arranged marriage opinion essay

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Arranged Marriage Essays Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Social Issues , Freedom , Marriage , Love , Arranged Marriage , Family , Children , Relationships

Published: 02/21/2020

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Marriage is one of the critical issues in society. As a matter of fact, the roles and functions of marriage make it one f the important union in human race. Those who are religious will assert that marriage was actually instituted by God and this makes it a crucial issue. Arranged marriage is one of the types of marriage, but in this case the marital union is decided by third parties. It is a type of marriage where the groom and the bride are selected by other people rather than making their own decision on who to marry. In the past, this seemed to be the norm but the trend seems to behave continued in some culture or societies. The family members in most cases become part of those bringing the couples together. The parents are in the forefront in approving the potential partner for their children. In fact, the couples may even marry without knowing each other expecting that love will develop and become the best. In general perspective, this is unrealistic situation and brings out various reasons why being against arranged marriage is justified. Regardless of the religion that we belong, arranged marriage is not good. One of the main reason that drives many people to be against arranged marriage is the fact that there is no chemistry and physical attraction between the couples (Hylton, 2013). Research shows that in a marriage there should be bio-chemically compatibility between the two partners who want to get married. Hence, there is no need of putting people at risk. Marriage is actually a life time commitment and arranged marriages id putting the couples on a life time situation against their will. The chemistry between people who want to get married must grow and flourish automatically (Divakaruni, 2011). In arranged marriages love may not grow forever. There is a possibility that the partners do not like each other and focus more on their personalities. This means that the intimacy and the chemistry between the couples will never grow. An arranged marriage is not good because people have no time to learn various characters of the other partner. In most cases, people hide their personalities that may be abusive or flawed in nature. The abusive personality will come into play when individuals are already married, leaving one of the partner in marriage stressed (Hahn, 2011). Arranged marriage does not give the couples an opportunity to learn and tolerate each other characters and personality before getting married. This issue can also be said in non-arranged marriage but it becomes more harmful in arranged marriages due to the fact that you never made the choice. Arranged marriages denounce divorce leaving room for no easy escape. It is worth noting that divorce in arranged marriages comes with very severe penalties. The political, social and religious focus on divorce seems to be complex (Hylton, 2013). People focus more on the arranged marriage rather than focusing on the personal situation of an individual. In fact, people believe that abandoning arranged marriage can lead to lifetime problems. Arranged marriages have no room for free will and free decision making. Regardless of the fact that the couples are given an opportunity to meet before giving consent sound better, but if the couples refuse to consent the relatives go ahead and make the marriage official. In the 21st century, there are various risks associated to marriage, which may include STD and one could want to be tested before marriage. Arranged marriage leaves no room for this cautious and reasonable process. Arranged marriages have lead to abusive and exploitation, especially on the state of guise arranged marriage. In some occasions, arranged marriage may involve underage children, immigration fraud, and other forms of forced marriages. Therefore, the arranged marriages may be carried out in unlawful circumstances (Divakaruni, 2011). There are communities that arrange marriage for their children regardless of age, education schedule or other programs that individuals wish to accomplish before marriage. The arranged marriages violate the rights and freedom of people as stated by the law. Everyone has the right and freedom to choose who they want to get married to. The couples who are victims of forced marriage did not get an opportunity to enjoy this right and freedom. Those who arrange marriage for their children do not respect the desires and needs of their children. This means that the parents are nit sensitive to the desires of the children, which is not fair to the children (Hahn & Austen, 2011). Parents should be in the forefront on protecting the desires and needs of their children. Arranged marriages mostly driven by financial gain and social status at the expense of the happiness of children. There is a big possibility that arranged marriages will bring people who are not compatible. On the other hand those in support of arranged marriages have come up with reasons to support it. These include cultural and religious issues, financial and dynastic gain, and more so the parents take full control of their children life. In general perspective, arranged marriages are bad and should not be supported. Marriage should be a decision made by the couples in free will.

Divakaruni, C. (2011). Arranged Marriage. New York: Wadsworth Hahn, J. (2011). An Arranged Marriage. California: Wiley Hahn, J., & Austen, J. (2011). An arranged marriage. Oysterville, WA: Meryton Press. Hylton, S. (2013). An Arranged Marriage. London: Wiley

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Article Contents

I. introduction, ii. misunderstanding the arranged marriage, iii. understanding arranged marriage, iv. conclusion and suggestions for further research.

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Understanding Arranged Marriage: An Unbiased Analysis of a Traditional Marital Institution

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Naema N Tahir, Understanding Arranged Marriage: An Unbiased Analysis of a Traditional Marital Institution, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family , Volume 35, Issue 1, 2021, ebab005, https://doi.org/10.1093/lawfam/ebab005

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This research asks one simple question, a question many studies on the arranged marriage omit to ask, namely “What exactly is the arranged marriage?” Author Naema Tahir, born and bred in the arranged marriage culture, but educated in the free-choice marriage culture, argues that much literature on the arranged marriage fails to offer full exploration of this traditional marital system. Instead, the arranged marriage is often analysed through the lens of the modern free choice marriage system. However, this is not a neutral lens. It considers the free choice marriage to be the ideal. As a result, the arranged marriage is perceived to be a “marriage of shortcomings”, one that fails to meet the standards of the free-choice marriage system. The author encourages readers to break this frame and offers a neutral perspective on this traditional marital system practised by billions around the world. Readers are invited to an in-depth and rigorous analysis of the foundations upon which the arranged marriage system rests. While this analysis zooms in on the case study of one particular focus group, the British Pakistani diaspora, it reveals broad insights into the arranged marriage system in general. This analysis highlights and critically examines social principles fundamental to the arranged marriage system and which are much misunderstood, such as hierarchy, patriarchy, collectivism, group loyalty and the role of parental and individual marital consent. The author argues that it is vital to first understand the traditional structures of the arranged marriage, before one can understand modernizing tendencies the arranged marriage system is currently undergoing. As such, this study hugely contributes to an unbiased understanding of the arranged marriage and changing arranged marriage patterns and is a valuable reading for those interested in marriage, marital systems and the future thereof.

There is a tendency in academic literature to view the arranged marriage from the lens of the autonomous marriage. In this literature the arranged marriage is compared in a binary to the autonomous marriage. 1 While a comparison of the arranged marriage to the autonomous marriage should be an unbiased one, the contrary is true. From this binary, both marital systems are not viewed neutrally. The autonomous marriage, thriving on individual choice, is perceived to be the ideal marital system, while the arranged marriage, supported by traditional kin authority, is not considered ideal. Resulting from this, the autonomous marriage sets the standards of an ideal marriage all marriages must aim for, including the arranged marriage. The arranged marriage is then measured by characteristics typical of the autonomous marriage system. However, the arranged marriage, even in its most modern manifestation, is not an autonomous marriage. Monitoring the arranged marriage as if it were or should be autonomous, emphasizes defects, deficits, lacunas in the arranged marriage on matters related to autonomy. Measured this way, the arranged marriage turns into something faulty. It becomes a marriage of shortcomings.

There is a necessity to study the arranged marriage on its own terms and not in a binary with the autonomous marriage. 2 This will enable judging the arranged marriage on the qualities and rewards it holds for its practitioners. At its core, this article hopes to contribute to an understanding of the arranged marriage from an unbiased lens.

This article is set up in three sections.

Section II will investigate biased understandings of the arranged marriage in more detail, by critically evaluating the binary approach in scholarly literature, illustrated further by a study of a variety of categorizations and close interpretation of definitions on the arranged marriage. Section II argues that in scholarly literature, the arranged marriage is framed as a lesser version of the ideal of autonomous conjugal union.

Section III will aim to construct a Weberian ideal type 3 of the traditional arranged marriage as a useful tool that offers neutral, unbiased insights into general features all arranged marriage systems, to varying degrees, share. The arranged marriage will be understood as a guardianship invested marital system, which is organized in a hierarchical, aristocratic manner, upheld by parental authority, group orientation and belonging. This section will provide a conceptual, theoretical analysis of the arranged marriage by drawing on literature that intersects between tradition and modernity, by leading scholars in the field. 4 Through this analysis a marital system will surface which is embedded in a cultural inherited belief that the young must be relieved of mate-selection which is perceived, not so much as a harmless liberty with mere individual impact, but as a burden that the strongest shoulders in the community must be bear, and as a choice that has broad implications for the family, extended family, and community.

Section IV will conclude as to how knowledge on the arranged marriage proper, as an aristocratic guardianship system, can be applied to the varied practices of changing patterns in arranged marriages, that include the increasing involvement of the young in mate-selection and marriage making. This section will also offer suggestions for further research.

This article will focus on analyses of conjugal practices of British immigrant Pakistanis residing in the UK, the largest Pakistani diaspora in the world that strongly upholds the arranged marriage system. While narrowing down the focus to one culture, norm and values will surface that typically underlie the arranged marriage system in general.

For this article, the following working definition of arranged marriage will be employed: marriage for which the mate selection is under the guardianship and authority of elders of the (extended) families of both marital agents and that aligns the families in a durable relational bond that allows for a legitimate space and belonging for the conjugal union. 5 The following working definition will be employed of the autonomous marriage: marriage for which the mate selection is undertaken by the marital agents, who base their selection on subjective criteria with the aim to align the agents in a durable relational conjugal union. 6

1. Biased Binary Approach

The so-called binary approach in the study or representation of the arranged marriage is much criticized in literature. 7 This binary is considered ‘liberal individualist’ 8 or Eurocentric. 9 Set in a binary with the autonomous marriage, the arranged marriage is judged by the idealized standards of the autonomous marriage. That which is idealized is individual freedom and conjugal choice. Individualism is considered progressive, there is free choice and the freeing of individual potential. 10 The autonomous marriage elevates the individual who emancipated themselves and rose from the bonds of a history in which marriage choices were not left to solely the individuals. 11 Individuals assume that this transformation from ‘arranged marriages to love matches is progressive and “healthy” … the result should be happier marriages’. 12 Central to the autonomous marriage is the nuclear family, otherwise known as the conjugal or the atomistic family. 13 The dissolving of the extended family into the nuclear family is also seen as a marker of modernity and progress. 14 Modernity signifies improvement, including modernity in the way one marries. 15 Through modernization, arranged marriage will be replaced by self-chosen unions. 16 ‘[A]lthough Western ideas about the family are often opposed or resisted at first, many of these ideas are nevertheless adopted, often in modified forms, because the Western style family is so closely associated with development.’ 17 And while this theory may have its critics, 18 this article claims that it still holds ground as regards arranged marriage.

As suggested by the convergence theory and developmental paradigm, 19 the arranged marriage is held to the expectation that it will one day adapt to the Western ways, and advance into the autonomous marriage, as a sign of emancipation, of progress.

Until then, the arranged marriage appears lacking in those very features so particular of the autonomous marriage: free choice, individual energy, emphasis on the idiocentric conjugal union and the self-centred nuclear family. Literature magnifies those very features and puts the arranged marriage to the test: can it fulfil standards of full and free autonomy? Failing to do so turns the arranged marriage into something faulty. The arranged marriage culture is seen as ‘deficient’ and ‘deformed’. 20 It becomes the ‘other’. 21 ‘[T]he “Orient” is constructed and represented in the binary opposition against the Occident as the “Other”.’ 22 This binary distinction ‘[p]roblematically contributes to the discursive portrayal of arranged marriages as certainly less than and other to mainstream marriage practices’. 23

The social principles of individual freedom and autonomy are given much weight in perspectives on the arranged marriage. However, such principles are not neutral. They are ‘European values, assumptions, cultural codes’, are ‘culturally-determined and biased’, and offer ‘limited historical perspectives’, 24 providing a lens through which the arranged marriage is evaluated. There then, is a free-choice system at one end of the spectrum, a space that cannot be shared with the arranged marriage, for that is a parent-orchestrated endeavour and parents’ ‘subtle coercion has a tainting effect on the child's quality of choice’. 25 Thus emerges at the other end of the spectrum the not so free system called the arranged marriage.

