Men and Arrange Marriages~ Apprehensions.

Lifestyle Relationships
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Well… this is something i have been wondering about lately, opinions, and honest ones, would be really appreciated.

How do you men feel if you are simply trapped into arrange marriages? I believe arrange marriages always have a feeling of apprehension involved.. Atleast this is how i feel about it. And especially if you have already lived a relation being in love with someone.. and you just couldnt make it. How does it feel having someone to be in your life, as a partner, who is not chosen by you but the parents.. It is out dated, but it does happen even today.. Atleast i have witnessed so many such instances.

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Re: Men and Arrange Marriages~ Apprehensions.

It's so very difficult to deal with if you end up with a life partner who is not compatible with you. If you wife doesn't have much common with you, you can be living a lonely life.
My advice to everyone out there is that please be extremely careful about choosing your life partner. Arrange marriage can be ok for many guys if they have not seen it better (or otherwise). For someone who has lived in an environment where arrange marriage is a common practice, it's not a big deal to be happy after an arranged marriage cause expectation is set that way. But for someone who has lived in an environment where love marriage is the only practice or if he has been in love with someone then for him, arrange marriage can be a disaster. I believe that the man must have known the woman for some time and have felt the compatibility before deciding to marry her. Love is also an important factor but not necessary as long as compatibility is there. Love can develop over time.
My personal viewpoints towards some parameters that are important in a successful marriage are: religion, language and culture. One should look for these things before getting into a relationship. Many times people fall in love and start a relationship with their partner while ignoring these parameters. Assumingly they get married and then have children. At some point (time limit can vary) the love starts fading and now reality starts hitting. Their marriages generally can end up in separation and/or divorce. You need to have your language in common in order to express your intimate thoughts the best.
You need to have religion in common in order for your children to get a baseline religion. You need to have same culture in order to enjoy your customs, rituals and family values. I have personally seen divorces taken place from within a month of marriage to up to 20 years into the marriage.
Marriage is the most important decision in ones life so it should be taken extremely carefully. If one has to go through an arranged marriage at lease avoid marriage within the family like cousins waghaira. Marriages done within the family are generally not healthy.
As far as it's for me, marriage of choice is the way to go!

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^What if culture and religion are there, but the common language isn't?

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If u dont share hte same language, how can u share hte same culture? In that case, you don't have a same culture

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Ideal situation would be to meet your significant other on your own, and develop understanding, love...all it takes....and get married....and work at those things during marriage as well. But if one does find himself in an arranged situation, try to make the best of it if you can. Maybe after you have met person a few times and engaged, demand that the wedding be at least a year later, in which time you are able to talk to/hang out with/go out with our fiancee or potential fiancee....that way you have a better idea about the other person and they know about your views personality. And if it really isn't any compatibility, you have time to back out...but for that you need understanding parents...

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...have the balls, to say NO to your parents, simple as.

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what i've never understood is ..........

if u guyz don't let ur mom pick ur shirts , how do u agree to let her pick ur life partners............

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Shirt can be changed if it was a wrong pick :chai:

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I meant if you two are from the same country and same religion but one speaks native language and the other speaks English...how does that ultimately work out?

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I think this whole arrange marriage issue is blown way out of proportion. I mean until very recently, a majority of marriages in the world were arranged and believe it or not, the chance of such a marriage failing was pretty small. Now we have love marriages and more divorces than before. Is it ‘Chaar din ki chandani, phir andhairi raat’?

I personally have no issues with my parents choosing a girl for me as long as they ask my opinion about the matter before making the rishta official. So its arranged in the sense that they choose the girl, but they don’t force me into a relationship. And there is nothing called being trapped into an arranged marriage in my book. Either I refuse before hand or I see the marriage through with all willingness. I’m sure no one will be holding a gun to my head when they ask me to sign the nikah papers.

p.s. No its not my second, third or fourth marriage i’m talking about. Don’t worry about the chacha part in my nick. it doesn’t reflect reality :hehe:

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I always felt that in arranged marriages my parents could be influenced by others, and not fully be able to fo0cus on my preferences. Additionally there were pressures and expectations of some people about who I would go for, and I simply told my folks, lets just keep it simple, i find someone, and spare you the politics, drama with others as well as any clashes with me on who you picked etc. they had some basic preferences, none of which were out of bounds for me, religion, family etc.

I was introduced to girls by other people, uncles, aunts, family friends and they simply were not who I was looking for. In some cases i really wondered if they had my best interest in mind at all as the girls I was introduced to were really not meeting much of my preferences.

That is the usual complaint I have heard from my pals too that these match makers dont do that good of a job.

In my view I can see that even sincere efforts are not always on teh mark, because you know better than anyone else does. and when an aunty jo who had seen me in passing a handful of times since I was a kid, claimed to have found the perfect match for me, I wondered, ..lady.. do you even know who I am and what I am like?

the girl..her niece (surprise surprise) was really nothing close to what I wanted in a wife, views, personality, family life, and even where she was living.

I am not sure if it was clouded judgement on her part, interest of her niece driving it, or she simply had no idea of who I was as an adult.

Mince meat and seekh kababs ...
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but it depends on your definition of a failed marriage. things have changed, with the societal taboos about divorce and divorcees deacreasing, and women being able to be independent, the hurdles in the way have decreased significantly.

in past their were failed marriages, where husband and wife had major issues and were not happy, but stayed together due to society, khandaan, kids..but were miserable.

