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Arranged Marriages -Its Rationale - By- Chandra M. Ganju Chandra Ganju is a lawyer by profession and currently works in the department of Children and Family in the state of Florida. She moved to United States ten years ago and has been living in Florida ever since. She is deeply interested in spirituality and likes to write mostly about issues concerning women and society as a whole. She also has taken up writing plays in Kashmiri language recently. She is concerned about the decline of Kashmiri language and hopes that her plays will revive the interest of younger generation in this rich language. She has two beautiful children and a loving husband and she believes in enjoying life to the fullest.

I was on my lunch break when one of my friends asked me if my daughter who is 21 years old and in college, has a boyfriend. I said, no. Taken by surprise to hear my outright answer, my co-worker said: "Come on, your daughter, as far as I know, has been raised here in America. I find it impossible to believe that she has no boyfriend."

Without waiting for my answer, another co-worker of mine said, "Well, she is from one of those countries where they marry their children without their consent." Turning to me she said, "You have arranged marriages in India. Don’t you? You people marry without any love or dating the person you marry."

"That is weird", said the first co-worker. "How can you marry somebody you don’t date?" I gave a sarcastic look and smiled to myself. I felt sorry for their lack of general knowledge and poor analysis. Before forming any opinion about any culture, religion or country one should do complete homework read and try to understand with open mind.

"Yes", I said. "We definitely believe in arranged marriages, I have had an arranged marriage and my daughter will be married the same way. I feel arranged marriages are a great way to lower the alarmingly high rate of divorces in the world."

What is an Arranged Marriage?

Arranged marriage does not mean to be tied to somebody without your consent. It involves a lot more than getting two people to spend rest of their lives together because their parents think it is good for them that way. Arranged marriage prevents us from having intimate physical relationships with ten people before we find the right partner, that too if we are lucky. Marriages are not contracts you make today and break tomorrow. It is a union of two souls, two individuals, two families, and two cultures. This cannot be done just by meeting some body at a club or at a beach and by dating for days together.

Marriage is based on lot of factors. Economic, educational, social, cultural, and most of all romantic compatibility is very important too. In arranged marriages loving and caring parents or family friends or relatives help in looking for compatible match, keeping in view all the requisite factors.

After matching compatibility of education, family, profession, the boy and the girl meet each other to look for their mutual liking and understanding. If they like each other then they agree to take final wows. They don’t have to worry about family background or economical background . Parents and family friends have already taken care of it. Then two sets of families also meet and get to know each other’s life style. So after all this work out, possibility of any unknown factor creating marital discord is minimal.

Western Vs. Eastern

While in western culture, marriages fall apart even on the next day of wedding because of several reasons, in eastern culture couples usually stand with each other through thick and thin. Divorces really are the last resort when everything else has failed. In short, arranged marriage is not a forced marriage but a well thought and a calculated move.

My marriage like many others was arranged. My husband was an engineer and I was a lawyer. So educational compatibility was met. My parents and my husband’s parents are well-respected families in society and well-educated and cultured people. So social and family compatibility were met too. We both are from Kashmir, speak same language and eat same kind of food, cultural compatibility was met too. Mutual liking and understanding was well talked and discussed by us.

It would take a lot for this marriage to go wrong. Even today after 23 years of our marriage, it seems I met my husband yesterday and fragrance and freshness of our first meeting is still there.

My friend said: "Wow! That makes sense. This is not the arranged marriage that I was thinking about. This happens in some classes of western societies also. Friends or families arrange our date. There is always somebody who helps you to meet some body. I agree with the fact that all factors should be explored first before we give out ourselves and wind up with babies without fathers."

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