Arranged marriage

[Sperglord Dante]

Arranged marriages are inefficient because they allow men who would otherwise be undesirable in the marriage market to marry, taking some of the limited brides away from...how'd you say this kind of stuff with a straight face?

 

[GS 281]

The stats back him up on this and there is some anecdotal rationale for taking this to heart. People allowing their emotions to drive the decision to marry do not consider the business aspect of it. The combining of assets, mutual responsibilities. Having parents facilitate the marriage process does work out surprisingly well and is worthy of discussion.

 

[Kazami Yuuka]

Furthermore arranged marriage at large has been abandoned because it is no longer necessary. Since the notion of royalty no longer important to society, there is no longer any need to arrange marriages in such a way that there is an increase or at least an equivalent value of royal class. It's an archaic institution that really has no use or function in Western society. Note that India still desperately clings onto the caste system (even if it is illegal to do so), and it DOES have arranged marriages.

 

[Tempest]

Nice thread

 

[AnOminous]

What will a young girl, usually underaged, do when her father tell her that either she marries an old fuck or she is shaming her family and dead to him?

And often literally dead because of honor killing when you "shame" your family.

Pretending this isn't a violent, coercive environment of rape and patriarchy is pure idiocy.

You'd have to be autistic as fuck not to realize that.

 

[Tranhuviya]

You'd have to be autistic as fuck not to realize that.

Well, it is in his name.

 

[Marvin]

It would replace hookup culture once we realize how harmful it is
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...3/how-casual-sex-can-affect-our-mental-health

Conclusion not found in evidence.

In particular, they restricted their definition of casual sex to sex with almost complete strangers. I think that's relatively rare behavior, mostly confined to thrill seekers. Not the much larger collection of normal people who have sex with people they know, but aren't necessarily in committed, monogamous relationships.

The stats back him up on this and there is some anecdotal rationale for taking this to heart. People allowing their emotions to drive the decision to marry do not consider the business aspect of it. The combining of assets, mutual responsibilities. Having parents facilitate the marriage process does work out surprisingly well and is worthy of discussion.

The stats say arranged marriages last longer. But that could just be largely a result of social pressure against divorce.

Generally, western society tries to ditch the business aspect of marriage because marriage no longer serves that purpose for us anymore. Ideally, individuals should be able to financially survive on their own. If they can't, they can get roommates. Marriage is now pretty much now for the emotional relationship. Or kids, if you're wanting to go that route.

Having parents facilitate the marriage process is introducing the very biases we've been trying to escape.

Now, on the other hand, having a neutral, outside matchmaker has better support. Still a bit old fashioned, but not as discomforting as having your parents trade you away, as if you were a herd of goats.

 

[Vitriol]

I'm sure this was mentioned in a thread of yours about polyamory but this just isn't how people approach social relations. In a liberal society people want to be free to choose their partners reguardless of the implications for efficiency or long term longevity. Arranged marriages are a hallnark of authoritarian cultures and are inevitably accompanied by more general controls and restrictions that make such places unpleasant and oppresive for the individual.

 

[Sperglord Dante]

The stats say arranged marriages last longer. But that could just be largely a result of social pressure against divorce.

The places where arranged marriage are still common probably all have ass-backwards/no divorce laws. Like, under Sharia Law only the husband can divorce his wife at will, the wife needs the permission from a religious authority to do the same.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

My 2 cents on why this thread is not going in the direction you want. The most interesting stuff you posted was the article about the effects of casual sex and the relation of that and arranged marriage is not direct. Now, why I think arranged marriage is shit? Well, if you think the problem with today's culture is casual sex how making marriage a economic transation will help that? Do you really think that girls that grow up in countries where arranged marriage view refusing marriage as a possibility? What will a young girl, usually underaged, do when her father tell her that either she marries an old fuck or she is shaming her family and dead to him? Not even going to consider the islamic article you posted, i'm extremely biased against the "religion of peace". Anyway i hope you bring a better case of why arranged marriage would be better than say "we should go back to some prudish values" because afaik i don't see how marrying young girls to rich dudes will fix this. Bring me those autistic ratings.

The way that you are describing is very different from my proposal in which men (and women) would have to undergo psychological screening in order to ensure that they aren't abusive and the marriages will occur in one's mid twenties to early thirties. Also I wouldn't call arranged marriage prudish because there are many ways in which sexual and romantic desire could be artificially induced such as via drugs/pheromones or through setting up first dates in a certain way.