Of course, the arranged marriage is certainly not considered a forced marriage in the studied literature—though media often equate the two. 26 However, literature on the arranged marriage frequently mentions forced unions and thus frequently connects arranged marriage to forced marriage. Besides, an overlap between arranged and forced marriage is often recognized and referred to as a ‘grey area’ with the potential of ‘slippage:’ the slightest increase of duress can lead the arranged marriage to ‘slip’ into a forced one. 27 The arranged marriage is always haunted by force.

The heightened attention to freedom and the lack thereof highlights consent, arguably the most important legal principle the arranged marriage is expected to prove. This consent must be full and free. 28 A recurring question in literature is whether arranged marriage supports full and free consent. 29 If consent is present, the union is considered an arranged marriage. Without consent the union is considered coerced. Consent separates arranged marriage from forced marriage. 30 This leads to a preoccupation in legal and policy discourse with the presence of consent and the absence of coercion in the arranged marriage. 31 The presence of consent and the absence of coercion determine the value of the arranged marriage. In essence, the arranged marriage is framed in yet another binary: that between consent versus coercion, a binary that is damaging and limiting. 32 The culture of the arranged marriage in itself becomes problematic. 33 This culture needs to prove constantly that there is no coercion involved. In addition, the binary is limiting in a different sense too. Consent, full and free is a human rights standard, 34 as well as a legal tool to declare the legitimacy of marriage as an uncoerced union. 35 Yet, consent as it operates in the law is given a ‘Western individualistic bent’. 36 As such, read in ‘plain language’ ‘only “free market” or choice marriages —a hallmark of Western societies—meet the “free and full” requirement because “there is nothing to prevent men and women from taking spouses which do not meet their families” approval’. 37

Arranged marriage contexts do not evolve around the freeing of individual energy. They are characterized by collective dynamisms with a particular ‘distribution of power and wider familial and community involvement’. 38 ‘The arranged marriage process, heavily reliant on parental and sometimes extended family input, fails to measure up to the requirements of free and full consent.’ 39 The attention given to full consent ignores that something given an individualistic bent is a strange bedfellow in a system that is not primarily or fully individualistic, nor aims to be. Consent is a universal principle which certainly has its place in the arranged marriage system. Yet, the language of consent in the discourse on arranged marriage is an expression of the ‘rational individual with free will’ 40 or the ‘free self’. 41 It is the language of an atomistic individual, of ‘an autonomous agent who is able to choose and act freely’. 42 This is not the language of a member deeply engrained in community belonging, duty, and purpose.

To reiterate, individual autonomy, including the right to consent, dictates the preoccupation in literature on arranged marriage. Notions such as agency, control, freedom to date, freedom to reject a selected candidate, negotiating power, the right of marital subjects to fall in love, choice and the freedom to self-select, receive profound consideration as a consequence.

In this regard, it is illustrative that arranged marriage is often categorized in types which reflect differing amounts of yet again this very notion of individual autonomy. There are three main types of categorization: traditional, semi-arranged, or love-arranged marriage types. 43 Arranged marriages earmarked as traditional are described as offering no or very little involvement by the young, 44 as if involvement or the lack thereof is the only feature of traditional arranged marriage. Semi-arranged or hybrid types, also known as joint-venture types, point to control shared by the elders and the young alike, 45 which again only emphasize this control as a shared element, as if nothing is of any relevance other than control . Finally, the love-arranged types are embodiments of near full individual control and individual love. 46 This categorization according to a ‘sliding scale of control’ 47 does not highlight what the arranged marriage in general is or what it offers, other than control, to those practising it. Some authors even reject ‘arranged’ as a word to describe this marital system, as this word suggests a lack of control. 48 Individual control has become a dominating feature by which arranged marriage is judged. But it is again agency and control towards more autonomy that academics are consumed with and not agency or autonomy towards more traditional features arranged marriage offers. Those are simply ignored or not sought for. Those remain irrelevant and underexamined.

There could only be one reason why social principles that are founded upon the philosophy of idiocentrism and the freeing of individual energy, are tirelessly sought in a system that thrives on allocentrism, group-belonging and honour for group loyalty. Arguably, the arranged marriage culture only seems to satisfy the Eurocentric mind if it contains the same recognizable ingredients as the autonomous marriage culture. And as it does not, the arranged marriage represents a lesser marital version than the prized autonomous marriage.

2. Biased Definitions of Arranged Marriage

The above bias is reflected in descriptions and definitions of the arranged marriage. Many descriptions or definitions only really offer information as to who selects the mate, eg ‘parent orchestrated alliances’, 49 or ‘marriages that are instigated by the family’, 50 or ‘arranged by family members or respected members in the religious or ethnic community’. 51 Other definitions view the arranged marriage from a biased Eurocentric appreciation. These definitions accentuate ‘individualizing tendencies’. 52

While there is nothing wrong with individuation and autonomy, especially if so desired by those involved in arranged marriages, 53 headlining these modern notions points to a Eurocentric domination as to how the arranged marriage ought to be valued. Simultaneously, such one-sided promotion undervalues notions that cannot be grouped under ‘individualizing tendencies’ and the freeing of individual energy.

A case in point are the following definitions. Arranged marriages are featured as those ‘in which the spouses are chosen for one another by third parties to the marriage such as parents or elder relatives’, 54 or ‘the partners to which are chosen by others , usually their parents’. 55 In these definitions elders are referred to as ‘third parties’ or ‘others’. These wordings seem innocent, yet they are not. They suggest that marital subjects are the ‘first parties’. This qualification is justified if marriage is perceived to be an alliance between individuals, which is the case in the autonomous marriage system. This qualification is not correct if marriage is seen as an alliance between (extended) families, which emerges in the arranged marriage system. 56 ‘ First ’ parties suggests a hierarchy above ‘ third ’ parties, which is not an attribute of the arranged marriage system where singular members of the group, in this case the marital agents, are not valued above the elders or generally above one’s group. Similarly, mentioning that ‘parents rather than. spouses’ or ‘two families rather than individuals’ 57 contract a marriage is again pointing to a Eurocentric preference for self-selection.

Other definitions amplify attention to the individual more explicitly. For example in the definition ‘marriage arranged by the families of the individuals’, 58 the individual is seen as a separate entity, while, as we shall learn in Section III, a ‘tradition directed person … hardly thinks of himself as an individual’. 59 Indeed, ‘[t]he ideology that underpins a South Asian “arranged” marriage is that obligations to one’s immediate and more extended family have priority over personal self-interest’. 60 Ignoring this, is judging the arranged marriage from a ‘Western individualistic bent’. 61 In the same vein, many definitions contain the words ‘control’, ‘agency’ ‘choice,’ which all emphasize individual autonomy as the standard and which in effect draw attention to arranged marriage as primarily a space where marital agents negotiate increasing amounts of individual control. Other definitions refer to this ‘control’ highlighting dominion and power, suggesting that the arranged marriage is a battlefield between the elders and the young: ‘Traditional arranged marriage placed considerable power in the hands of the parents, and in particularly the father’. 62 Or, ‘In “traditional” societies, parents or the extended family dominate marriage choices’. 63 The power difference referred to suggests there are two parties with opposing aims and interests, which again is not an insightful reflection of unified interests so characteristic of group cultures. Also, culture here is presented as merely problematic: a father’s or parent’s role is that of power or domination, with negative connotations, and not much else.

A third set of definitions emphasizes the changing and flexible arranged marriage types, especially towards offering more control to the individual. It seems as if the arranged marriage is trying to prove that it is very capable of accommodating modernity and is progressive and evolving, for it has choice, agency, room for dating and romance, or the right of marital agents to say ‘no’ at any stage of the arrangement. This latter is illustrated well by Ahmad’s words referring to marriage as a dynamic process: ‘a family-facilitated introduction of a potentially suitable matched prospective candidate followed by a managed pattern of courtship prior to a potential, and agreed to marriage’. 64 Her words seem to suggest that the only acceptable arranged marriage is a progressive arranged marriage, one that resembles the autonomous marriage.

Love too, when mentioned, generally suggests lovelessness in arranged marriage as opposed to true love in autonomous marriage. 65 Arranged marriages are contrasted to marriage where there is romantic love 66 or to ‘love marriages’ based on romantic attachment between the couple’. 67 Arranged marriages when ‘a couple validates its love choice to their respective families’ 68 would be termed love-arranged or western type marriages. One commonly held view is that love will (hopefully) grow in arranged marriage as time passes. 69 Reference to ‘marriage, then love’, 70 supports this theory. Or when ‘love is not forthcoming’ the couple ‘are increasingly supported to divorce … ’. 71 In these examples it is yet again the love between the spouses, primarily romantic, sensual love, or individual affection that is stressed, which again celebrates the love so typical in the autonomous marriage system. 72

Families that are not conjugal have valued ‘not affection, but duty, obligation, honour, mutual aid, and protection … ’. 73 Such love for family or culture or any type of gift-love 74 are hardly mentioned in descriptions of arranged marriage. Even when ‘companionate’ love features, the focus remains on the spouse’s companionship for one another, and not for any(thing) other. Arguably the Eurocentric perspective holds little regard for other loves than the romantic.

3. Evaluation of Biased Science on the Arranged Marriage

The manner in which the arranged marriage is described in the literature studied is a marker of recognizing the arranged marriage as worthwhile only in so far it mirrors the characteristics of the autonomous marriage system. The words employed to describe the arranged marriage reflect autonomy-related values, but exclude community-related values that are foundational to the arranged marriage system. The arranged marriage is thus undervalued for the fundamental characteristics upon which it rests. These are ignored, not understood, arguably misunderstood, if at all known. Set against the autonomous marriage, the arranged marriage then becomes the other, deficient, deformed, a marriage of shortcomings, a marriage lacking in freedom and a marriage that is catching up and trying to prove it is not as traditional, thus not so backwards or rigid as analysts of the arranged marriage suggest.

The arranged marriage proper then remains a much understudied marital system and can only be understood by abandoning the binary approach and adopting a neutral lens. One needs ‘to turn the picture round’ as Tocqueville puts, in his eloquent study of aristocratic systems. 75 Such an aristocratic system is the arranged marriage, as we shall learn below.

As mentioned before, arranged marriages are frequently categorized in types, varying from traditional to hybrid to loosely arranged modern versions. They are frequently studied individually, through empirical research which offers a rich, complex, and varied analysis of arranged marriage practices, in diaspora communities, transnational communities as well as in communities and cultures around the world that are globalizing and are in transition. Yet, while all arranged marriages are arguably different, all do share a basic set of similarities. This section aims to bring these to the surface, drawing on sociology, so as to arrive at an ideal type of the arranged marriage.

The arranged marriage as an ideal type is a theoretical construct. 76 The ideal type emphasizes typical features of the arranged marriage, which all concrete individual arranged marriages share with one another and which are presented ‘into a unified analytical construct’. 77 As such the ideal type, ‘in its conceptual purity … cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality’. 78 ‘It is a utopia’. 79 Yet, it is a necessary tool to bring to the surface a neutral, unbiased understanding of the arranged marriage. It is also a ‘measuring rod’ 80 to measure the reality of cultural differences or change the arranged marriage system is constantly undergoing. 81

Before I proceed, it is vital to address academic opposition against the essentialization of the arranged marriage system. This essentialization is criticized as it captures the arranged marriage in a binary opposition with the autonomous marriage, idealizing the autonomous marriage and ‘othering’ the arranged marriage. This essentialization exaggerates cultural difference. 82 It portrays the arranged marriage as a rigid, static, unchanging, unnuanced system. 83 It ‘assumes the complete hold over the migrant of traditional gender and family norms by underscoring the foreignness of … arranged marriages’. 84 Authors opposing this essentialization are quick to point out that the arranged marriage is a dynamic and highly flexible system, that is able to accommodate change, modernization, individualizing tendencies, agency, romantic love and negotiating spaces, in which especially women assume more control in their endeavours to navigate around victimization by patriarchy. 85

What these scholars are in actual fact doing, unknowingly, is trying to exhibit to the Eurocentric mind evidence that the arranged marriage resembles the autonomous marriage. These authors demonstrate that the arranged marriage is very capable of upholding choice, agency, and control. These authors preoccupy themselves with bringing those qualities in the arranged marriage to the surface of their research. Sequentially, traditional features of this marital system remain understudied.

