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Arranged Marriages

Posted Mar 15 2010 by Jonathan Brink in , with 17 Comments

This article in Scientific American kind of hit me upside the head.  What if arranged marriages work better? It suggests some phenomenal evidence that beginning without what we would liken to a strong feeling of love for the other person, what some could consider a romantic attachment, actually helps the marriage in the long term.

“And there’s even a study published in India [Usha Gupta and Pushpa Singh of the University of Rajasthan, 1982] but using an American love scale, called the Rubin Love Scale, that compared love in love marriages in India, because they have those, too, to love in arranged marriages. And in this particular study, love in the love marriages starts out very high. And then over time it decreases. That’s what all of our studies show. And in the arranged marriages—and this is true in my work, too—we see the love starting out relatively low. Because in some cases the people barely know each other, sometimes they’ve had a half an hour of contact in total before they got married. And then it increases gradually, surpasses the love in the love marriages at about five years. And 10 years out it’s twice as strong.”

The idea is intriguing to me.  What if in beginning with the idea that we are already in love, we forget that we have to work towards developing and deepening it.  But if we begin without love in an arranged marriage it means we have to work at developing and deepening it.  We have to work our way into love in order for it to work.  And if we do we’re likely to end up with a marriage that is twice as strong.

I’m at an age where some of my friends are entering the divorce phase of their relationship.  And it tears me up when I hear the words, “We’re getting a divorce.” I’ve experience those feelings.  Marriage takes work. It’s easy to feel like we’re just supposed to “feel” it and if we don’t its over.  It’s easy to think we’re supposed to feel the way we do on our wedding day.  And we end up disappointed because it doesn’t work like that.  But in an arranged marriage, we’re likely beginning at the bottom or some place close to it.

What do you think?

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About the Author

Jonathan BrinkI am an business development and communications consultant. I am also the senior editor and publisher for Civitas Press. I recently published, Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole, New Christianity. (Civitas, 2011)View all posts by Jonathan Brink →

  • Ct

    In his book, The Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck starts w/ “love is work and courage”…a definition that both enhances and simplifies 1 Corth 13. Our western culture has both limited and over simplified 'love'.

  • Ct

    In his book, The Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck starts w/ “love is work and courage”…a definition that both enhances and simplifies 1 Corth 13. Our western culture has both limited and over simplified 'love'.

  • Raelene

    I can majorly appreciate this study. I am not a supporter of marriage but I love to read about the different perspectives and in this case “arrangements”. However, I wonder if arranged marriages can withstand because of the cultural pressures and fear of the consequences if not obeyed. If choosing to “rebel” leads to being disowned by family, “branded” forever that you have dishonored the family name, birth children into a life of “shame”, etc…because of cultural beliefs, I too would find a way to fall in love with my “arrangement” and make it possible! I wonder if the “motivators” can be defined as “love”…I don’t think so.

  • Raelene

    I can majorly appreciate this study. I am not a supporter of marriage but I love to read about the different perspectives and in this case “arrangements”. However, I wonder if arranged marriages can withstand because of the cultural pressures and fear of the consequences if not obeyed. If choosing to “rebel” leads to being disowned by family, “branded” forever that you have dishonored the family name, birth children into a life of “shame”, etc…because of cultural beliefs, I too would find a way to fall in love with my “arrangement” and make it possible! I wonder if the “motivators” can be defined as “love”…I don’t think so.

  • Raelene

    I can majorly appreciate this study. I am not a supporter of marriage but I love to read about the different perspectives and in this case “arrangements”. However, I wonder if arranged marriages can withstand because of the cultural pressures and fear of the consequences if not obeyed. If choosing to “rebel” leads to being disowned by family, “branded” forever that you have dishonored the family name, birth children into a life of “shame”, etc…because of cultural beliefs, I too would find a way to fall in love with my “arrangement” and make it possible! I wonder if the “motivators” can be defined as “love”…I don’t think so.

  • Raelene

    I can majorly appreciate this study. I am not a supporter of marriage but I love to read about the different perspectives and in this case “arrangements”. However, I wonder if arranged marriages can withstand because of the cultural pressures and fear of the consequences if not obeyed. If choosing to “rebel” leads to being disowned by family, “branded” forever that you have dishonored the family name, birth children into a life of “shame”, etc…because of cultural beliefs, I too would find a way to fall in love with my “arrangement” and make it possible! I wonder if the “motivators” can be defined as “love”…I don’t think so.

