Facebook: ""We had an arranged marriage. It worked for our parents, it worked for our grandparents, and it worked for us. We met three days before our wedding, and it took us time to fall in love, but we are definitely in love."
"
When did you first realize you were in love?"
"One day, I realized that for the last several weeks, someone had been happy to see me every time I'd gotten home. And it felt really good.""
'via Blog this'
I wonder if there are some statistics about the happiness of arranged marriages versus non-arranged marriages and the happiness in each.
Suppose for a second that arranged marriages are happier than non-arranged marriages. What would that mean for economic theory?
2 comments:
The people from India I know refer to non-arranged marriages as "love marriages."
I would guess that something big that arranged marriages have going for them is that the participants are sort of entering this joint venture already knowing that they'll have to work hard to succeed. They might see marriage more as a challenge to build a life together than something built on feelings of romantic love.
Not that romantic love is bad, but if that's all a marriage has holding it together I think overcoming the inevitable ups and downs of marriage is going to be a big challenge.
On the other hand, I'm guessing there are a fair number of arranged marriages that end up pretty miserably. If you never end up liking, let alone loving, the person, that will make for something that can hardly be termed a marriage.
"Not that romantic love is bad, but if that's all a marriage has holding it together I think overcoming the inevitable ups and downs of marriage is going to be a big challenge."
Reminds me of thoughts I've been having about justified divorce.
Most people would acknowledge physical attraction is important before getting married. But then, I think most people would not approve of getting a divorce just because one spouse no longer finds the other attractive.
Same goes for personality issues. If you don't like being with someone--say you find them annoying--most would say, don't marry the person. But once you're married, most would say, you need to work it out.
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