This section will not essentialize the arranged marriage system from a Eurocentric viewpoint for it desires not to repeat the othering of the arranged marriage. It will not try to prove that the arranged marriage is a flexible modern institution able to accommodate a constant flux of variety and diversity. As valuable as an investigation of that change may be, one cannot study the arranged marriage by studying how it absorbs constant flux. ‘[W]eber defines reality as an “infinite flux” which cannot be apprehended in its totality’. 86 One cannot apprehend arranged marriage on its fundamental shared characteristics if only the constant flux and change towards autonomy dominate academic engagement.

Despite being diverse and different on individual level, there are common qualities that make a marriage an arranged marriage and thus a largely unexamined ideal type of the arranged marriage will be examined in Section III of this article. The rich diversity between cultures, countries, social and economic classes, between religions and religious denominations, between those that have migrated and those that have not, as well as the constant evolution of the arranged marriage, will be left to the efforts of other scholars. 87

At its core, all arranged marriage cultures have marriage arrangers, whether these arrangers operate on their own or co-jointly with the marital agents. All marriage arrangers are senior members of the family or community, whether these arrangers operate on their own or co-jointly with the marital agents. All arranged marriage cultures value marriage to be arranged by these senior marriage arrangers, whether these arrangers operate on their own or co-jointly with the marital agents. All arranged marriage cultures consider mate selection to be not primarily the responsibility of the marital agents, whether they share this responsibility substantially or subtly with the marital agents. All arranged marriage cultures consider mate-selection physically and mentally risky, shameful and burdensome for the young to be engaged in, whether the young engage themselves in such matters or not. Family is placed central to marriage in all arranged marriage cultures, as they all consider marriage an alliance between families, whether or not the marital agents emphasize their conjugal alliance above that of the family’s. All arranged marriages guard against an incoming candidate harming family unity or family interests. Objective reasons for marrying are always valued as these support aforementioned family unity and interests, regardless of whether there is room for individual desire and preference. Finally, all arranged marriages are voluntarily accepted by marital agents on the basis of legitimate parental guidance and authority.

As such, all arranged marriage cultures are hierarchical cultures, as they accord different roles and responsibilities to the elders and to the younger ones of a group; they are group cultures that strongly incorporate its members through loyalty to the group and its interests; they are all driven by parental guardianship and authority, rooted in protection, providence and voluntary compliance. These principles of community, hierarchy, guardianship and authority are foundational to the ‘way of life’ 88 of the arranged marriage system, and will be explained below.

1. Arranged Marriage is a Community Oriented System

Literature frequently makes reference to arranged marriage cultures as collectivist, community oriented, occurring in extended families, whether there is individualism or not. 89 Marriage concerns the whole family and families are characteristically extended with extended kinship ties. 90 Marriage choices ‘have a far-reaching impact upon … relatives, affecting the futures and socio-economic positions of a much wider range of kin than just parents and children’. 91 Beyond the conjugal alliance, marriage creates alliances between a variety of family-members. 92 ‘Strategic marriage choices enable social mobility even within the extended kinship network.’ 93 Fox argues that arranged marriage preserves family unity, ‘by felicitous selection of the new spouse’ which ‘allows for the furtherance of political linkages and/or economic consolidation between families … it helps keep families intact over generations; and … it preserves family property within the larger kin unit’. 94 Objective selection criteria are emblematic of the families’ desire to preserve a stable family. ‘Parents usually assess the reputation, economic standing and personalities of the potential in-laws and the educational level and occupation of the potential groom or bride.’ 95 The strong emphasis on pragmatic, unromantic reasons that guide mate-selection are considered wise: the new conjugal addition must suit family background and thus fit harmoniously into its organization. 96 As such, extended families remain strong in the social order. Less attention is paid therefore to subjective love. One learns that spousal love may come as martial time goes by. 97 This need not be romantic, it may as well be love in a ‘more all-encompassing sense’. 98 Typical of group cultures is that ‘[i]ndividual choice … may be constricted either through requiring that a person be bound by group decisions or by demanding that individuals follow the rules accompanying their station in life’. 99 The individual is ‘sacrificed’. 100 ‘The tradition-directed person … hardly thinks of himself as an individual.’ 101 He is a ‘collective being’ not a ‘particular being’. 102 But such sacrifice ‘is more than offset by the advantages of fulfilling one’s role within the family … ’. 103

2. Arranged Marriage is a Hierarchical System

The mere fact that marriage arranging requires some element of wisdom, experience and providence, suggests hierarchy. Not everyone is suited to make marriage choices, certainly not young children and this applies to all cultures, whether autonomous or arranged. In the latter culture, arranging marriages is a responsibility bestowed upon elders, mostly parents of the marital agents. 104 Elders, given their status and rank, are considered most able, equipped, wise and well connected to undertake the grave and delicate task of mate selection. It is their proper place to screen and select mates and it is the proper place of the young to trust and respect the judgment of the elders in this regard. Pande points to a case of a young woman called Shabnam appreciating this ‘proper place’ as she would never directly go up to her parents with her marriage wishes as ‘parents deserve their izzat ’ 105 (respect NT). And while elders are given the privilege of mate selection, they do not and may not select for their own benefit, but in the best interests and the good of the group, 106 into which are incorporated the interests and the good of the marital agents. 107

Arranged marriage cultures are thus hierarchical. 108 To understand arranged marriage, is to understand hierarchy. Yet, the social principle of hierarchy does not sit well with the Western mind. 109 The western mind views society from the lens of equality and freedom and hierarchical systems lack equality and freedom. Thus arranged marriage is rejected: it is a space where parents have the ‘power’ and upper hand and ‘dominate’ in marriage choices. 110 Arranged marriage becomes nothing more than a ‘chain of command’ 111 or a ‘power hierarchy’. 112 However, as Dumont argues, this is not true hierarchy. 113 To understand hierarchy one must ‘detach … from egalitarian societies’. 114 One must view hierarchical systems on its own merits, in an organic manner. 115

‘[H]ierarchy. comes from the very functional requirements of the social bond.’ 116 Literature offers the organism, a whole or the body as a metaphor to understand hierarchical systems. 117 Hierarchy is ‘the principle by which the elements of a whole are ranked in relation to the whole’. 118 The whole body and its parts are strongly bound together by rules, 119 social control, 120 and a common value system. 121 One accepts as necessary the rank order and the fulfilment of distinct obligations—without this the whole cannot function as it is supposed to function. 122 Decisions are taken by the most able in the interests of the whole and its parts. 123 The most able are the guardians and guardianship and hierarchy are strongly intertwined. 124

Families in arranged marriage cultures are organized hierarchically, with each member aware of its own and other’s status and social ranking, 125 with each member submitting to ‘group control’ and fulfilling ‘socially imposed roles’, 126 with each member keeping in one’s proper place, honouring order, 127 and subject to a ‘hierarchized interdependence’. 128 It is deeply understood that elders arrange marriages—it is their obligation to find matches from good families, and to exercise control as to who joins the family. 129 This applies whether or not they share this task with the marital agents. ‘From the viewpoint of many parents, arranging and seeing through your children’s marriages is a primary duty, to the extent that your role as a parent is unfulfilled until this duty is accomplished.’ 130 It is ‘a matter of great family honour.’ 131 It is a necessity too as ‘marriage normally confers the statuses of wife and husband, which have been and still are regarded in many societies as necessary to being seen as an adult rather than as a child’. 132 It is only through marriage that intimate life with a stranger turned into family is legitimate. So, the young depend on the patronage of the elders. 133 Amber, a twenty-four year old student ‘sought her parent’s intervention stating it was their ‘responsibility’. 134 Elders are not to abandon this role, nor to share it with the less qualified. They too are answerable to tradition and community. 135 But they are bound also, as good guardians and figures of authority, to choose wisely and in the best interest of the child. 136 Below a further exploration will be provided on guardianship, which is ‘a standard justification for hierarchical rule’ 137 and authority which too manifests itself through hierarchical relations. 138

3. Arranged Marriage is a System of Guardianship and Parental Authority

Arranged marriage cultures thrive on authority and entrusted leadership of guardians. Though literature never does, one could call arranged marriage a rule of guardians 139 or of parental authority or an aristocratic marital system. 140 In such a system ‘rulership should be entrusted to a minority of persons who are specially qualified to govern by reason of their superior knowledge and virtue’. 141 The entrusted uphold community values, such as ‘altruism, sacrifice, love … order, security, loyalty, duty’. 142 They govern as guardians, as figures of authority. 143 Traditionally, elders are the entrusted ones. 144 And the young honour their authority. 145 The arranged marriage of Manju and Jagdesh, both from Indian middle class families, offers a good example of these notions. 146 Manju, twenty-one years old at the time and Jagdesh, twenty three, were ‘both told that they would be a good match and should marry’ and soon after their agreement, the marriage took place. 147 Or the case of Saima, a 20-year old student who says that ‘my parents will obviously find the guy for me … I trust them for it … If they come out with a decent guy and say we’d like you to marry him, I’d say yes … ’. 148 In both examples parental authority occupies a central role in match making.

A. But what exactly is authority?

‘The need for authority is basic. Children need authorities to guide and reassure them. Adults fulfil an essential part of themselves in being authorities; it is one way of expressing care for others.’ 151

‘Deeply embedded in social functions, an inalienable part of the inner order of family … ritualized at every turn, authority is so closely woven into the fabric of tradition and morality … ’. 162 As such, traditional authority is embedded in arranged marriage cultures. It ‘roots in the belief that it is ancient’. 163 In arranged marriage cultures traditionally there is trust in parental leadership. 164 One is assured that parents know what is best for their child, as they know their child, sometimes even better than the child knows itself—they see through them. 165 This inspires obedience. 166

Parental authority is a necessary component in arranged marriage systems. Marriage affects a whole family’s stability and future, so marriage choices need to be supervised. 167 The young, inexperienced and not yet wise, are traditionally not considered well trained for this task, as they may be misguided by love. 168 So, arranged marriage societies isolate the young from potential mates. 169 In addition, social control, typical for group cultures, is applied to guard behaviour. 170 Young people can easily fall prey to romantic and sexual behaviour considered disruptive to the dignity and order of the family. 171 Here then arises the necessity for elders to authorize rational mate selection. 172 Of course, this does not exclude that young people may step out of their role. If they do, shame and dishonour may be brought to the family. 173 Such youngsters are considered deviants who must be blamed, heavily punished or re-educated. 174 As such being nourished by parental authority offers security, 175 and enables moral life. 176

4. Studying Arranged Marriage Practices

The idealized typology of the arranged marriage, as a Weberian theoretical construct, demonstrates that, at the outset, arranged marriage systems are traditionally systems of community, hierarchy, guardianship, and authority. So described, the arranged marriage finds its rationality in a system that safeguards mate selection by placing this under the guardianship and authority of elders of the (extended) families of both marital agents with the aim to align both families in a durable relational bond, that strengthens its economic and societal standing, and that allows for a legitimate space and belonging for the conjugal union.

This typology is an ideal construct, in the same way the autonomous marriage is also an ideal construct. Borrowing then from William Goode who arrived at an ideal type of the conjugal family, which was also seen as an ideal , the arranged marriage as typified above is also seen as an ideal in that a ‘number of people view some of its characteristics as proper and legitimate, no matter that reality may run counter to the ideal’. 177 Elders in arranged marriage contexts all around the world consider it an ideal to take upon themselves the role of proper guardians and authorities in marriage arranging, and children, in their turn, ideally accept the parental choice, understanding that this is wisely made, that it gains its majesty in legitimate authority. All around the world, this ideal is an inspirational reference point in arranged marriage cultures.

