Dating and Relationships

Posts Tagged ‘arranged marriage’

What is Pre –arranged marriage?

Pre arranged marriage   – In Pre –arranged marriage the families or elders of the clan choose the partners for their children. This tradition is still kept with royalties; Indian’s; Chinese; and other cultures. This belief is respected and obeyed by the family and children.  The purpose of this obedience is to: maintain wealth, political status, heritage, culture, religion, settle some disputes, improve bloodline, horoscope, and to protect the name of the clan. To disobey this belief is a disgrace for the family and the clan in which they come from.

There is no real courtship between the persons involved in this kind of relationship. The courtship seen here is between the two families. The planning of this courtship may start at birth of the child or at a later age without the child’s knowledge.  The parents may introduce the future spouse to their child when the apparent time of engagement is done. The belief is said that the choice of elders is more or less accurate and stable since there is a thorough background check of the families concerned.  They claim that most of the time the traditional marriage sometimes does not work as there is no thorough background check.  In this pre –arranged marriage the parents play an important role influencing the child on their own choice of mate.  Since there is no courtship in the beginning of marriage, the parents understanding of their cultures; religion and checking of family background of  the spouse the will enhance the marriage. Their love for each other will develop and romance starts.

It is said that there are some cultures in which the children prefer to have their elders choose their spouse as they don’t want the long wait of courtship. For some cultures it may work as they are duty bound to obey the belief so as not to disgrace the family.

There are different views on this kind of relationship. The positive factors are: there is a thorough background check of both families – which means that they know each other’s family and respect each other’s view which may  partially solve if there arises an attitude problem during marriage; religion – they must have the same views; wealth is maintained on both sides or same category of financial status.  The negative factors are: the age of the children to be married. They can get married at the early age of 15 and the kids are not fully matured to handle the situation of a long life commitment, sexual problems, attitude problems may show during married life as this is a condition wherein a person can’t handle stress, the person is not able to keep the expectations of the spouse nor of the clan, have to adjust with each other since there was no courtship.

Married life is full of responsibilities, expectations, demands, daily stress, and sometimes competition of status. The stability of pre-arranged marriage will also depend on the strength of trust and respect the children have on their parent’s decision and their decision to accept the situation.