Arranged marriages are inefficient because they allow men who would otherwise be undesirable in the marriage market to marry, taking some of the limited brides away from...how'd you say this kind of stuff with a straight face?

That wouldn't be the case because the parents will be even more picky than their daughters. I am proposing something in which everyone has to agree and proposals can be made by any party.

Furthermore arranged marriage at large has been abandoned because it is no longer necessary. Since the notion of royalty no longer important to society, there is no longer any need to arrange marriages in such a way that there is an increase or at least an equivalent value of royal class. It's an archaic institution that really has no use or function in Western society. Note that India still desperately clings onto the caste system (even if it is illegal to do so), and it DOES have arranged marriages.

The reason to have arranged marriage are simply to find the best possible partner. By having impartial bureaucracies (and parents) help it will become easier to look at the big picture and realize that the person one wants to be with now is actually a serial killer/abusive/bad with money/an SJW/has a genetic disease/etc.

And often literally dead because of honor killing when you "shame" your family.

Pretending this isn't a violent, coercive environment of rape and patriarchy is pure idiocy.

You'd have to be autistic as fuck not to realize that.

The algorithms will select against rapists unlike normal people who are slaves to their emotions and will marry rapists as a result

Generally, western society tries to ditch the business aspect of marriage because marriage no longer serves that purpose for us anymore. Ideally, individuals should be able to financially survive on their own. If they can't, they can get roommates. Marriage is now pretty much now for the emotional relationship. Or kids, if you're wanting to go that route.

Kids is the business aspects of marriage. They are really expensive and work intensive so one must very carefully plan out how to raise them properly. I will say though that potentially economic efficiency could be maximized with a better division of domestic labour so gender roles may be worth creating

Having parents facilitate the marriage process is introducing the very biases we've been trying to escape.

Now, on the other hand, having a neutral, outside matchmaker has better support. Still a bit old fashioned, but not as discomforting as having your parents trade you away, as if you were a herd of goats.

I do not think necessarily that parents should be very involved with it. I am supportive more of the third party matchmaker idea but I do think that parents have a duty to teach their children to use the matchmaking services as opposed to entering into romantic relationships emotionally

I'm sure this was mentioned in a thread of yours about polyamory but this just isn't how people approach social relations. In a liberal society people want to be free to choose their partners regardless of the implications for efficiency or long term longevity. Arranged marriages are a hallmark of authoritarian cultures and are inevitably accompanied by more general controls and restrictions that make such places unpleasant and oppressive for the individual.

I doubt that those restrictions would be very significant but correlation does not imply causation. Also I am confused as to what "unpleasant and oppressive for the individual" means and whether there is a distinction between it and just being unpleasant and oppressive.

 

[Mesh Gear Fox]

I think you got the above reactions because you didn't lay any of these terms out. But nobody wants all this third-party involvement (bureaucracies, psych screenings). It's lunacy. Romantic relationships have to evolve organically. There has to be chemistry between both individuals, not artificially induced via pheromones. I've had some pretty lousy blind dates, so there's no way I would let my parents choose my future husband. I know you bring up the point that it would be via mutual consent, but I don't know anyone who would want all this external interference in who they potentially marry.

ETA: You're addressing love and marriage way too scientifically and logically. Love is anything but. Yes there are things I look for in a partner, but they can't be found in an algorithm.

 

[DuskEngine]

And often literally dead because of honor killing when you "shame" your family.

Pretending this isn't a violent, coercive environment of rape and patriarchy is pure idiocy.

You'd have to be autistic as fuck not to realize that.

You and ADK are talking about different things. The situation you're describing is closer to a daughter being bargained away by her parents, often when underage or while very young, whereas the scenario ADK describes (which is reasonably common here) is basically parents acting as a matchmaker for their adult children.

It's not necessarily odious but there is almost always an element of pressure involved (because people don't normally want to marry people they don't know). It does generally lead to respectable marriages because educated, high-earning people get paired up with each other, but there is still undue pressure put on the (adult) child, often disproportionately on the woman, to marry.

Being able to decide you don't want to marry someone your parents found is seen as a temporary setback on the road to you getting married to someone at the behest of your parents, and this is fundamentally illiberal (and, in my experience, contributes to stable but deeply unhappy marriages).