This said, of course reality does not always represent the ideal portrayed, however inspirational. Still, the value of the ideal and the ideal type remain: this construct, even if it is an utopia, is necessary as it provides a neutral and unbiased understanding of the arranged marriage, one that is detached from a restrictive binary approach that others the arranged marriage. The ideal construct serves also as a measuring rod to study the reality of arranged marriage practices that depart from that construct. It ‘[p]rovides the basic method of comparative study’. 178

Taking a look then into these realities, one will find that, for one, elders are not always capable of arranging marriages well. ‘The notion that parents will always act in the child’s best interests is … based on an idealized interpretation of the parent/child relationship and assumes that adults will be altruistic whenever they relate to children with love, care and empathy.’ 179 Elders may not always understand what guardianship truly entails. They may confuse parental authority with the exercise of parental power, force even.

In addition, elders continuously share marriage arranging duties with their children, as the variety of semi-arranged marriage types suggest. These hybrid arranged marriage types are expressions of transformations of marital agents’ role in exercising self-determination and self-realization in marriage matters. They also reflect the changes in traditional parenthood: where once it was the elders who decided for the collective, this is now scrutinized by marital agents’ desires for freedom to (also) decide. In the words of Aguiar ‘arranged marriage has become the locus of a set of liberal and communitarian discourses that articulate competing visions of individual and collective agency’. 180 This does not always run smoothly. Elders may not always believe that transitions towards freedom and individualism are proper. Families often act as buffers against ‘too much’ individualism that is perceived as an isolating and alienating force that disrupts family cohesion and hinders traditions to be passed on from generation to generation. Many, in arranged marriage cultures, parents as well as young people, are grappling with the blended agendas of the liberal and communitarian, of the individual and the collective that are shaping arranged marriage realities. A very sensitive portrayal of an intergenerational struggle in this regard can be seen in the drama film A Fond Kiss : protagonist Casim, son of Pakistani Muslim immigrants to the UK, asks his parents to accept his love choice for Roisin, a Catholic divorcee. In their turn, his parents, emotionally destroyed and shamed by Casim’s desires, plead to their son to accept an arranged marriage to his cousin Yasmin. This Casim refuses and the family breaks up. 181

As indicated earlier, the tendency is to view such realities from a Eurocentric lens, that prizes liberalism and equality, and that advocates the individual’s rise from traditional structures as a marker of sovereignty, supported by contract, geared towards independence and freedom from authority. 182

Again, such views monopolize examination of arranged marriage, are biased, ‘culturally-determined’ and entrenched in ‘limited historical perspectives’. 183 ‘Many people in this world have registers of well-being that are not the same as degrees of freedom, measures such as duty, devotion and responsibility.’ 184 Many people do not value, experience, nor desire full independence from parental authority.

Hybrid arranged marriages are in a sense partly separated from and partly belonging to traditional as well as liberal structures. It is vital to represent and express belonging to these traditional structures in the discourse on arranged marriage. It is important to acknowledge notions of guardianship, authority, and community when one measures change and modernization in arranged marriage realities, but also when one measures distancing from that very modernization in efforts to hold on to traditions.

The current tendency, when marital agents demand a stronger role in mate selection, is to capture this in a language of freedoms, control, agency and the rising individual. This language presupposes that marital agents’ main aim is to free oneself, become independent and ultimately exit the arranged marriage system. 185 It presupposes too that marital agents are very capable of acting independently of their parents. The fact of the matter is, that many marital agents are deeply connected to a system of parental guardianship and authority, they are hierarchically interdependent with family, they cherish strong belonging to their community and understand family cohesion as a necessary component of their family’s well-being in which their well-being is integrated. Marital agents granted or demanding a role in match making, challenge in essence (part of) the authority of parents, but do not act as fully atomistic units. When parents allow their child to jointly decide with them on marriage matters, this is articulated in literature mostly as a step that invests power in the child. However, this ought to also be valued as a sharing of parental authority or guardianship with the child. Adding authority and guardianship to the conversation on the arranged marriage gives rise to a language that relates to and represents community. For instance, why do some parents share their authority, why do others not? It might be possible that some parents deem their children disciplined enough to select wisely, pointing to the principle that ‘discipline is authority in operation?’ 186 It might be that some parents believe that their children can act as their own guardians, partly or in full, given that these children are educated and skilled in ways the elders are not? Might it be that in diaspora contexts elders are searching for new meaning to traditional concepts such as authority and guardianship and need a language to cope with this hybrid dynamic rather than a language that calls upon their children to exit anything traditional? Asking and addressing such questions will contribute to a discourse on arranged marriage that respects the very foundations it is built upon. It is knowledge about these foundations that is pivotal if we wish to understand the arranged marriage proper and change in that domain.

This article argued for a full renunciation of the binary approach adopted in literature in studying arranged marriage. In the binary approach, the arranged marriage emerges as a lesser conjugal union in comparison to the ideal and prized autonomous conjugal union. Recognizing that the arranged marriage must be valued on its own merits, this article sought for an ideal typical construct of the arranged marriage, as a neutral departure point in a study of this marital system and as a tool to explore arranged marriage realities. The arranged marriage is fundamentally rooted in the sociological principles of collective belonging, parental guardianship and the protective, provident authority of elders in match making. This article calls for a fresh discourse on arranged marriage and changing arranged marriage patterns that reflect these principles in order to arrive at a much needed and understudied fuller appreciation and conversation of a marital system that engages hundreds of millions.

In order to be as impartial as humanly possible, this article does not offer personal opinions on or preferences for the arranged or the autonomous marriage. It is of fundamental importance that any scholar on the arranged marriage system (and many other subjects for that matter) is an unbiased scholar or at least strives to be. Neither advocacy of nor opposition to the arranged marriage, and neither advocacy of nor opposition to the autonomous marriage should enter a scholar’s theories and findings. A scholar’s role is not to express any preference for either system, it is not to value one system as better than the other, it is to become independent from any prejudice of one over the other

This article is based on, The Arranged Marriage – Changing Perspectives on a Marital Institution (Unpublished Dissertation Utrecht University) Utrecht, 2019.

Authors referring to this binary are eg F. Shariff, ‘Towards a Transformative Paradigm in the UK Response to Forced Marriages’ (2012) 21 (4) Social and Legal Studies 549–65; M. Aguiar, Arranging Marriage, Conjugal Agency in The South Asian Diaspora (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018); R. Pande, ‘Geographies of Marriage and Migration: Arranged Marriages and South Asians in Britain’ (2014) 8 (2) Geography Compass 75–86; S. Anitha and A. Gill, ‘Coercion, Consent and the Forced Marriage Debate in the UK’ (2009) 17 Feminist Legal Studies 165–84; M. Khandelwal, ‘Arranging Love: Interrogating the Vantage Point in Cross-Border Feminism’ (2009) 34 (3) Signs 583–609; F. Ahmad, ‘Graduating Towards Marriage? Attitudes Towards Marriage and Relationships among University-educated British Muslim Women’ (2012) 13 Culture and Religion 193–210.

M. Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschafslehre (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1988) p. 191.

Notably, H. Arendt, Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin Books, 1977); M. Douglas, ‘Cultural Bias’ in M. Douglas (ed.), The Active Voice (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982), as referred to by Thompson et al., Cultural Theory (Boulder, San Francisco: Westview Press, 1990); Thompson et al. ibid; M. Douglas, Risk and Blame (London, New York: Routledge, 1992); R.A. Dahl, Democracy and its Critics (New Have: Yale University, 1989); L. Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); R.A. Nisbet, The Quest for Community (California: ICS Press, 1990); R.A. Nisbet, The Sociological Tradition (London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1966); R. Sennett, Authority (New York: W.W. Norton, 1980).

For origins of the term ‘arranged marriage’ see Aguiar (n 1) 14.

‘Autonomous marriage’ is used in I.L. Reiss, Family Systems in America (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976) as referred to by G.R. Lee and L. Hemphill Stone, ‘Mate-Selection Systems and Criteria: Variation according to Family Structure’ (1980) 42 (2) Journal of Marriage and Family 319–26, 319.

Anitha and Gill (n 1); Shariff (n 1); Aguiar (n 1); Pande (n 1); Khandelwal (n 1).

Shariff (n 1) 556, on binary between consent and coercion.

Compare Ahmad (n 1) 194; see also Pande (n 1) 82; see also Aguiar (n 1) 14.

Nisbet 1990 (n 4) pp. 3–4; A.J. Cherlin, ‘Goode's “World Revolution and Family Patterns”: A Reconsideration at Fifty Years’ (2012) 38 (4) Population and Development Review 577–607, 580, 581; see for progress towards the atomistic family C.C. Zimmerman, Family and Civilization (Wilmington Delaware: ISI Books, 2008) pp. 124, 247–49; in general on progress see J.B. Bury, The Idea of Progress (New York: Cosimo Classics, 2008); R.A. Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress (New York: Basic Book, Inc. Publishers, 1980); see also Arendt (n 4) 100, 101 on progress theory.

See S. Coontz, Marriage, a History, How Love Conquered Marriage (New York: Penguin Group, 2005) p. 25; See for more on this evolution J. Witte Jr., From Sacrament to Contract , Marriage, Religion, and Law in the Western Tradition (Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) pp. 194–215.

X. Xiaohe and M. King Whyte, ‘Love Matches and Arranged Marriages: A Chinese Replication’ (1990) 52 (3) Journal of Marriage and the Family 709–22, 709.

See for these terms W.J. Goode, World Revolution and Family Patterns (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1970) p. 1, and Zimmerman (n 10) pp. 30–36.

A. Thornton, Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and the Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), as referred to by Cherlin (n 10) 581; see also, K. Allendorf and R.K. Pandian, ‘The Decline of Arranged Marriage? Marital Change and Continuity in India’ (2016) 42 (3) Population and Development Review 435–464, 435.

Cherlin (n 10) 581.

Allendorf and Pandian (n 14) 435.

Thornton (n 14), as referred to by Cherlin (n 10) 593.

Cherlin (n 10) 594.

On the ‘convergence theory’, see Goode (n 13) and Cherlin (n 10); on ‘developmental paradigm’ see Thorntan (n 14) as referred to by Cherlin (n 10) 581; see also A. Shaw, A Pakistani Community in Britain (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988) pp. 2, 3 on the expected disappearance of Pakistani migrants’ culture.

M. Enright, ‘Choice, Culture and the Politics of Belonging: The Emerging Law of Forced and Arranged Marriage’ (2009) 72 (3) The Modern Law Review 331–59, 338.

R. Pande, ‘Becoming Modern: British-Indian Discourses of Arranged Marriages’ (2016) 17 (3) Social & Cultural Geography 380–400, 384; see on consequence of ‘othering’ of migrants, Pande (n 1) 75; Shariff (n 1) 562.

E. Said, Orientalism (New York: Penguin, 1978) as referred to by S.R. Moosavinia et al, ‘Edward Said’s Orientalism and the Study of the Self and the Other in Orwell’s Burmese Days’ (2011) 2 (1) Studies in Literature and Language 103–13, 104.

Pande (n 21) 384.

Moosavinia et al, (n 22) 104; Said (n 22).

P.J. Gagoomal, ‘A “Margin of Appreciation” for “Marriages of Appreciation”: Reconciling South Asian Adult Arranged Marriages with the Matrimonial Consent Requirement in International Human Rights Law’ (2009) 97 The Georgetown Law Journal 589–620, 601; compare Shariff (n 1) 557.

E.g.: ‘I fled in just the clothes I was wearing’: How one Muslim woman escaped arranged marriage, Mirror , 17 September 2012; L. Harding, ‘Student Saved from Arranged Marriage’, The Guardian , 14 March 2000, as referred to by R. Penn, ‘Arranged Marriages in Western Europe: Media Representations and Social Reality’ (2011) 42 (5) Journal of Comparative Family Studies 637–50, 639, for more examples, see 639–41; see also Aguiar (n 1) 11, 12.

Enright (n 20) 332; Shariff (n 1) 557; Anitha and Gill (n 1) 171; G. Gangoli et al, Forced Marriage and Domestic Violence among South Asian Communities in North East England (Bristol: University of Bristol, Northern Rock Foundation, 2006), as referred to by Anitha and Gill (n 1) 167.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), G.A. Res. 217A, (III), U.N. Doc A/810, 10 December 1948, Article 16 (2); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), GA. Res. 2200A (XXI), 16 December 1966, Article 23 (3); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 16 December 1966, Article 10 (1).

