshmi’s daughter would move to India to live with him and his family. Lakshmi has friends both here and in India who have already gotten their child engaged.

This past Thanksgiving break (a few days before I asked her about her daughter and arranged marriage), Lakshmi brought up this idea with her daughter subtly. She mentioned a few of her friend’s children of the same age who were already engaged, she also brought up my engagement. To this Lakshmi’s daughter replied: “That’s good for

them but I hope you don’t think I’m getting engaged.” She is resistant to the idea of arranged marriage, as seems reasonable for a girl brought up in the United States.

Lakshmi seems calm about this resistance, but it does not seem that this is the end of the conversation. Her daughter is still young. Lakshmi agreed that it would be possible to find the perfect man for her daughter: an upper class Brahmin, living in America, and studying to be a doctor, and yet things may not work. Lakshmi said that it would be better that her daughter marries for love than to marry a man who fits this criteria and yet he beats his wife or does not take care of her. While Lakshmi believes that arranged marriage is the right way, the most important thing is that her daughter marries someone who is going to take care of her and respect her.

***I took this picture in the state of Kerala. These girls were dancing on their roof until I came with my camera and they all got together to pose for me.