My Thoughts on Arranged Marriage

          Arranged marriage as I said in a previous post (Dating, Courtship, Arranged Marriage, Oh My!) is when your parents or a matchmaker would choose a person out for you and then you marry that person. If you have good parents they will want what's best for you and the arrangement would probably have a lot of the elements of courtship tied into the deal. If they are more focused on what kind of status or cast the spouse-to-be has (like some of the more traditional people in Saudi Arabian and some of the Asian countries) then you it is likely that you will marry someone who fits the bill rather than being reassured of getting someone who is truly compatible. Not that this happens all of the time but it does happen.
     Many people bring up the fact that arranged marriages are less likely to end up in divorce than love marriages. I read recently that the rates might not be as far apart as what we think (read more here) most people will say that love marriages have a 40-50% rate of divorce while arranged marriages have around 4% divorce rate but this particular article says that love marriage divorce rate may be as low as 25%. Arranged marriage still ends up with a lower percentage but the gulf may not be as big as what people are saying.
     People in arranged marriages will tend to stick things out. Sometimes this is because of social pressure to stick things out such as in India where if divorce does happen the woman will be left with almost nothing because the government system is male biased. (Read more here)
     In my opinion if arranged marriage is done right then it can be a good thing.
     If not handled properly then you are stuck with someone who you may or may not like for the rest of your life.
Obviously there are going to be things that you don't like about your spouse no matter how the marriage nuptials end up coming to be. They will do things that will just annoy you (think of it as similar to living with your brother or sister for the rest of your life). I'm not talking about that so much as just getting married and being completely blindsided by the other person's personality that just doesn't match well with you. This is more likely to happen in an arranged marriage than a love marriage.
     In conclusion to all of this we live in a fallen world with fallen people who do fallen things so finding Mr. Right or Mrs. Right going to be challenging for most of us. Even when we do find them it isn't going to be peaches and cream and smooth sailing the whole time. You are marrying a fallen being but in the midst of that you will learn so much through that. So much about God, about yourself, and about others. Even when struggles do come it will all be worth it in the light of eternity.