LOVE VS ARRANGED MARRIGE
Milan ( http://milanavi.blogspot.com/) raised a very interesting and controversial point in his post
http://milanavi.blogspot.com/2010/03/would-you-prefer-to-marry-person-you.html
What is better   Love marriage or arranged marriage?
Marriage is a gamble either ways. The chances of coming out a winner depend on how you play the game? How does the couple sail through the initial hurdles of marriage life, how much adjustments, compromises are they ready to make will decide the longevity of the marriage.
In any marriage two persons from different backgrounds, culture, mental makeup, personality traits, with two different identities come together so the clashes of personalities, ideas, values and dreams is bound to be there.
In a love marriage the couple in question meets for limited period and they try to portray their best qualities to each other. Couples, who say that they want to understand, know each other before marriage are living in a fool’s paradise.
Tell me how much one can come to know other person in short meetings, or over phone conversations or mails?
How one reacts to different situations, how one deal with crisis in life, how one behaves with others etc cannot be understood in meetings when both the partners try hard to show only the good qualities.
Statistics show that chances of failure of love marriages are more than the arranged marriage.
Till you live with the person, till you know his/her various mood swings/till you know his behavior at different hours of the day how can anyone claim to know the other person?
Before any one jumps to the conclusion that I am advocating live in relationships before marriage N0 I am totally against it –I don’t mind being labeled as orthodox/traditional or old fashioned)
I am not anti love marriage or pro arranged marriage. In both the cases the stakes are the same.
For me what is important is how the couple adjusts to each other after marriage, how the couple adopts the values of each other, how much the couple is ready to change as per the likes of other person yet maintain his/her individuality.
Love or arranged —– actual life starts after marriage. As Milan said all the fun starts after marriage, you learn to adjust and make compromises where ever necessary and work really hard to make it all work.
I do agree that couples who are in for love marriage are slightly better off than the ones who are almost strangers to each other.
The love marriage couples do have a slight edge over the arranged marriage ones for they do know some of the qualities/weaknesses/dreams/aspirations of each other as they have spent quality time with each other
But success of marriage life will not depend on the time spent before marriage or knowing the superficial facts of lives of each other.
Marriage is all about compromises, commitments, understanding, giving in, letting go, forgiving, adjustments and merging the I of both the persons into a common WE.
http://anjugandhi.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/i-am-ok-you-are-ok-but-we-are-not-ok/
I don’t mean to say that love marriages will fail and arranged marriages will succeed .The chances of arranged marriages culminating into separation, divorce are equally strong.
because once again the question of adjustments, compromises and gelling together is important.
The determination to see the marriage work against all odds, the feeling of belonging to each other, the desire to be with each other will motivate the couple to make the marriage work.
Love before marriage or love after marriage will make sense only when the partners have the zeal to let the love overrule all the hurdles.
http://anjugandhi.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/a-perfect-relation/
Anju,
Thanks for the comments and your thoughts. I agree that the burden of making the marriage work is equally on both husband and wife. No matter what kind of marriage it is whether love or arranged, it will work as long as couple understand each other and appreciate each other thoughts and learn to compromise with each other’s short comings. Nobody is perfect right?
The love marriage vs arranged marriage contest is a typical chicken – egg kind of stuff.
Be it love or arranged, the main success mantra lies in how the partner is able to get into others shoes, or rather how best a partner can understand the other’s perspective. Ofcourse dialogues between partners helps a lot in this regard.
As was rightly pointed out in this neatly written post, even if it is arranged or love marriage the after-marriage relationship is entirely different. The more adjustments, partners have to make the more uncomfortable they will be.
Respect your partner, give him/her some time for her passions/hobbies, respect their activities, find time to spend with your partner (many couples don’t have their own special time after having kids), allow them to pursue their ambitions, if ambitions conflict with yours, then discuss, discuss and arrive at mutually agreeable solution.
All things are easier said than done..
Reading this post made me think about the institution called marriage, and these thoughts propped up.
Our modern arranged marriages where the couple does get to meet many times is not really a typical arranged marriage where the couple met for the first time during the wedding ceremony.
I feel knowing who you are spending your life with and being matured enough to decide if the person is right/compatible/suitable for you is necessary before one gets married. Of course that doesn’t ensure a happy marriage but both the partners should be matured enough to make such choices before they get married.
arranged vs love marriage
Regarding India now also we have marriages within caste and even love marriage between caste couple is also opposed by rich parents.
about orthodox or traditional
i will say please read the Krishna and understand him and then talk about love marriage .
Did you forgot Indian Gandharava marriage.
Did you forgot the birth of Karna, pandava and kourava or seeta
arrange or love marriage both will stay if couple is understanding
it does not matter.
there are no free lunches!
one has to work towards success – be it a love or arranged marriage!
Really nice one. And you nailed it in first para itself. Good going anju.
duh i’m still confused
There is no formula which can ensure success of a marriage, be it arranged or love.