  • Raelene

    I can majorly appreciate this study. I am not a supporter of marriage but I love to read about the different perspectives and in this case “arrangements”. However, I wonder if arranged marriages can withstand because of the cultural pressures and fear of the consequences if not obeyed. If choosing to “rebel” leads to being disowned by family, “branded” forever that you have dishonored the family name, birth children into a life of “shame”, etc…because of cultural beliefs, I too would find a way to fall in love with my “arrangement” and make it possible! I wonder if the “motivators” can be defined as “love”…I don’t think so.

  • Ct

    In his book, The Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck starts w/ “love is work and courage”…a definition that both enhances and simplifies 1 Corth 13. Our western culture has both limited and over simplified ‘love’.

  • Raelene

    I can majorly appreciate this study. I am not a supporter of marriage but I love to read about the different perspectives and in this case u201carrangementsu201d. However, I wonder if arranged marriages can withstand because of the cultural pressures and fear of the consequences if not obeyed. If choosing to u201crebelu201d leads to being disowned by family, u201cbrandedu201d forever that you have dishonored the family name, birth children into a life of u201cshameu201d, etcu2026because of cultural beliefs, I too would find a way to fall in love with my u201carrangementu201d and make it possible! I wonder if the u201cmotivatorsu201d can be defined as u201cloveu201du2026I donu2019t think so.

  • http://www.facebook.com/the.michael.toy Michael Toy

    Depends on the arrangement. A friend and co-worker explained it to me this way. Young people can be stupid, both in their judgments and in their expectations. They have no idea who they are or what to look for. He said he trusted his parents to do a better job than he could and guessing what sort of a relationship would work out well for the long term. It made a lot of sense to me, and made me look at my own prejudgments about what was right. 20 years later his marriage is still going strong. However, not all people have great rapport and trust with their parents. As long as you can choose, it seems a reasonable choice.

    • http://jonathanbrink.com Jonathan Brink

      I think that is exactly what is intriguing to me about it Michael. It does require parents that have the best interest of the child, but isn’t that the best of what is possible. It’s putting one of the most important decisions of a life into the hand of someone much wiser.

      • Stephanie B

        Or, even in America, if children RESPECTED their parents that truly had their best interestu00a0in mind andu00a0whose judgement could be trusted, so long as the offspring approach the parents with note of interest BEFORE anything serious began to form, it could work, methinks.u00a0 And yes, the people involved in the marriage will have to continue to want to work at it.u00a0 Somehow, it seems easier to keep trying when the love builds from very littleu00a0instead of fading from a “feel-good” high.

  • http://www.makeesha.com makeesha

    I dunno. I think relationships take effort period. And I think it’s very difficult to compare arranged vs. “love” marriages because of the foundational beliefs. I’m of the age too where my peers are getting divorced left and right. And David and I have just gone through a difficult phase after 11 years of bliss. Sometimes it’s just hard. *shrug…but I certainly wouldn’t suggest we start arranging marriages.

  • Iggy

    I understand the statistics point this out, however, in cultures were arranged marriage is practice, what are the statistics to things like affairs, or divorce. If a culture frowns on a woman being divorced, then the rate of divorce may not be as high for that reason. It is like the cultures were divorced woman must turn to prostitution as they cannot get better jobs. I think this may be a case of bad comparisons like apples to oranges. There is much more involved than simply looking at one type of marriage versus another. Like, do wives of harems or polygamists stay married longer than single married couples?

  • Stephanie B

    I agree.u00a0 When you don’t have a choice in a partner, you are confronted with wanting to get a long with someone you will have to stay with the rest of your life (culturally speaking).u00a0 Also, everything that God does in the Bible and in our lives only gets better with time.u00a0 And, like in Isaiah 25 and John 2, He is saving the BEST wine for last :-) u00a0 It is indeed true that “good things come to those who wait”.

  • Bruce

    Makes me wonder why there are no arranged same sex marriages if that is indeed and acceptable lifestyle. Just pondering something, not advocating anything.

  • http://stumblingintograceagain.blogspot.com/ Leya

    My friends and I joke about putting committees together to arrange our marriages. We came to the conclusion that arranged marriages, if arranged by those who we love, trust, and know us well (in some cases our parents were left out of our hypothetical committees), our likelihood of lifelong partnership would probably be better than just on our own choosing. 

    In response to some of the earlier comments about young people not respecting parents, or making poor choices, I would like to bring up that most young people reflect the choices of those before them… both negative and positive. Simply blaming young people for poor choices and lack of respect doesn’t necessarily take us older folk off the hook for some blame in the matter. It has been my experience in the matter of young people respecting older people, that we tend, as a whole (but necessarily as individuals) give young people very little to respect or healthy relational modeling. So, when it comes to the choice of who to spend the rest of their life with I’m sadly not surprised that people continue to make poor choices that lend no respect to themselves or to those around them. 

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