The Western equivalent of arranged marriages is the ‘dating website’ or ‘dating agency’, where matches are made between people who want to date. The reason they don’t have matrimonial agencies is because people are not really looking for marriage, but just a date.
In desi and other eastern cultures, people are serious about marriage. That is why we have arranged marriages. Even when people fall in love and date, their intention is to find a suitable marriage partner.
Is marriage the most important social institution of our culture? How can we protect it and save it from the state it has degenerated into in Western cultures?
You lump all western cultures together, overlooking the differences. Many greek families have an arranged dating system, where one's parents tell their child who they should date....
marriage is about compromise
modern life is about indivdual life and freedom
desi living in the west and upper/ middle class in pakistan tend to adopt that lifestyle.
joint family system and strict gender roles division is suffering from that evolution.
marriage is part of that frame. i mean last century in europe my ancestors also had arranged marriages, joint family system and strict gender attributed roles: housewife, man earning the bread...but everything changed with industrial revolution...and now in countries like pakistan modernisation and globalisation are changing society: women want freedom, children want to move out from their parents house to settle with wife and kids...and people start to date, divorces rates to soar...
i don't think that evolution can be curbed, unfortunately it is part of the economical and social evolution of today's world...
pakistan can not cut itself from the world...and desi living abroad certainly not
Some do, but to be fair, desis do not emote around "individual" freedom that much...that really is a Western cultural trait, perhaps more so in American than anywhere else. I mean, they may desire actual freedom, but they don't think of freedom as a part of a value system...just a desirable state of being.
Desis are into economic realities...if it's economically viable to live seperate, then it is considered more desirable...I would argue that it's been like that since the dawn of time :)
Joint Family System is still going on in Pakistan, most notably in Urban areas since Urbanization seems to be the reason why the system collapsed in the West. Even here in the West, I noticed desi kids are MUCH more likely to be living with their parents untill the age of marriage (which may be mid-20's) than their non-desi counterparts. Why? Because we don't wanna pay rent...
Things are changing around the world, true...but differently. For example, I don't think dating as a legitimized form of sexual relationship being accepted in Pakistan any time soon...Pakistan simply doesn't have a permissive culture that would tolerate something like that emerging.
It's true that Pakistan can't cut itself from the world, but I think it's dangerous to suggest that any one culture has the blueprints to which all other should aspire to build themselves off of...
you’d be surprised to know what’s going on some places:rolleyes:
things may not be legitimate…they can still be undercover…
and it is economically more viable to be married with kids living with old parents in a big house than divorced single mom with kids, and parents to support in a retirment house…so i don’t think that the divorce trend is economical, and the trend to live without parents is not economical either…i believe it is egoist style of life..unfortunately more and more desi are adopting thaose bad western habits
…I understand…and it’s fine. It’s not our problem if it’s not in plain sight. We can’t force our way into people’s private sphere.
However, I was referring specifically to public acts of open sexuality, sacntioned by society and the state.
The few examples that are there, Lollywood movie Mujra scenes or the fashiopn industry…it’s a ticking time bomb. If one looks at movies from the 70’s, they were quite..er…“loose” back then…then during the 80’s things cleaned up. Perhaps it’s a cycle. But lots of westernization/globalization doesn’t seem to stick well…
I meant the joint family system
As for divorce…I agree with you…generation is more and more self-absorbed.