I think the stigma against divorce has more to do with the lower divorce rates than any kind of love that people 'find' later on. Divorce rates are low in lots of Eastern European and South American countries too, where it's harshly judged, but I'm not aware of arranged marriage being as common in those places.

It also promotes endogamous couplings, which in the long run isolates social groups from each other and promotes communalism. Some families also arrange consanguineous marriages if they lack other options.

It's also easy for me to be cavalier about the issues of coercion and violence, but I strongly suspect a great deal of abuse goes unreported in these sorts of setups for the same reason that divorce is stigmatised.

The people in this thread who think that every arranged marriage is done under threat of honour killings or for dowries are off-base, but I don't think the semblance of stability is worth the unhappiness it inflicts on people and the choice it deprives from them.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

You and ADK are talking about different things. The situation you're describing is closer to a daughter being bargained away by her parents, often when underage or while very young, whereas the scenario ADK describes (which is reasonably common here) is basically parents acting as a matchmaker for their adult children.

It's not necessarily odious but there is almost always an element of pressure involved (because people don't normally want to marry people they don't know). It does generally lead to respectable marriages because educated, high-earning people get paired up with each other, but there is still undue pressure put on the (adult) child, often disproportionately on the woman, to marry.

Being able to decide you don't want to marry someone your parents found is seen as a temporary setback on the road to you getting married to someone at the behest of your parents, and this is fundamentally illiberal (and, in my experience, contributes to stable but deeply unhappy marriages).

I think the stigma against divorce has more to do with the lower divorce rates than any kind of love that people 'find' later on. Divorce rates are low in lots of Eastern European and South American countries too, where it's harshly judged, but I'm not aware of arranged marriage being as common in those places.

It also promotes endogamous couplings, which in the long run isolates social groups from each other and promotes communalism. Some families also arrange consanguineous marriages if they lack other options.

It's also easy for me to be cavalier about the issues of coercion and violence, but I strongly suspect a great deal of abuse goes unreported in these sorts of setups for the same reason that divorce is stigmatised.

The people in this thread who think that every arranged marriage is done under threat of honour killings or for dowries are off-base, but I don't think the semblance of stability is worth the unhappiness it inflicts on people and the choice it deprives from them.

You gave a very good argument against arranged marriage. The difference between stability and happiness was a thing that I did not think about. Although I was not intending this thread to be a competition if it is one then you just won it

 

[DirkBloodStormKing]

Although quite rare in the west it is quite common in other cultures and with an increasingly globalized world we have tot address arranged marriage. Many westerners will immediately reject it as being patriarchal.
India has a very low rate of divorce especially in arranged marriages and there is nothing to suggest that arranged marriages are less happy than unarranged marriages. Since people can develop feelings for each other over time as opposed to simply having love at first sight I think that arranged marriages could have equal love in them. Additionally with parents having input that means that there will be a lesser chance of marrying a bad partner. (note that arranged marriages are different from forced marriages because there is an ability to say no to them and oftentimes the partners will get to know each other before accepting the marriage)
(This is for discussing arranged marriages of adults not children which is wrong in any marriage system)

Normally, I don't say this, but what the flying fuck is wrong with you? This is the most autistic OP I have seen. No wonder you got banned from here for a week. Please, stop talking.

 

[Puppet Pal Clem]

Reemphasizing that I don't believe anybody should be forced into any sort of union against their will, I agree with the notion that arranged marriages may have certain advantages.

We do live in a society that champions freedom and happiness, but there are invariably aspects of society that we have a duty to uphold.
One of these while ethically difficult to enforce is the necessity of having and rearing children, the primary function of marriage, and mandatory for the survival of the human race.

If two people can get along, and suitably provide for one another, and respectably raise children, and this is something they both want, even in the absence of some romantic unquantifiable maybe even perceivedly spiritual or magical attraction called love, why should this not be encouraged?

I'm not really sure if the concept of marriage for love is a modern convention born of increased individual freedoms, or if it's been around forever, but maybe there is something to be said for a pragmatic perspective on having a family.
People can get caught up in the pursuit of some idea or understanding of passion that may only satisfactorily exist in fiction or in fleeting infatuation.
It's not uncommon for people to fall in love with or admire some idealized characterization of a real person, only to find disappointment or frustration in their real flaws.

