Love

by Roberto Chiodetti

Created on: December 12, 2009

Why the foundation of marriage should be love and not hope

There are clearly many challenges that can cause two people to grow apart over the years of living together and that in itself should be a warning for those that think of building a life with someone by basing their rapport on a business transaction. It's hard enough when you really know and care for the other person but it'll become a lot worse when the only bond is the fact that your parents feels your partner is the right one. Those who had no choice but accept their parents will often tells you that it's not so bad but that's far from the truth. Some of those arranged marriages will work in the end but only because at least one of the party involved will have to be incredibly selfless and just submit to his/her fate. Most of the time is the woman that will have to submit, it comes as no surprise that in all the cultures that recognise the supposed value of arranged marriages the position of women in those cultures is somewhat below that of a cow. The woman is seen as a means to the continuation of the family name and as a willing slave in and out of bed. Young girls are often seen by the family as a business opportunity to be exploited as best as possible. It's no surprise that arranged marriages are never arranged among different cast members in India and surrounded countries for example. One of the parties would invariably lose out so that's a no-no. In arranged marriages the parties involved have very limited expectations, for the woman the only expectation is that her husband won't beat her up, that his not some kind of sexual freak and that he won't abandon her once the transaction is over while for the husband to be the only expectation is that she won't be too deformed to be shown in public. With such high expectations is any wonder that arranged marriages seems more successful, at least on the surface?

I worked for years with a dear friend of mine from India that was forced into an arranged marriage with a woman that he never saw before the last year before marriage. In that year he saw her only 4 times and after about 4 afternoon of conversation they had to marry. According to him they are very happy and i have no reason to believe that he doesn't truly believe that. He's a very nice guy,not violent, very compromising and friendly, an all around nice catch. The real catch thought is that no one told the wife that she actually could have the choice of not like him. On his own words he told me that she has been coached into serving the husband to be in any way, her family made clear to her that the only duty she was born to complete was to make her husband happy by answering to every wimp or desire or else.

In those societies only the husband can leave the wife, if the wife is unhappy is of little concern not just to her husband but to her family too. It isn't unheard of of young women killed by their own family members because they wanted to leave their husbands, supposedly because that would taint the wife's family honor. That's the only value placed on a woman in those marriages. This poor women cannot even eat at the same table with men and you would be clearly crazy to talk to your husband's friends without prior permission. That's not what is expect in a marriage by love.

In a marriage by love equality is expected among with respect and support. If any of those 3 ingredients suddenly vanish from the equation then every one involved has the choice of working to make things better again or start new lives without each other. Another big difference between the 2 types of marriages is the age at which the decision to be spend their lives together is made. On top of the decision being made by others, in arranged marriages that same decision is made when the parties are very young and can be molded into accepting the adults will. If that wasn't the case the vast majority of the people currently forced into it would make it very hard for this tradition to carry on. In love marriages any decision to be together is being made after at least knowing the counterpart and having felt that being together, at least in the short term, seems to work. Respect and support is expected, limits are tested by both parties and only those that really care for each other will make an effort to prolong the relationship. The only downsize of a more permissive society is that the level of selfishness will rise and that can lead to problems when the other party will ask to be just as selfish. Expecting perfection or slavery on the other side will not work anymore because the law allow every one involved to opt out even thought some of the penalties can be too hard to swallow.

Everyone sets goals in life and some people put unrealistic expectations on marriage because they are too immature to understand that you need two to tango. The real deal breaker is not the ability to negotiate but the willingness to do so.

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