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Re: Men and Arrange Marriages~ Apprehensions.

great thread- its nice to hear the flip side of the story.

do guys feel the same pressure to get married and settle down by a certain age that girls do?

i know for me it started around 18 or 19, and by the time i was 25 it was pretty much dying out :p
i.e. i had been "given up" on

i got married last august at 28 and im personally extremely happy i waited until i was sure what i wanted from life and a life partner. but my hubs is white and ours was a "love marriage"... i have a feeling if i had still been single, there wouldn't have been many desi options for me seeing as how 28 is "old".

so how does this work for guys? are you mostly introduced to girls a couple of years younger than you/your age, or are you just introduced to super young girls, like late teens/early 20's? what is prime marrying age for a guy?

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Jaadugar: Thanks for your elaborated reply. I very much agree with most of the parts. Yes i have seen marriages turning into disasters simply since both the partners couldnt get along well enough and its scary like hell. Agree with the culture, language and religion part as well.. veyr much convincing since these factors atleast help people understand each other and the situations being into. I guess acadamic qualification should ne counted in this regard too.. Let me give you an instance in this regard.. There is a person i know, who is married for 15 years. He is highly qualified but married a plain illetrate out of his mother’s choice. Well, guys were that naive that time. Now this person is very much literary kind.. He would love to talk of Rumi, Ghalib and Iqbal. Last year he went to India for a conference, and since it was a family trip too, so wife accompanied. They visited Ghalib’s grave and the wife was like, who is that? and when told, that this is Ghalib, who wrote Deewan e Ghalib, she was all :konfused: not knowing whats Deewan e Ghalib either! Now i have no idea we can measure the feeling the person went through.. I mean its very much ok if you both do no share common interests, life can go on, with major or minor compromises being involved, but what if you are repeatedly victim of a torture of living a life with someone who couldnt share any bit of your life except kids and financial security. But well, this is life..

Orpheus: Yes. To have “balls” and saying no is really easy but not with all. its not even a year old that a colleague of mine had her engagement broken. Why? the parents of the guy had some problems with the gal’s family. So all ended in fiasco and the guy very gentally apologised his way out. And the gal is still shedding tears some where and mourning. Now this guy didnt have balls enough to say NO to his parents’ illogical objections and simply marry the girl without their concent. Now here comes the debates. If he marries the gal he shows up being disobedient to his parents and if u ask society, they will always pressurise you to listen to parents. And maybe that fear of losing parents and avoiding disobedience made him backout of the relationship that equally involved the life of the gal who had nofault anyway. SO cowardice, and not having balls is not the question of saying yes or no. SOmetimes it becomes a pressure huge enough deciding and commanding your actions, even on the expense of life and happiness of others.

Chacha-Ghalib: Yes, you wouldnt feel trapped if you are not being black mailed emotionally. And when you urself are positive enough about life. You expect good and surely you get good. But life isnt always like that. And my query was specifially addressed to those who have lived in a relationship, and then were forced to be into another. About love marriages being failures, i agree, this is because if you have entered into a relationship all by urself, its rather easier to make it or break it. In an arrange marriage so many pressures are invlovled which keep you binding even if your marrriage is a failure. you only tend to tolerate more and sacrify more. If you supposedly sacrify and tolerate only like that in a love marriage also, even they would work.

All the replies are appreciated since it brought a variety of opinions that makes the comparison rather clearer. Thanks.

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:CareBear: Very much agree. Even the don juans would run back to their mothers' laps and marry their consent completely ending up being the most beeba bacha. And maybe this is the only right of their parents they tend to meet.

frustrated and need advise
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^ beeba bacha :rotfl:

been a long time since i heard that… punjabi eh?

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double post - sorry

:( ~~~~~ Udaas Bulbul ~~~~~ :(
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:k: the best part was you found out the right person :slight_smile:
no 28 is not old from desi option . it all depends on the ppl you interact with .

how do you get to know that who is your significant other .
if two persons have proposed you simultaneously
and both seem equally interested how do you get to know who the right person is ?
you reject both ?
or just find the third one - lol ?

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Since I've had my boyz, my views on arranged marriage have changed significantly. No one knows my boyz as well as I do so I hope that they will allow me at least some input when they want to marry. Not that I will push an arrangement on them but if they ask us to then I will do so happily. And if its an independant love-match that they want, then my fondest hope is that they will listen to us if we have issues with their choice. Our goal is their happiness. Nothing more, nothing less. I think probs occur in arranged marriage when there are politics or economics involved, when the parents want a marriage for those purposes. When its just the happiness of the kids that are the prime importance, I think things have a much better chance of working out happily. Worst case scenarios for bad marriage is either a forced arrangement or a love-match that is more of a "flame" than actual love which can easily happen when you're in those hormone charged ages (between say 17 and 30). If I can avoid those 2 situations with all 3 boyz then I would say that I've done a good job :)

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It seems that the term 'arranged' marriage has attached itself to the negative concept of 'forced marriages' I think 'approved' marriages would be a better term to apply. I would like my parents to approve of the person I marry, and vice-versa if they suggested someone I would not discard their choice but hopefully approve. I do not think my parents (or any parent) would suggest a companion/partner who they did not think would make happy. My happiness is their happiness.

As Mamaof3 said problems arise when their are third-party interferences with ulterior motives.