Why do arranged marriages persist in many cultures?
Why do arranged marriages persist in many cultures?
I have friends who are Afghan who have had arranged marriages so this led me to be curious to ask, why does this practice still persist into the 21st century?
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It's probably worth mentioning that an "arranged marriage" can mean anything from when two families agree to marry off their children without their children's consent, to when families play match-maker and set their children up on dates but their children get the final say.
In India, for example, you get both, with the former being more common in conservative, rural areas and the latter more common in urban and middle-class areas. So it's not a one-size-fits-all situation.
As to why it persists? Practicality, I suppose. If you want to get married, it helps if you filter out all the people who aren't serious about settling down. Plus it's not like love marriages have a superb success rate, given how common divorce is nowadays.
In fairness divorce rates are high because of young people getting divorced because they realized they shouldn't have gotten married while they were still growing out of their early adulthood.
The only reason arranged marriage societies seem to have a higher success rate is because divorce is rare since who someone gets married to is often determined by family standing and the party who wants a divorce is often browbeaten into compliance to not jeopardize the benefit of that marriage tie.
Were divorce not so stigmatized that you yourself literally cited it as a failure metric of love marriages, arranged marriage societies would likely see even higher divorce rates than love match societies, as love match societies will exhibit low to moderate social pressure to seek marriage, while arranged match societies can feature families shopping suitors as soon as the kid hits legal age of consent, and maybe even before then if they're especially sprung on controlling their kids' life.
US divorce rates would be cut down by requiring a prenup to get a marriage license. Arranged marriage societies would see marriages and families implode across the land if abused spouses ever felt reasonably safe that they could divorce without being ruined for it either by their family, the courts, or the vigilante lynch mob their STBX calls up in retaliation for them trying to escape.
I feel like your view of arranged marriage is limited to the US and hence poisoned by Shitty US Laws.
Ah, ok, so it's a lot better in India and Pakistan then?
Please explain how. I'm serious. And curious.
The first scenario is called ‘forced marriage’ in English law and is illegal. Arranged marriage is consensual
Fair enough, it seems to have been more matchmaker in my friends case