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My heart goes out to people who have had their marriages arranged because of a tradition. For a young girl or a young man, I cannot think of anything more offensive and against an individual's human rights. To me, this is like saying to a friend, "Let's arrange the marriage of our children to insure they marry the people we want to keep in our families." This can be sheer torture to a young girl or a young man who may have already fallen in love "with their special person." Can you imagine the pain and torture they must be feeling? They will forever resent being pulled away from that "special person" and they'll probably never get over it and carry the resentment into the arranged marriage.

I know arranged marriage happen in a lot of countries around the world but, "it is my belief", that it is wrong. No one should have the right to select who a man or woman will share their lives with. No one should have the right to select the man or woman they want to carry their children and to give birth to their young. I cannot imagine marrying and living the rest of my life with someone that my family arranged for me to marry. I believe this is "unconscionable" to anyone in this sort of situation. It is my belief, "I would just as soon be considered dead!"

Many of the people who have arranged marriages, will tell you it is the worse case scenario you can ever image. It's sheer hell because they are many times paired with a man or woman who is much older than they are and they share "no love interests" whatsoever. It is a union for convenience only. I know a young woman, who I've become very friendly with, and she tells me she has never known "true love." Her family arranged her marriage many years ago when she and her husband were in their late teens and her life has been full of agony and pain. She is forever asking me to tell her how "true love" really is and what does it feel like? She told me when her parents first made her marry her husband that she went through a period of deep depression and unhappiness. He decided to move to America and take her and this has been her life. She married him "only" because it was chosen by her parents and she was not allowed to go against her parents decision. She had to show them respect and nobleness or they would disown her. She told me she lives for her family and that many nights she cries herself to sleep because she wants to know what it is to know a "real love." She tells me she longs to feel a romantic love between herself and the person she, herself, falls in love with and not someone who is chosen for her. She also says, "I'm a prisoner of my own self."

I don't know what most of you readers believe, but I believe this tradition should be deemed as an "outdated notion" and be done away with throughout the world. How will the children who are brought up in this type relationship learn what "true love" is? Children are smarter than we think, and if they never see any form of kindness or love between their father and mother, they'll never know how to receive and show affections in their lives. Could this be a problem in our world today and why "many" people do not know how to express their love and their feelings to the world?

This is the opinion of this writer only!

Learn more about this author, Barbara Kasey Smith.
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