Aguiar (n 1) 11–13, see also Anitha and Gill (n 1); Shariff (n 1).

Aguiar (n 1) 11, 67.

Anitha and Gill (n 1); Aguiar (n 1) 67.

Anitha and Gill (n 1); Aguiar (n 1) 13, 14; Shariff (n 1).

Enright (n 20) 338.

UDHR (n 28); ICCPR (n 28); ICESCR (n 28).

Aguiar (n 1) 13.

Gagoomal (n 25) 611.

R.W. Hodge and N. Ogawa, ‘Arranged Marriages, Assortative Mating and Achievement in Japan,’ in Nihon University Population Research Institute, Research Paper, Series No. 1986, as referred to by Gagoomal (n 25) 601.

Shariff (n 1) 562; see also Anitha and Gill.

Shariff (n 1) 557.

Aguiar (n 1) 67; see also Anitha and Gill (n 1) 171.

Anitha and Gill (n 1) 171.

Anitha and Gill (n 1) 171; see also Thompson et al, (n 4) 7 on the ‘individualistic social context’.

See for a slightly different categorization R.B. Qureshi, ‘Marriage Strategies among Muslims from South Asia’ 1991 10 (3) The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences , as referred to by A.U. Zaidi and M. Shuraydi, ‘Perceptions of Arranged Marriages by Young Pakistani Muslim Women Living in a Western Society’ 2002 33 (4) Journal of Comparative Family Studies 495–514, 496.

Qureshi (n 43) as referred to by Zaidi and Shuraydi (n 43) 496; Gagoomal (n 25) 592; Cherlin (n 10) 589; see also for modified traditional types, Shariff (n 1) 558; H. Siddiqui, ‘Review: Winning Freedoms’ (1991) 37 Feminist Review 78, 81, as referred to by Enright (n 20) 340, ft 45; see also R. Pande, ‘I Arranged my Own Marriage': Arranged Marriages and Post-colonial Feminism’ (2015) 22 (2) Gender, Place & Culture 172–87, 175; S.P. Wakil et al, ‘Between Two Cultures: A Study in Socialization of Children of Immigrants’ (1981) 43 (4) Journal of Marriage and Family 929–40, 935; see also Ahmad (n 1).

Qureshi (n 43), as referred to by Zaidi and Shuraydi (n 43) 496; S.A. Patel, An Exploratory Study of Arranged-Love Marriage in Couples From Collective Cultures (Dissertation Northern Illinois University, Ann Arbor: ProQuest LLC) 2016, 10; J. Kapur, ‘An Arranged Love Marriage: India’s Neoliberal turn and the Bollywood Wedding Culture Industry’ (2009) 2 Communication, Culture, and Critique 221–33, as referred to by Patel 10; Cherlin (n 10) 590; Shariff (n 1) 558.

Shariff (n 1) 558; S. Seymour, Women, Family, and Child Care in India: A World in Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) p. 212, as referred to by Kandelwal (n 1) 595; K. Kezuka, ‘Late Marriage and Transition from Arranged Marriages to Love Matches: A Search-theoretic Approach’ 2018 42 (2) The Journal of Mathematical Sociology 237–56, 237; N.D. Manglos-Weber and A.A. Weinreb, ‘Own-Choice Marriage and Fertility in Turkey’ (2017) 79 (2) Journal of Marriage and Family 372–89, 373; Pande (n 21) 389.

Shariff (n 1) 558, who refers to M. Stopes-Roe and R. Cochrane, Citizens of this Country: The Asian-British (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 1990).

Ahmad (n 1) 195, 200; M.J. Bhatti, Questioning Empowerment: Pakistani Women, Higher Education & Marriage (Dissertation University at Buffalo, State University of New York, 2013) 153.

R. Huch, ‘Romantic Marriage’, in H. Keyserling ed., The Book of Marriage: A New Interpretation by Twenty-four Leaders of Contemporary thought (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1926) pp. 168, 177, as referred to by Gagoomal (n 25) 607/n 112.

S. Davé, ‘Matchmakers and Cultural Compatibility: Arranged Marriage, South Asians, and American television’ (2012) 10 (2) South Asian Popular Culture 167–83, 168.

F.B. Ternikar, Revisioning the Ethnic Family: An Analysis of Marriage Patterns Among Hindu, Muslim, and Christian South Asian Immigrants (Dissertation, Chicago, Illinois, August 2004) 41.

Ahmad (n 1) 206, see also 207.

See among others Ahmad (n 1) and Aguiar (n 1).

Enright (n 20) 331, italics added.

Pande (n 21) 384, italics added, referring to the Oxford English Dictionary.

K. Charsley and A. Shaw, ‘South Asian Transnational Marriages in Comparative Perspective’ (2006) 6 (4) Global Networks 331–44, 335; Zaidi and Shuraydi (n 43) 496.

Zaidi and Shuraydi (n 43) 496; see also Penn (n 26) 637.

Zaidi and Shuraydi (n 43), 496 (italics omitted).

D. Riesman et al, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the American Changing Character (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961) p. 17.

A. Shaw, ‘Kinship, Cultural Preference and Immigration: Consanguineous Marriage Among British Pakistanis’ (2001) 7 (2) Royal Anthropological Institute 315–34, 323.

G.W. Jones, Changing Marriage Patterns in Asia (Working Paper, Asia Research Institute, Series 131, 2010) 4.

P. Wood, ‘Marriage and Social Boundaries among British Pakistanis’ (2011) 20 (1) Diaspora 40–64, 41.

Ahmad (n 1) 200.

Charsley and Shaw (n 56) 338; Khandelwal (n 1).

Davé (n 50) 167, 168.

Charsley and Shaw (n 56) 338.

M. Aguiar, ‘Cultural Regeneration in Transnational South-Asian Popular Culture’ (2013) 84 Cultural Critique (2013) 181–214, 183.

Aguiar (n 1) 7.

A. Patel, ‘Marriage, then Love — Why Arranged Marriages Still Work Today,’ Global News , 26 July 2018.

K. Qureshi et al, ‘Marital Instability among British Pakistanis: Transnationality, Conjugalities and Islam’ (2014) 37 (2) Ethnic and Racial Studies 261–79, 276.

Pande (n 1) 75; for more on this love see K. Bejanyan et al, ‘Associations of Collectivism with Relationship Commitment, Passion, and Mate Preferences: Opposing Roles of Parental Influence and Family Allocentrism’ (2015) 10 (2) PLoS ONE 1–24, 3; Goode (n 13) 9, 12; Coontz (n 11) 149; Compare Zimmerman (n 10) 39.

R.A. Nisbet, Twilight of Authority (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc. 2000) 235.

C.S. Lewis, ‘The Four Loves’ in C.S. Lewis (ed.), Selected Books (London: Harper Collins, 1999) pp. 5, 15.

A. de Tocqueville, La Démocratie en Amérique (Paris: Gallimard, 1961, 2 vols.), English Translation by H. Reeve: Democracy in America (London: 1875) as referred to by Dumont (n 4) 17.

Compare the ideal type of the conjugal family, Goode (n 13) 7.

Weber (n 3) 191, translation by H. Ross, Law as a Social Institution (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2001) p. 34.

L.A. Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977) p. 223.

Compare Goode (n 13) 7.

Khandelwal (n 1) 584, 586, 605.

Ahmad (n 1) p. 194; Pande (n 21) p. 384; see also R. Mohammad, ‘Transnational Shift: Marriage, Home and belonging for British-Pakistani Muslim Women’ (2015) 16 (6) Social & Cultural Geography 593–614, 596.

Pande (n 44) 172, 183; Pande (n 21) 384.

Khandelwal (n 1); Ahmad (n 1); Pande (n 1); Mohammad (n 83); Pande (n 44) 181.

S.J. Hekman, Weber, the Ideal Type, and Contemporary Social Theory (New York: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983) p. 20.

For existing analyses on the topic, see Goode (n 13); D. Mace and V. Mace, Marriage East and West (London: Macgibbon and Kee, 1960); for marriages and caste in India, see Dumont (n 4); for Pakistani immigrants in Oxford and arranged marriages, see Shaw (n 19); see also Pande (n 45); Ahmad (n 1); Aguiar (n 1).

Thompson et al (n 4) 1.

See e.g. Aguiar (n 1) 15, 25, 139–44; G.L. Fox, ‘Love Match and Arranged Marriage in a Modernizing Nation: Mate Selection in Ankara, Turkey’ (1975) 37 (1) Journal of Marriage and Family 180–93, 181; Lee and Stone (n 6) 320; Kezuka (n 46).

Lee and Stone (n 6) 320: see also Mate selection theories, Encyclopaedia of Sociology, The Gale Group Inc., Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/mateselection-theories (last visited 14 July 2019).

Shaw (n 60) 325.

See eg Goode (n 13) pp. 240, 241; R.O. Blood, The Family (New York: Free Press, 1972) pp. 293–96, as referred to by Fox (n 89) 187.

A. Shaw, ‘Drivers of Cousin Marriage among British Pakistanis’ (2014) 77 Human Heredity 26–36, 31.

Fox (n 89) 181.

Shaw (n 93) 31.

See also Fox (n 89) 181; Lee and Stone (n 6) 320.

Gagoomal (n 25) 611; Lewis (n 74) 5, 15 in general on gift-love.

Thompson et al. (n 4) 6, referring to the grid-group analysis.

Tocqueville vol 2 (n 76) 90–92, as referred to by Dumont (n 4) 17; Shaw (n 19) 6.

Riesman et al (n 59) 17.

Dumont (n 4) 7.

Shaw (n 19) 6, referring to immigrant Pakistanis.

Lee and Stone (n 6) 320.

Pande (n 44) 177.

Lee and Stone (n 6) 320 see also Fox (n 89) 181.

See for various examples Gagoomal (n 25) 615, 617, 618.

G.P. Monger, Marriage Customs of the World: From Henna to Honeymoon (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2004) 13.

Dumont (n 4) 2, 239, 19, 20; Nisbet (n 73) 217.

Jones (n 62) 4; Wood (n 63) 40–64, 41.

P. Crone, Pre-Industrial Societies (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2003) p. 99; Dumont (n 3) 19.

Dumont (n 4) 19.

Ibid., 17, 2.

Compare Crone (n 111) p. 104 on an organic view of society.

Nisbet (n 73) 217.

Dumont (n 4) 66, 240, 243, 244; Crone (n 111) pp. 99, 107; Thompson et al (n 4) 59.

Dumont (n 4) 66.

Thompson et al (n 4) 6.

Ibid., (n 4) 6.

T. Parsons, ‘A Revised Analytical Approach to the Theory of Social Stratification’ in R. Bendix et al (eds.), Class, Status and Power (London: Glencoe, 1954), as referred to by Dumont (n 4) 19.

Thompson et al (n 4) 6; Dumont (n 4) 17–19; see in general on guardianship Dahl (n 4) 52–64, 73.

Parsons (n 121), as referred to by Dumont (n 4) 19, see also 239, 240.

Dahl (n 4) 52.

Monger (n 108) 13.

Crone (n 111) p. 105, who refers to pre-industrial societies and hierarchy.

Dumont (n 4) 18.

M. Shams Uddin, ‘Arranged Marriage: A Dilemma for Young British Asians’ (2006) 3 Diversity in Health and Social Care 211–19, 211; F.M. Critelli, ‘Between Law and Custom: Women, Family Law and Marriage in Pakistan’ (2012) 43 (5) Journal of Comparative Family Studies 673–93, 677; Fox (n 90) 186,181.

Shaw (n 60) 324.

Shams Uddin (n 129) 211.

G.R. Quale, ‘A history of marriage systems’ in Contributions in Family Studie s, Issue 13 (Westport, US: Greenwood press, 1988) 2.

Tocqueville II (n 76), as referred to by Dumont (n 4) 18; see also Sennett (n 4) 126.