I too may sound very orthodox, but marriages are made in heaven.
For any marriage to succeed, both the partners have to work towards the goal.
Though I do not believe in marriages being made in heaven, I do believe that to make any marriage work, both spouses will have to put in some effort and make some compromises and sacrifice. If it is a one sided adjustment, it is not going to work out. Compatibility is another issue which has to be looked into. Last but not the least is that couples should show tolerance towards one another. Then it does not matter whether it is a love or arranged marriage.
thanx for visiting my blog pl keep visiting and sharing your views
anju http://anjugandhi.wordpress.com
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Anjuji, I think love after marriage will be better.वो जींदगीà¤à¤° साथ रहता है.
Going by several articles appearing all over, there are more ‘break ups’ in love marriage than arranged ones.In the end, its all about ADJUSTMENT towards each other that matters.
I liked this post Anju.
But, really, one question that always comes to my mind is “What is marriage without love?”
)
So, the titles – “Love marriage” “arranged marriage” are really weird!!
(Just my opinion
Whatever be the “type” of marriage – the commitment to work on it is necessary.
Any marriage which crosses that one line – is not worth saving/fighting/compromising – the line can be anything from violence to no-respect/no-faith etc etc
And whatever kind of marriage it maybe, people change. Both men and women do, we all make compromises, sacrifices even. as long as its reciprocated and one is happy – then its a successful marriage!
I totally agree with u… all the fights and debates over which is better, are such a waste of time… because whether u have known the person before hand or not, u always start on ground zero after marriage…
Very well written Anju! The olf belief that love marriages has higher of chances of failure than arranged marriage came from a time where woman were not independent, 20 or 30 yrs earlier the woman were very much dependent on their husbands so even if they werent happy in their arranged marriage they didnt have a choice. I think the stakes are equally high in both the cases and what really matters is how much would you compromise to make a relationship work.
One thing I would point out. During initial days [or months] of arranged marriage too, we put our best foot forward to impress our spouses. The same happens in love marriage. Though this happens BEFORE marriage.
In fact I guess today’s youth are more informed about how things would change after marriage. -Love marriage in this context.-
Anyways, you have tried portraying your ideas here. All I would say is, it does nt matter what kind of marriage it is as long as there is this wavelength match and adjustment mentality.
Cheerz!
DN
I seriously believe that marriages are all destined. especially after my marriage.I met my husband just for 6 months and we decided to get married and i know so many couples who knew each other since so long but still their marriage didn’t work.Same goes with arrange as well.
I think there is no meaning to have debats or to think upon which type of marrige is better cuz both are good at their own place,only the matter is how a couple live after marrige,the succes or faluire of marrige depends only upom the couple,THEN WHY TEACHERS TORCHER THEIR SWEET STUDENTS TO THINK UPON THESE TYPES OF TOPICS FOR DEBATE….??
Anju.. thnx for sharing ur thought. a successful marriage depends on mutual understanding of couple. there is no any set of guidelines which suggest how to make longer marriage life. if both are caring and have good understanding then there is no problem. dont expect more, because higher expectations lead to sorrow.
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I dont think there is too much differance between arrange & love marriage.If someone talk about spent time with together before marriege then i will say now in days in arrange marriage also couples spent lots of time before marriege.I think in love they never go for physical relationship but if somebody engagement is fixed before year of marry they done everything.After marriage nothing special because they have already done everything.But in love they not sure they will get marry or not so they just talk & share their feelings.I just want to say successful marriage life is depend on honesty towards each other.& i really against cast system.Is it not enough that we are human being so peoples seprated us in different different cast.
hav to make a decision..its so hard..bt yes..now aftr readin this article i cn make out the basic elements reqd ..thnkx
per my opinion, in Arranged marriage, your sub-conscious brain makes you accept that, the other person whom your family has shown or you have agreed to marry, IS GOING to be with you your whole life…so the feeling of ‘I-will-compromise-no-matter-what’ creeps in to your brain, consciously or sub-consciously…so you kind of ‘force’ yourself to like or love that person…and hence, quarrels, fights, break-ups etc. tend to happen less in arranged marriages… .
Hence I think, Arranged marriage has a higher success rate than love marriages but at the cost of sacrificing the spontaneity of emotions. What say ?
Hi…I had undertaken a small research about the love marriage n arranged marriage…….
you guys are right that we see much failure in love marriage nt in arranged…the basic reason for this was…if the partners are not happy with each other, they have to live their life with them bcoz of various reasons family prestige, culture, family pressure,society, etc…..1basic reason- a girl child always told “ladki ka apna ghar uska sasural hi hota hai n shaddi k baad uski arthi hi wahan se jati hai”……girls will fight to save their marriage……satisfy their husbands….their world revolve around her husband, his family and children……..but where that girl gone who have seen lots of dreams for herself…
I have seen various marriages, the partners are their with each other bcoz of family pressure or for their children………
n I agree with your views on the break up of love marriages…….