I would like to know about arranged marriages.?

Question

Is anyone or parents or relatives have the arrnged marriages? Is there problem? Is there a positive side? If they are living in the U.S? I would very appreciate your experience and opinions on this subject.

Answer 1

There are successful and un-successful arranged marriages just like an un-arranged one. No one can really tell. If the pair clicks then he story ends with a happy ending but when it doesn't then the marriage is a failure.

Answer 2

I used to work with a man who was in an arranged marriage. He and his wife were Indian. They came here from India after they'd married. I asked him one time if he was happy and he told me he was, that his wife was the perfect fit for him.
I'm sure that isn't always the case but for my friend it worked out well.

Answer 3

An arranged marriage is a marriage in which neither the bride or the groom has any official say over the selection of their future spouses. However, in an arranged marriage, both parties give full consent to the marriage.
More about arranged marriage :
Q1.Do you still have arranged marriages in Japan?
A1.Yes we do.About three-fourths of all Japanese marriages are said to be love marriages. The rest are arranged.
but arranged marriage doesn't mean forced marriage. There's no pressure to marry someone you don't want to marry.
And quite often what begins as a potencial arranged marriage turns into a love marriage. But there are no statistics
on that.

Q2.Who does the marriage?
A1.A go-between called a *nakodo*. The *nakodo* are not professional matchmakers. They're just people who enjoy introducing
prospective marriage partners. And they're usually quite good at it.


Q3.What about the parents?
A3.The parents of either the man or the woman might make the initial contact with the *nakodo*. And they might be present
when the prospective couple first meet. But they're not the ones to make the final decision about the marriage.

And read more:
According to a February USA Today study, the number of arranged marriages in the South Asian community is declining worldwide and the influence of western culture shows that more and more young South Asians are engaging in pre-martial sex; a longtime taboo of the eastern culture. USA Today called it an “export of love – American style.” It is a trend that started in the 1970s and quickly spread in the early 1990s. USA Today also suggests the trend is due to the fact, that in some cases but not all, children are coming out of school and standing on their own; sometimes doing financially better than their parents. Not to mention the out-sourcing of jobs’ impact. Where in a study done by India Today, twenty-fiver percent of women ages 18 to 30 in 11 of India’s major cities, have had premarital sex.

The stereotype continues with the expectation of most South Asians students end up as engineers or medical students. Even Monsoon Wedding, suggests it. “Computer engineers are India's biggest export,” said Lalit Verma, played by Naseeruddin Shah. However, not every Desi is an engineer or pre-medical student. Furthermore, not every person that is wants to be. “Of everyone that starts off as pre-med, how many go to med school?” said Dilpesh Topiwala, a recent accounting graduate. “Over half of the Indians that go to med school, they don’t have a passion for helping people. They are either doing it because they want to make a lot of money or they are doing it because they parents are forcing them too.” And there is a consensus. “My parents are the complete opposite, they don’t want me to go to med school!” said Binoy Mistry, 19, and a pre-medical student. “They want me to do something less stressful -- I get pretty angry when kids who don’t want to go into medicine are doing it only because of their parents,” he said.

But what happens to those who don’t follow “the path”? Alvin Augustine, also known as Nivla, hip-hop artist and president of Soul Tap Records, has faced just that. “There was one girl who I was considering talking to who had a very prestigious occupation. But I kinda ended it before it even started because I knew her parents wouldn’t be having it,” Nivla said. ““What does he do? He raps? You have to be kidding me. You’re not marrying him.” -- I could see the picture clearly. So I stopped pursuing it before I even started.” Nivla’s latest track, “Never Love Again,” featuring the Hindi vocals of Karishma, touches on the subject of family, cultural and social pressure. The song’s story relates around a Christian boy and a Hindu girl. But, as Nivla pointed out, one can look at it in various ways; interpreting it as even the rich girl, poor boy scenario, or even Indians dating on the “outside.” “The bottom line of the story is how society constantly tries to question what love is,” he said. “Whether it’s religion, race, occupation or social status, society always tries to define who should be with whom. The only people who can judge are the two people who are dating each other and if they’re okay with it, everyone can take their ignorant views and go to hell.” Binoy Mistry agrees, “Love should be just as important as religion, finance, or careers.”

A combination often desired by the new generation, but just as often desired, not reflected by South Asian society. Jennifer Ortiz, a 22-year-old Cuban-American from Miami, Fl, who is singly raising her son, can relate. “As a parent, I understand why parents might put high expectations on a child,” the Latin American Studies and History major said. “However, I think those expectations should take into consideration the child's strengths and desires. Pushing a child into a career because it is seen as culturally acceptable is not good for the child or the profession the child is being pushed into.” With the parallels of Cuban culture to that of South Asians, in relations to female household status and male household status, including that of education, Ortiz senses both sides of the relationship and career end. “Parents should consider what their children's values and priorities are,” she said. “If one person holds their job and finances as a high priority, but the other is not similarly educated or has no interest in saving money, the marriage is going to be rough.”

In the last verse of Nivla’s “Never Love Again,” the song reaches its climax where the boy can hardly talk to the girl because her parents “locked her down.” A few weeks follow and finally, in the last phone call he receives from her, he finds out “her parents got her arranged, and a few months later she got married.” It is the last time he ever speaks to her, and that memory lives on in his life forever, thus, he can “Never Love Again.” “What’s sad is that this kinda stuff is very common among our society,” said Nivla about the track scheduled to be released this summer.

The question of sex and the wedding night doesn’t escape criticism, skepticism or confusion either within the topic either. “If I were to get an arranged marriage, the honeymoon would be one awkward moment,” Nivla said. “Can you imagine it? “Well, I know we don’t really know each other too well, but do you wanna sleep together?” It’s definitely going to be strange.” Together with the cultural changes it isn’t always just about sex. “I suppose the couple won’t find out [about each other sexual preferences] until they get married,” said Binoy Mistry, a native to London, England. “But I don’t think sex is as important in Indian relationships as it is with other American cultures.” Culture being something that should define a person, said Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican journalist. “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots,” Garvey said. Dilpesh Topiwala, who currently works for accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, not only agrees that culture defines a person, but states that even though culture is a part of a person’s life, and obviously religion ties into culture, a person can be into a religion and still be able to hold up different cultures. Furthermore, a person can be cultural and not religious. “Who determines if you are higher or if you are lower -- it’s the whole perception. There is nothing really written down that says if you are this last name you are in this caste,” he said. “It’s all perception. Beliefs are definitely wrong from what they should be. You’re not marrying the family, you’re marrying the person.”