Ahmad (n 1) 201; in a similar vein see Mohammad (n 83) 603; see also Wakil et al (n 44) 936 on this responsibility.

Tocqueville II (n 76), as referred to by Dumont (n 4) 18, 17.

A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America II (London: Everyman’s Library, 1994) 196.

Arendt (n 4) 93.

On guardianship see Dahl (n 4) 52.

On aristocracy see Tocqueville II (n 76), see Dumont (n 4) p. 18.

See for an explanation on tradition and authority, M. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization , A.M. Henderson and T. Parsons (trans.), T. Parsons (ed.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947) 341, as referred to by Nisbet 1966 (n 4) 142.

Compare Pande (n 44) 177; Shams Uddin (n 129) 211; Ahmad (n 1) 201 on trust and respect for parents.

Gagoomal (n 25) 589, 590.

Ibid., 590.

Ahmad (n 1) 201.

Arendt (n 4) 92.

Sennett (n 4) 15; see also Arendt (n 4) 92.

Weber (n 144) 341, as referred to by Nisbet 1966 (n 4) 142; Zimmerman (n 10) 215.

Zimmerman (n 10) 215.

Arendt (n 4) 93, 103.

Sennett (n 4) 18; Arendt (n 4) 93.

Sennett (n 4) 15–22.

Sennett (n 4) 16.

Arendt (n 4) 111; Weber, as referred to by Sennet (n 4) 22.

Weber, without further reference, as referred to by Sennett (n 4) 22.

Derived from Sennett (n 4) 19.

Nisbet 1966 (n 4) 107, 108.

Ibid., 142.

Shams Uddin (n 129) 211: Ahmad (n 3) 201.

MTV Documentary, True Life: I'm Having an Arranged Marriage , 2007, as referred to by Gagoomal (n 25) 617; Pande (n 21) 387; Gagoomal (n 25) 615; see also Sennett (n 4) 17 on a conductor that sees through members of the orchestra.

Sennett (n 4) 17.

Lee and Stone (n 6) 320; Fox (n 89) 181.

See W.J. Goode, ‘The Theoretical Importance of Love’ (1959) 24 (1) American Sociological Review 38–47, 43–46; compare also Bejanyan et al (n 72) 3.

Goode (n 168) 43; H. Papanek, ‘Purdah in Pakistan: Seclusion and Modern Occupations for Women’ (1971) 33 (3) Journal of Marriage and Family 517–30, 520.

Goode (n 168) 43; Thompson et al (n 4) 6; Shams Uddin (n 129) 212.

See for more Bejanyan et al (n 72) 3.

Goode (n 168) 43; Papanek (n 169) 520.

F. Bari, Country briefing paper: Women in Pakistan, Asian Development Bank July 2000. http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Country_Briefing_Papers/Women in Pakistan , as referred to by Critelli (n 129) 677; Shaw (n 60) 330; see also Riesman et al (n 59) 24.

Thompson et al (n 4) 59; see also in general on shame, N.P. Gilani, ‘Conflict Management of Mothers and Daughters Belonging to Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultural Backgrounds: A Comparative Study’ 1999 22 Journal of Adolescence 853–65, 854, 855; Riesman et al (n 59) 24.

A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America II , 298, 303, as referred to by Nisbet 1966 (n 4) 114.

Nisbet 1966 (n 4) 151.

Goode (n 13) 7.

Coser (n 80) 223.

C. Breen, Age Discrimination and Children’s Rights. Ensuring Equality and Acknowledging Difference (Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2006) as referred to by A. van Coller, ‘Child Marriage – Acceptance by Association’ (2017) 31 International Journal of Law, Policy and The Family 363–76, 369.

Aguiar (n 1) 215.

Film A Fond Kiss , Ken Loach 2004; see also the Film What Will People Say , Iram Haq 2017 on a similar intergenerational struggle between an immigrant Pakistani father and his daughter in Sweden.

Derived from Nisbet 1966 (n 4) 116.

Moosavinia et al (n 22) 104; Said (n 22).

S. Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), as referred to by Aguiar (n 1) 219.

For more on this exit see Anitha and Gill (n 3) 176–80; Shariff (n 3) 550, 551, 553, 561, 562.

Nisbet 1966 (n 4) 150.

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125 Arranged Marriage Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Arranged marriages have been a longstanding tradition in many cultures around the world. While the practice may seem unconventional to some, it continues to be a prevalent way of finding a life partner in various societies. If you are tasked with writing an essay on arranged marriages, you may find it challenging to come up with a compelling topic. To assist you in this endeavor, we have compiled a list of 125 arranged marriage essay topic ideas and examples. Whether you are in favor of this practice or wish to explore its drawbacks, this comprehensive list will provide you with a plethora of options to choose from.

• The history and evolution of arranged marriages.
• Analyzing the reasons behind the persistence of arranged marriages.
• Cultural differences in arranged marriages: A comparative analysis.
• The impact of arranged marriages on gender equality.
• The role of religion in arranged marriages.
• Exploring the psychological effects of arranged marriages on individuals.
• Love vs. arranged marriages: Which is more successful?
• The changing dynamics of arranged marriages in modern society.
• Arranged marriages and family dynamics: A closer look.
• The ethical implications of arranged marriages.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health.
• Arranged marriages and societal expectations: A complex relationship.
• The role of parental involvement in arranged marriages.
• Arranged marriages and marital satisfaction: Are they correlated?
• The influence of arranged marriages on family bonds.
• Arranged marriages in Western societies: Cultural appropriation or acceptance?
• The role of love in arranged marriages.
• Arranged marriages and divorce rates: Is there a connection?
• The consequences of refusing an arranged marriage.
• The impact of arranged marriages on children's well-being.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of consent.
• The influence of arranged marriages on economic stability.
• The changing perceptions of arranged marriages in younger generations.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in LGBTQ+ individuals.
• Arranged marriages and domestic violence: Is there a link?
• The role of caste and class in arranged marriages.
• Arranged marriages and societal pressure: An in-depth analysis.
• The influence of arranged marriages on marital longevity.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of romantic love.
• The impact of arranged marriages on individual autonomy.
• Arranged marriages and dowry system: A critical examination.
• The influence of arranged marriages on career choices.
• Arranged marriages and cultural preservation: A symbiotic relationship.
• The role of matchmaking agencies in arranged marriages.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in immigrant populations.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of marital bliss.
• The influence of arranged marriages on sexual satisfaction.
• Arranged marriages and intergenerational conflicts.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with disabilities.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of love at first sight.
• The influence of arranged marriages on reproductive choices.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of personal happiness.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with mental illnesses.
• Arranged marriages and the role of extended family in decision-making.
• The influence of arranged marriages on educational attainment.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of marital compromise.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with chronic illnesses.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of loyalty.
• The influence of arranged marriages on cross-cultural understanding.
• Arranged marriages and the impact on future generations.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in survivors of abuse.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of sacrifice.
• The influence of arranged marriages on language preservation.
• Arranged marriages and the role of astrology in partner selection.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with addiction.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of shared values.
• The influence of arranged marriages on political alliances.
• Arranged marriages and the impact on mental health in individuals from different religious backgrounds.
• The role of arranged marriages in reducing divorce rates.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with body image issues.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of companionship.
• The influence of arranged marriages on cultural assimilation.
• Arranged marriages and the impact on mental health in individuals with eating disorders.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of compromise.
• The role of arranged marriages in preserving cultural traditions.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with anxiety disorders.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of shared responsibilities.
• The influence of arranged marriages on interracial relationships.
• Arranged marriages and the impact on mental health in individuals with depression.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of family loyalty.
• The role of arranged marriages in maintaining social order.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of personal growth.
• The influence of arranged marriages on migration patterns.
• Arranged marriages and the impact on mental health in individuals with phobias.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of trust.
• The role of arranged marriages in preventing social isolation.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with personality disorders.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of shared aspirations.
• The influence of arranged marriages on cultural identity.
• Arranged marriages and the impact on mental health in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of resilience.
• The role of arranged marriages in maintaining familial harmony.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of compromise in decision-making.
• The influence of arranged marriages on language preservation in immigrant communities.
• Arranged marriages and the impact on mental health in individuals with bipolar disorder.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of emotional support.
• The role of arranged marriages in preventing social exclusion.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with schizophrenia.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of shared values in parenting.
• The influence of arranged marriages on cultural assimilation in diaspora communities.
• Arranged marriages and the impact on mental health in individuals with substance abuse disorders.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of intergenerational understanding.
• The role of arranged marriages in preserving cultural heritage.
• The impact of arranged marriages on mental health in individuals with eating disorders.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of companionship in later life.
• The influence of arranged marriages on interracial relationships in multicultural societies.
• Arranged marriages and the impact on mental health in individuals with anxiety disorders.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of family loyalty in blended families.
• The role of arranged marriages in maintaining social order in diverse communities.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of personal growth in long-term relationships.
• The influence of arranged marriages on migration patterns in transnational marriages.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of trust in long-distance relationships.
• The role of arranged marriages in preventing social isolation among immigrant communities.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of shared aspirations in career choices.
• The influence of arranged marriages on cultural identity in multicultural societies.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of resilience in overcoming challenges.
• The role of arranged marriages in maintaining familial harmony in extended families.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of compromise in decision-making within relationships.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of emotional support in long-term partnerships.
• The role of arranged marriages in preventing social exclusion in diaspora communities.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of shared values in parenting across cultures.
• Arranged marriages and the concept of intergenerational understanding in family dynamics.
• The role of arranged marriages in preserving cultural heritage in multicultural societies.

This extensive list of arranged marriage essay topics provides you with a wide range of options to explore this complex and multifaceted subject. Whether you want to delve into the psychological effects, cultural implications, or societal expectations surrounding arranged marriages, these topics will surely inspire you to write an engaging and thought-provoking essay. Remember to choose a topic that resonates with your interests and aligns with the purpose of your essay, ensuring an enriching and insightful exploration of arranged marriages.

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Arranged marriage - Essay Samples And Topic Ideas For Free

Arranged marriage refers to marital unions where parties are introduced by family or intermediaries, rather than forming organically through personal relationships. Essays on arranged marriage might explore its prevalence in different cultures, the sociological and psychological implications, or the contrast between arranged and love marriages. Other topics might include the changing attitudes towards arranged marriage, or the impact of modernization and global cultural exchange on this traditional practice. We’ve gathered an extensive assortment of free essay samples on the topic of Arranged Marriage you can find in Papersowl database. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Arranged Marriage Around the World

Can you imagine not having any say in who you marry? Can you imagine your parents, another family member, or depending on the culture, a matchmaker choosing the person that you spend the rest of your life with? This is called arranged marriage, or a marriage planned and agreed to by the families or guardians of the bride and groom. These young people have little or no say in the matter themselves. Arranged marriages normally happen depending on a person's […]

All Aspects of Arranged Marriage

Marriage: a formal union by which two people make their personal relationship public as a couple. The choice of spouse is one of the most important decisions most people ever make. In Western societies, physical attraction and love plays a huge part in who a person decides to spend his/her life with. But in Eastern societies, such as India, and in some parts of Africa, the bride and groom have little to say in the matter because the marriage is […]

Gender Inequality: Causes and Impacts

Gender Equality is “A state of having same rights, status and opportunities like others, regardless of one’s gender.” Gender inequality is “unequal treatment or perception of an individual based on their gender.” In the United States of America Gender Equality has progressed through the past decades. Due to different Cultural context, countries around the world lack Gender Equality. Gender inequality remains a issue worldwide, mainly in the Middle East and North Africa. Equality of Gender is normalized in the United […]

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Love Marriage and Arranged Marriage: from Business to Affection

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice provide a thought-provoking perspective on marriage, suggesting that marriage is a form of business. Since both mediums are mostly about marriage, it is intriguing to wonder whom or what establishes the idea that marriage is not as simple as falling in love and living happily ever after. Although the two mediums are spanned nearly two hundred years apart and the film is a more cultural heavy adaptation of the […]

