Through reading the newspaper in
One snippet I read today was about a 24 year old girl who works for IBM who killed herself this weekend. The letter she left behind said that she killed herself because she did not want to marry the man she was arranged to wed. This story is so sad for the girl, who had no say in her personal life, and for the man she was to marry- can you imagine someone killing themselves at the thought of spending the rest of their life with you?
I asked around to see if arranged marriage was still common. Considering the woman worked for IBM, I assumed that the educated would not be part of this archaic institution. From what I got from others, there is some dating to marriage, but there are still a great deal of arranged marriages. They are not as dramatic as in the past though. Basically, the families interview each other and inspect their future child in law. If they agree it will be a good match, they arrange to get married. This means many couples only meet once before the wedding. This can lead to problems, like the IBM girl, and in future divorce.
I heard of one case where the man and woman met once and compared stats and family history and decided they would wed. Once married, he found out she suffered from a bad case of acne where she had large soars on her face ever so often. He didn't see them when they first met. Now he is demanding a divorce because of her skin condition. Talk about a blow to your self esteem.
At first, thinking about arranged marriages sounded kind of nice. Skipping all the complicated dating American 20 somethings go through and just settle down sounded like a refreshing existence. After hearing these stories though, it looks like not dating and just marrying can create the chance for deeper pain and more serious problems than dating could ever stir up. So next time someone goes on a bad date, remind them to be thankful it is a bad date and not a bad marriage.
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