Divorce may come easier nowadays in socially liberal societies, because people value their own individual happiness before their responsibilities to their community and family.
It's not entirely fair to characterize this as selfishness, but the general virtues of duty to family and community did not form arbitrarily and exist for the betterment of society as a whole.
Having both a mom and dad is largely necessary to the healthy development of children, as both social and moralistic role models, where many undervalue the importance of this or think the function of family is purely financial or infrastructural support.
Look at how crippled the African American community is by their excess of children born outside of wedlock and financial stability.

Arranged marriages offer the opportunity for structurally stable households to form in the absence of romantic interest.
If the people participating in it are fine with this, what is to object to?

 

[DuskEngine]

Arranged marriages offer the opportunity for structurally stable households to form in the absence of romantic interest.

Then it should be called something else, or romantic marriage should be made an an entirely separate institution (or deinstitutionalised altogether).

If the people participating in it are fine with this, what is to object to?

The kid doesn't get to consent to being raised in a loveless household.

 

[Puppet Pal Clem]

The kid doesn't get to consent to being raised in a loveless household.

Romance isn't the only form of love.
There is no pretense that the people participating in the arranged marriage hate or dislike each other.
They would simply be good friends, or perhaps grow to love each other romantically over time.
And both parents would certainly love their children.

 

[DuskEngine]

Romance isn't the only form of love.
There is no pretense that the people participating in the marriage hate or dislike each other.
They would simply be good friends, or perhaps grow to love each other romantically over time.
And both parents would certainly love their children.

Fair enough, from your earlier post you made it sound like a business relationship. I do agree that very good friends, or people who feel a strong sense of shared responsibility for other reasons, should be just as qualified to raise children as people who are romantically involved.

 

[DirkBloodStormKing]

Reemphasizing that I don't believe anybody should be forced into any sort of union against their will, I agree with the notion that arranged marriages may have certain advantages.

We do live in a society that champions freedom and happiness, but there are invariably aspects of society that we have a duty to uphold.
One of these while ethically difficult to enforce is the necessity of having and rearing children, the primary function of marriage, and mandatory for the survival of the human race.

If two people can get along, and suitably provide for one another, and respectably raise children, and this is something they both want, even in the absence of some romantic unquantifiable maybe even perceivedly spiritual or magical attraction called love, why should this not be encouraged?

I'm not really sure if the concept of marriage for love is a modern convention born of increased individual freedoms, or if it's been around forever, but maybe there is something to be said for a pragmatic perspective on having a family.
People can get caught up in the pursuit of some idea or understanding of passion that may only satisfactorily exist in fiction or in fleeting infatuation.
It's not uncommon for people to fall in love with or admire some idealized characterization of a real person, only to find disappointment or frustration in their real flaws.

Divorce may come easier nowadays in socially liberal societies, because people value their own individual happiness before their responsibilities to their community and family.
It's not entirely fair to characterize this as selfishness, but the general virtues of duty to family and community did not form arbitrarily and exist for the betterment of society as a whole.
Having both a mom and dad is largely necessary to the healthy development of children, as both social and moralistic role models, where many undervalue the importance of this or think the function of family is purely financial or infrastructural support.
Look at how crippled the African American community is by their excess of children born outside of wedlock and financial stability.

Arranged marriages offer the opportunity for structurally stable households to form in the absence of romantic interest.
If the people participating in it are fine with this, what is to object to?

Personally, even though my parents are happily married and are probably going to be that way for a very long time, I have seen some other marriages that were ugly and had a negative impact on their children. It really depends on the couple and how functional said couple is really.

 

[Vitriol]

I doubt that those restrictions would be very significant but correlation does not imply causation. Also I am confused as to what "unpleasant and oppressive for the individual" means and whether there is a distinctio

If you are going to give something as fundamental to human happiness as marriage to a third party it is almost impossible to justify not doing the same for other aspects of life- occupation, location, number of children, diet etc. The more liberties you take from people the less happy they tend to be, people enjoy making their own decisions even if they are poor ones.

@Puppet Pal Clem makes a good point about there being a theoretical distinction between an arranged and a forced marriage, but the practical reality is social pressures are either so strong in a given culture that the theoretically arranged marriage is effectively a forced one (Ie rural China) or so weak as to be little more than a pseudo dating service (historically the Jewish community).