h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What do you think?
I am now trying to guess who might reply to this
but don't let that put you off

They are crazy

I work with a woman who is in an arranged marriage and it is not quite as clear as it would initially seem. Basically various factors were taken into account by the various parents involved (some of which made sense such as ability to support the wife, others seem more obscure such as whether their names wre compatible) and she was allowed to pick from a field of about 15. She knew all the possible husbands beforehand and seems pretty happy with her lot. However, as she says, if she had tried to marry outside her ethnic group it would have caused tremendous problems with her family.
However, I have also worked with a man from a similar culture who is also in an arranged marriage who treats his wife like s**t and has affairs all the time.
It seems to work for her but not for him, rather like a lot of non-arranged marriages.

Agreed. People need love in order to be happy--at least most people. And if they do wind up in an unhappy marriage, at least let it be one that they chose for themselves; that way they have no one else to blame for their problems. But then this is more or less my general philosophy: let people make their own decisions so that if things don't work out right, they can't delude themselves into thinking things would be better if they'd only had their own way.

Ultimately this one depends on whether either party gets to say "no" at any stage. If everyone in both families is fine with one or other of the arrangees (?) pulling out, then it actually makes a lot of sense. Most people are demonstrably stupid, many blokes think with the brain between their legs, many women just want a baby and don't really seem to care who with, and many people in general don't seem to think through what sort of person they can actually bear to spend their life with. Their parents, on the other hand, with the benefit of life experience, are at least potentially in a position to sort out a match that actually works, for both participants AND both their families.

Unfortunately the reality is that the system is ripe for abuse, like so many other systems in the real world. In an ideal world, arranged marriages would be great - but the world absolutely isn't ideal, and inequality would lead to exploitation, inevitably. For that reason, if no other, I'm agin it.