Love मैरिज या Arranged मैरिज

I always wanted to write on Indian traditions like “Arranged Marriage” but guess what I got even interesting topic to write on “Love Marriage or Arranged Marriage”. Thanks to IndiBlogger and SONY.

Being from a traditional Hindu family, being a strong believer of Indian philosophy, being inclined towards spiritual well-being of Indian society I always give preference to Arranged Marriage over Love Marriage. In my teenage days I have been in love with more than one girl and then it seems to me nothing can be as bad as Arranged Marriage. Now I can understand those were not love but infatuation. But with time comes maturity, I read few books on Indian tradition and spirituality. Now, I strongly believe in Arranged Marriage and here I am going to write in favor of Arranged Marriage.

Misconceptions about Arranged Marriages:

Recently I came to know so called gen Y, they like idea of Love Marriage because they don’t understand the Arranged Marriage. Below are few misconceptions about Arranged Marriage

It’s a Forced Marriage: Lot of people, even some of my close friends, they don’t like idea of Arranged Marriage because they think “a girl and a guy are forced to marriage” and “they are not allowed to ask what they want” in Arranged Marriage. Well, concept of Arranged Marriage came to our society from Child Marriage. Children were considered immature to take decision on complex matter like marriage. Then parents used to take decision for them. But those days are gone now. Child Marriage is illegal. Now girls and guys both are given more than one choices and it’s completely on them to decide which one they want to get married with. This is not forced, or is it?

Arranged Marriage happens only in India:  Today, arranged marriage is largely practiced in South Asia (India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka), Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia and East Asia to some extent. This is what wiki says. I hope this information will give some idea about institution of Arranged Marriages.

Love marriage is challenging task: I have heard lots of people saying that Arranged Marriage is not challenging task. So there is no fun in choosing easy path of Arranged Marriage. Let me tell you one thing, in Love Marriage people just don’t care the happiness of friends and family. They just think about their happiness, their love. Doesn’t it look more selfish task than challenging one. In Arranged Marriage one has to take along two families and many more relatives, think about what you like, think about they like and try to keep keep everyone happy at the end of the day. I don’t know what your view would be but to me it is more challenging task to go for Arranged Marriage.

Love lasts longer in case of Love Marriage: A study in Jaipur, India a few decades ago found that people in love marriages were more in love for the first five years, while those in arranged marriages were more in love for the next 30 years. Read more here.

Self-arranged Marriage is Love Marriage: Before falling in love if you care or try to find out caste, earning, city, eating, smoking and drinking habits of her or his then it’s not a Love Marriage but it’s a kind of Arranged Marriage called Self-arranged Marriage. I am sure lot of people would have disappointed after reading this. But keep reading you will feel proud to know that yours is a Arranged Marriage.

How to judge which is better?

Divorce percentage in case of India is just 1.1 while countries like US, Australia, Russia and UK have more than 40% marriages result into divorce. Highest divorce rate is in Sweden 54.9%. While in that given list minimum divorce rate was depicted in India 1.1%. So, what you think is reason for such a lower divorce rate in India, yes you are right Arranged Marriages. According to UNICEF proportion of Arranged Marriages is 90% of total marriages happening in India. This data directly tells that divorce rate is far lesser in case of Arranged Marriages than in Love Marriages. So what is reason for Arranged Marriages to be so successful? Well this same question was asked by one of my friends in my college days when we were roaming around girl’s hostel to get a glimpse of our favorites one. This is what I replied:

“”In a love marriage girl and guy know all good things/qualities about each other. So, after getting married they don’t have any good qualities to display or discover in each other. Then they start finding short-comings of each other and this leads to fight and eventually divorce.

But in case of arranged marriage girl and guy don’t know good qualities of each other. So after getting married they display and discover good qualities in each other and praise each other in front of their friends. Before getting exhausted with good qualities they have a child and they forget to count short-comings of each other. Hence arranged marriages are more successful than love marriages. All burst into laughter which invited attention of SIS security guy and we all had to leave to our hostel.””