Arranged Marriages

AGD Marriage is a controversial decision various people get caught up on. There are two different concepts of marriage in the modern world, one being very traditional. The first is having a wedding based on love and emotion. The more traditional one is a marriage arranged by a third party, most commonly the parents. Although an arranged marriage diverges from a marriage based on love, the dominant differences inhere in choosing a potential partner and social inferences. For Indian American […]

Forced Marriage

The result of forced marriages has been traditionally treated with hesitation by governments, for fear of offending cultural sensitive. Many people think forced marriage and arranged marriage the same. But both are not the same . An arranged marriage is performed with the complete and free assent of both parties and is still the chosen practise for numerous individuals all over the world. Forced marriages are a result of social factors, and no major religion within the world advocates forced […]

Old Traditions: Modern-Day Transformations

The ultimate goal of any link between couples is marriage. Various ways are used today for which can be used to help individuals to meet that someone special; whether you meet them on your own, get introduced by friends, through blind dates, or website dating; there is something out there to assist you. But there is an old tradition from the Medieval Era in history that is making its way back into Modern-day society and relationships – arranged marriages. Modern-day […]

Cultural Relativism in an Age of Globalization

After spending an entire life in the U.S. or the relative shelter of Western Europe, perhaps visiting a country where women cannot show their hair in public, drive or own property could come as a shock. In some places, gender differences continue to create deep power rifts, especially where the divides come from religion (Levine & Robbins, 2017). How would a westerner react to what is (from a western perspective) a clear infringement on gender equality and human rights? Culture […]

‘The Big Sick’ Movie Review

The Big Sick is a movie that features culturally specific material that is extremely engaging and interesting. The main character of the film is Kumail, a Pakistani immigrant that lives in Chicago with the rest of his family. This includes his brother and his wife, his father and his mother. It is very important to note that Kumail’s family are all very devoted muslims. They adhere to all of the five pillars and very much expect and believe Kumail is […]

The Idea of Romantic and Marital Relationships

The idea of romantic and marital relationships has changed and evolved over time into a much different concept than it used to be. In the Elizabethan Era, the concept of love and marriage was much different than the typical marriage between two people in today’s age. Not only marriage, but the relationship between a parent and their child has also adapted significantly over time. In the playwright William Shakespeare’s time, fathers chose their daughter’s husband for them. This decision that […]

About Khaled Hosseini’s a Thousand Splendid Suns

Depending on which culture you come from and who you are asking arranged marriages could be seen as just an everyday fact of life or they would even be seen as a blasphemous tradition that should be done away with entirely. In Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns you get a taste for what it is really like for a young woman who is forced into an arranged marriage. The story begins with Mariam, an Afghani woman, remembers her mother […]

Swahili People Group

The people group I decided to chose was the Swahili people group. The Arabic culture has proved to have had the biggest influence in determining Swahili traditions. A major component of the Arabic culture is the Islamic religion. Islamic traditions have been adopted by the Swahili people and take part in almost every aspect of the Swahili tribe’s daily life. It affects the food they eat, the clothes they wear, and their general lifestyle. Swahili children are required to attend […]

A Marriage that Means Nothing but Necessities

Marriages of convenience are undertaken for many other reasons than that of a relationship of love and affection. Instead, the marriages are based upon personal gain for either one or both people in the marriage. In most cases, people typically marry only so one of them can have a visa. Women in poor countries often marry men in exchange for a better life, uprooting themselves and leaving their families, children, and everything they have ever known behind. First, I will […]

Changes in Dating and Courtship Methods in Japan

In the last 100 years, courtship and mate selection in Japan was almost nonexistent as young people relied on arranged marriages. Male and female youths were kept separate and never mingled as opposed to Western countries. Culturally, the morals and manners that were prevalent at that time did not allow young people to engage in a sexual relationship unless they were married. In addition, girls got married to suitors chosen by their parents, and they did not date other men […]

Parents in Indian Family

AGD Many Indians who have traditional parents do not get their say in who they want to marry. The parents are the ones who ultimately decide who will be their child’s husband or wife. BACKGROUND This is how it is in India. While India has culturally and independently changed over the past decades, arranged marriages is something that has not and will likely not change in a long time. THESIS An arranged marriage can be a good for some things, […]

Personal Thoughts about Opportunities

Stated despite being a first generation, Hispanic student, has thrived to do well for school. Did not take any additional courses for boosting test scores (lack of money and knew parents just could not afford). Stated that an arranged marriage between her parents did cause somewhat of a problem to later be created due to religion. Nothing too big which had affected her academic life however. Had received support from both parents. Parents are a chosen love marriage- has 5 siblings […]

Marriage in a World

AGD Blind dates are usually made when someone is setting up two people together and the participants are willing to interact with each other.BKGRD In Eastern societies, blind dates are just step 1 to becoming an arranged married couple. ISSUE Despite the standard of various traditions, arranged marriages tend to display their own pre-eminence and downsides.B1 Some women disagree with this method because they are on the shorter side of the stick.B2 However this may be true, becoming a wife […]

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Arranged Marriages’ Advantages and Disadvantages

Welcome to our argumentative essay sample on arranged marriage: advantages and disadvantages. Here, you’ll find the disadvantages and advantages of arranged marriage, discussion, statistics, and other aspects of the debate.

Arranged Marriage: Essay Introduction

Arranged marriages in the modern society, arranged marriage advantages and disadvantages, advantages of arranged marriages, disadvantages of arranged marriages, arranged marriage: essay conclusion, works cited.

Arranged marriages were very popular in traditional societies across the world. Arranged marriage was considered the best way through which a man or woman of the right age could get the right life partner for the continuity of a given lineage. However, modernization and Westernization have changed this mindset about arranged marriages not only in Western countries but also in various parts of the world.

Inasmuch as arranged marriages are still common all over the world. Many people now prefer selecting their life partners through unarranged processes. The debate about the relevance of arranged marriages is still raging in various societies across the world.

The practice is still common among Muslim communities, but the current generation is very keen on selecting their life partners based on love other than through arranged processes. This does not mean that arranged marriages are non-existence in the modern society. According to Tseng (127), arranged marriages are still common in the current society. The researcher seeks to determine the benefits and shortcomings of having arranged marriages.

Arranged married were very common in past societies. Many factors made arranged marriages to be very important in traditional societies. Entezar (52) gives an example of a typical Muslim society in Saudi Arabia, where arranged marriages were very common in the past.

In this society, morality was highly valued. As children grew up, they had to understand and appreciate their identity. Boys had to grow up knowing that they would be heads of their families and had to work hard towards making their future life as good as they desired. On the other side, girls had to grow up knowing that they were responsible for household chores. They had to know how to prepare their homes and take care of their children.

At the adolescent stage, there were strict rules concerning the manner in which adolescent boys and girls were expected to interact. At this delicate stage of development, boys were not expected to mingle freely with girls (Lamanna and Riedmann 33). This was important because the elders knew that if this happened, then these teenagers might find themselves engaging in irresponsible behavior that may ruin the future of the girls. Society highly cherished the virginity of a woman at marriage, and this was one of the ways of protecting it.

In this kind of social setting, it was very difficult for young adults planning to marry to mingle with the members of the opposite sex so that they could understand each other and determine whether they were in love and could live together. This made it necessary for the parents or the society to arrange the marriages for their children.

With all the experience they had and knowledge about other families, parents could determine the appropriate life partner for their children. In most cases, they would conduct an investigation on the family and the man or woman who is planned to be the life partner of their children.

When they were satisfied, they would inform their children about the intended union. According to Roberts (78), although the two who were to be unionized were given the liberty to give their verdict over the issue, especially the man, they were expected to respect their parents’ opinion. However, rejecting a partner that the parents had approved was considered rude and unethical. For this reason, the parents’ decision would prevail, and the marriage would proceed with the blessings of parents from both sides.

The social structure of many communities around the world is changing very first due to the changes brought about by science and technology. It is common for an Emirati girl to travel to the United Kingdom or the United States at a tender age for further studies. Similarly, people from other parts of the world are flocking to the United Arab Emirates for various reasons, from tourism to trade. For instance, Dubai is currently one of the most diversified cities on earth because of its relevance as a strategic business hub.

As Tseng (43) puts it, the current society is a global village. The emergence of modern technologies and the relevance of the Western education system have redefined the social structure of society not only in the Middle East but also in the entire world. A child does not need to leave Abu Dhabi for the United States in order to be Westernized. The movies they watch and the music they listen to make them question some of the established systems in their traditional setting.

In the current society, it is not possible to prevent close interactions between adolescent girls and boys in Muslim communities. Parents have realized that the best gift they can give to their children is formal education, irrespective of their gender. For this reason, boys and girls will mingle freely at school.

They share classrooms, and sometimes, they are assigned tasks together. According to Lamanna and Riedmann (33), teachers have been forced to bear the pressure from human rights activists who insist on giving both boys and girls equal opportunities at school. This involves treating them equally in every activity, especially at higher levels of learning.

In this highly integrated setting, young adults can get to understand each other. A young man planning to marry should know that different women behave differently. The same case will apply to a woman. She will know the kind of man she would want as a life partner. Entezar (39) calls this liberation. The education system liberates the mind of the younger generation from tight control from their parents.

They can look at the world from their own perspective to determine what they want in life. The main question that many people have been asking is the relevance of arranged marriages in the current liberated society. In the past, young adults would not mingle easily, and this made it difficult to choose the right life partner. In the current society, this has changed as the education system makes it possible for these people to interact very closely.

In the past, knowledge and wisdom were believed to rest with the elders, and their views were almost considered a sacred command that was not to be questioned, even if it was apparent that they were in error. In the current society, the younger populations have been liberated, and they have the capacity to advise the elders about the future.

Despite these facts, a number of people still find arranged marriages very important for the well-being of the couple and the community at large. At this stage, it will be important to analyze the benefits and shortcomings of arranged marriages.

Arranged marriages remain popular not only among Muslims but also in other societies around the world. According to Tseng (81), even in the West, it is common to see parents trying to influence the choice of life partners for their children.

This is an indication that even with all the education that their children may have and the westernizations- having been born and brought up in the West, the parents always have the feeling that their children could make a mistake when choosing their life partners. This creates a feeling that they should play a role in making this important choice. This is a strong suggestion that arranged marriages have benefits that should not be ignored.

One of the biggest advantages of arranged marriages is that the partners will have a perfect match when it comes to culture, religion, social status, lifestyle, and many other factors that always affect the compatibility of couples. As Browne (83) notes, basing marriage on love is great, but sometimes when love defines everything, then one would be blinded to some of the social incompatibilities that may make life difficult for the couple after marriage.

It will force the partners to make compromises, some of which may go against one’s own beliefs and customs. At the early stages of life, making such compromises may be simple because of the infatuation brought about by the feeling of love.

However, as the couple settles down in marriage, these realities start setting in, and it may cause serious strains in the relationship. Unless the couple is strong-willed and determined to make everything work in their favor, the marriage can be brought to an end after a short while. The following figure shows the rising cases of divorce in the UAE from 1960 to 2008.

This problem can easily be solved when the marriages are arranged. The people arranging the marriage will ensure that the couple is perfectly compatible before they can be allowed to marry.

It is a fact that in arranged marriages, the couple gets to benefit from the support they get from their parents and family members. When parents and members of the community are allowed to play a part in arranging the marriage, they will feel honored. They will take all the responsibilities in the entire marriage process. The parties who are getting into this union will be relieved of the financial burden that is involved in organizing the marriage.

Members of the community will ensure that all the expenses are addressed because it is their responsibility. All the tasks will be addressed from the communal level, meaning that the couple will get maximum support when organizing the wedding. The feeling that family members are happy with the marriage also has a positive psychological impact on the partners.

They will start life knowing that they have the full support of members of their communities. In such weddings, people will come and celebrate together as they witness the union. Given the fact that they were the organizers, make feel responsible. They will bring many gifts to help the couple start life without struggling much.

Marriages are designed to last forever, whether it is in the traditional setting or in modern Westernized society. When two people come together in marriage through the support of the parents and community members, they get a wide base of moral support whenever they have problems in their families.

Given the fact that members of the society organized their marriage, they have the moral authority to go back to them in case they are experiencing problems. Parents from both sides can be called to help solve the problem, and they will feel obliged to extend their help. The two will realize that their union is not limited to their family. Such unions bring together the entire community, and this minimizes the chances of divorce.

Every member of the community will try to help the couple work out their way in life, even in the face of challenges. The partners from both sides will also find themselves with a moral obligation to the community. They will know that their families and society cherish their marriage. This will make them determined to find solutions to the problems that may affect their marriage as a way of respecting their family members. In such unions, even children group up knowing the importance of love and family ties.

According to a survey conducted by Roberts (2), arranged marriages are becoming less common in modern society. This is so because people have come to realize that arranged marriages have a number of flaws that make them undesirable. Below are the results obtained from the survey in four countries about the attitude of members of society towards arranged marriages.

From the statistics shown above, it is clear that most of the participants in this survey noted that they do not have favorable attitudes toward arranged marriages. They noted a number of factors that make them feel that arranged marriages are a practice that should not be encouraged in modern society. The following are some of the specific disadvantages of arranged marriages. According to Browne (73), in arranged marriages, the decision to choose one’s partner is taken away from one’s hands.

The elders have the sole discretion of choosing a life partner for an individual who plans to marry. Marriage is a complex process that involves bringing together two completely different individuals into a lifetime union. The personality of the life partner will define the quality of life one has.

Given the sensitivity of this issue, one should be allowed to take time to understand the other person who is supposed to be the life partner. This would require a long time of interaction, trying to understand the personality of the person to determine if a life together can be a personality. The opportunity is denied to people who engage in arranged marriages.

According to Lamanna and Riedmann (33), in most cases, couples in arranged marriages find themselves in union with people who have contrasting personalities. It is important to appreciate that sharing religious beliefs, cultural practices, or social status may not necessarily make them compatible. The personalities of an individual may not be rigidly defined using demographical factors. Sometimes people of a completely different caste may find themselves more compatible than those that share their caste.

What makes the whole system very complex is the attachment that members of the family will have to that marriage. The two couples may be forced to stay together even if they find fundamental contrasts in their personalities simply because their parents and community members arranged their marriage. Such people will stay in their marriages because of the wish of their parents. As Entezar (67) notes, the marriage will cease to be blissful, and it will turn into a prison, as demonstrated in the figure below.

As demonstrated in the above figure, the partners will have more questions than answers in their union. Happiness will be gone, and in most cases, they will regret why they accepted the union in the first place. According to Lamanna and Riedmann (33), love in arranged marriages takes a secondary position. The partners are not given time to bond and develop love towards each other before their marriage.

Those who are involved in arranging the marriage always assume that the two will develop an attraction and love towards each other once they are in a marriage. However, this fallacy should be avoided. Chances are high that if the two entered into a marriage without love, then they may spend their entire lives without loving each other.

Entezar (56) describes such unions as marriages of convenience. The parties involved in the marriage will not be doing it for their own sake and for the sake of love. They will be doing it for the sake of their parents. They will be trying to please people around them, disregarding the importance of a strong bond that is always created by love. This weakens the foundation of their marriage.

The research by Browne (47) shows that arranged marriages are vulnerable to interferences from external forces. When family members participate in bringing the couple together, they will develop a feeling that they have the right to define the way the family is run. Each of the family members will make an effort to define the way the couple will be leading their lives. In some cases, these family members may find themselves positions in the newly created family.

They will want to visit the new family at wish, and whenever they have a personal problem, they will demand help from the couple simply because they participated in bringing them together. As Tseng (112) says, such environments are not good for the growth of the new family. Sometimes the demands of these family members may be unrealistic. Such negative forces are uncommon when the couple makes their own decisions when marrying.

Arranged marriages are still commonly practiced in the modern society. It is clear from the above discussion that this form of marriage was more common in traditional societies than it is in the current society. However, even in the current society, it is clear that one cannot dismiss the relevance of arranged marriages.

These marriages help in bringing family members together when choosing a life partner. This research reveals that despite these advantages, arranged marriages also have shortcomings that should be considered before a family can subject one of their own to it. Based on this discussion, using a blend of arranged and unarranged marriages may be of great benefit to the members of the family and, most importantly, to the couple.

Browne, Ken. An Introduction to Sociology . Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011. Print.

Entezar, Eshan. Afghanistan 101: Understanding Afghan Culture . New Jersey: Xlibris Corporation, 2008. Print.

Lamanna, Mary, and Agnes. Riedmann. Marriages & Families: Making Choices and Facing Change . Belmont: Wadsworth, 2006. Print.

Roberts, Kathleen. Communication Ethics: Between Cosmopolitanism and Provinciality . New York: Lang, 2008. Print.

Tseng, Wen-Shing. Handbook of Cultural Psychiatry . San Diego: Academic Press, 2001. Print.

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Essay on Arranged Marriage

Students are often asked to write an essay on Arranged Marriage in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Arranged Marriage

Introduction.

Arranged marriage is a tradition where families choose the life partners for their children. It’s a practice common in many cultures worldwide.

Understanding Arranged Marriages

In arranged marriages, parents or elder family members select the spouse based on shared values, culture, and compatibility. It’s not about forcing children but about helping them find a suitable partner.

Benefits of Arranged Marriages

Arranged marriages often result in strong bonds as they bring two families together, not just individuals. They also ensure cultural continuity, and compatibility is often high.

Challenges in Arranged Marriages

Sometimes, individuals may feel pressured or unhappy if they don’t share a connection with the chosen partner. It’s important to ensure mutual consent in these marriages.

Also check:

• Advantages and Disadvantages of Arranged Marriage

250 Words Essay on Arranged Marriage

Arranged marriage, an age-old tradition practiced in several cultures worldwide, is a marital union where the bride and groom are selected by a third party rather than by each other. This essay explores the concept, its pros and cons, and the cultural significance of arranged marriages.

Arranged marriages are often confused with forced marriages, but there’s a clear distinction. Arranged marriages involve consent from both parties, while forced marriages don’t. In arranged marriages, families take the lead in choosing potential partners, but the final decision rests with the individuals.

The primary advantage of arranged marriages is compatibility in terms of culture, religion, and socioeconomic status, reducing potential conflicts. Moreover, arranged marriages often foster a deeper sense of family unity and commitment.

Disadvantages

However, arranged marriages have drawbacks. They often limit individual autonomy in choosing a life partner, potentially leading to marital dissatisfaction. Also, they can perpetuate harmful societal norms, such as casteism and sexism.

Cultural Significance

Despite these issues, arranged marriages remain prevalent due to their deep-rooted cultural significance. They symbolize the merging of two families rather than just two individuals and are seen as a means of preserving cultural heritage and values.

In conclusion, arranged marriages are a complex phenomenon, with both merits and demerits. While they can foster stability and cultural continuity, they can also limit personal freedom. As society evolves, so too does the concept of marriage, and it’s crucial to balance tradition with individual rights and happiness.

500 Words Essay on Arranged Marriage

Arranged marriages, a traditional form of matrimony where families or matchmakers select partners, have been practiced for centuries across various cultures. Despite the increasing shift towards love marriages, arranged marriages continue to hold significance in many societies. This essay explores the nuances, merits, and demerits of arranged marriages.

Arranged marriages are often misunderstood as forced marriages. However, they are fundamentally different. In arranged marriages, the consent of the individuals getting married is paramount. The families or matchmakers merely introduce the potential partners, and the final decision rests with the individuals. This practice is prevalent in many parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and is deeply rooted in cultural, social, and economic contexts.

Merits of Arranged Marriages

Arranged marriages have several merits. They foster a sense of community and shared responsibility as the union is not just between two individuals but also their families. This can provide a strong support system for the couple, especially during challenging times.

Furthermore, arranged marriages often take into account compatibility in terms of social status, religion, caste, and economic background, which can lead to less conflict and more harmony. The partners enter the relationship with realistic expectations, understanding that love and affection develop over time.

Demerits of Arranged Marriages

However, arranged marriages have their share of criticisms. The most significant concern is the potential lack of freedom for the individuals involved. Often, societal and familial pressure can influence the decision, leading to a compromise on personal happiness and compatibility.

Additionally, the emphasis on social and economic compatibility might overshadow personal compatibility, leading to an unhappy marriage. The notion of love and affection developing over time might not always hold true, resulting in a lack of emotional intimacy.

Arranged Marriages in the Modern Context

In the modern context, arranged marriages are evolving. The advent of matrimonial websites and dating apps has transformed the traditional process into a more individual-centric one. These platforms allow individuals to have a say in choosing their partners while still considering important compatibility factors. This shift represents a blend of traditional values with modern aspirations, offering a new perspective on arranged marriages.

Arranged marriages are a complex phenomenon that cannot be wholly labelled as good or bad. They are deeply intertwined with cultural norms and societal structures. Their merits and demerits vary across different contexts, and they continue to evolve with societal changes. Understanding this complexity is essential in appreciating the relevance of arranged marriages in today’s world.

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344 Marriage Essay Topics & Examples

Whether you’re writing about unconventional, traditional, or arranged marriage, essay topics can be pretty handy. Consider some original ideas gathered by our experts and discuss divorce, weddings, and family in your paper.

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• Love, Marriage, and Divorce He weighs the possible outcomes, and mostly, these were negative elements such as discrimination of his side of the family who are expected to wait only for food and drink during the wedding, other wedding […]
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• What Do the Parental Pressures Affect Your Own Desire for Marriage?
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• How Does Infertility Effects Marriage?
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• How Far Would You Agree That Marriage Is Based on Social Class?
• When Marriage Loses Its Value?
• What Benefits Are There of Marriage Today?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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IvyPanda . "344 Marriage Essay Topics & Examples." February 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/marriage-essay-topics/.

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Arranged Marriage, Pros And Cons (Essay Sample) 2023

Arranged marriage, pros and cons.

How Can I Get Essay For Free and Is it realistic to expect a low-cost, High-Quality Essay from a Cheap Paper Writing Service ?

Arranged marriage refers to a marital union between a man and a woman, whereby families and relatives identify and select spouses for their children with or without their input or choice. These marriages have long been a practice of numerous cultures, particularly before the 18th century. However, some communities do practice them to date. Some people consider such marriages as old-fashioned despite research finding that document their divorce rates at two percent as compared to love marriages that attract a rate of fifty percent in some countries. Thus, these unions bring great things, but they also attract negative aspects.

Arranged marriages eliminate the stress associated with dating. The pressure people undergo when finding potential spouses to settle down with is often overwhelming, discouraging, stressful and mostly result in heartaches. It is because one has to meet several people, some of whom are uninterested in marriage, some do not fit with one’s marital requirements, and others who are a potential match are uninterested in matrimony. However, an arranged marriage eliminates all these scenarios, as one is sure the people they meet want marriage, and they do not have to worry about conflicting personalities as marriage presents a perfect opportunity to adjust.

Parents and family find the right spouse for their children and secure their future in arranged marriages. Every parent endeavors to give the best to their children while hoping they live happy lives as possible. Arranged marriages present families the opportunity to ensure this by taking upon themselves to find the right husband or wife. Due to the immense wisdom and experience parents have about marriage, they precisely choose a son or daughter in law from a respectable family, who share a similar religion, are equally educated, well settled in life and wealthy. The selected spouse thus results in a perfect match that outcome in a happy marriage and a secured life.

These unions assure family harmony. Whenever an individual takes a potential spouse to their family, there is the possibility of them not approving or liking them or having a good relationship with their families. Arranged marriage eliminates this as both families knowingly fix their children to the family of their choice. Also, before agreeing, parents conduct extensive research on the other family before approval. Hence, eliminating reasons to hate or argue with them. Consequently, good relationships and connections that are long-lasting result.

Contrary, this type of marriage robs off individuals of their right to choose. When a family and relatives decide their child’s spouse, it makes it impossible for the child to raise concerns, fears, and objections, even when they dislike or are incompatible with the potential spouse. It, therefore, makes such individuals powerless and hopeless. Hence, practically push them into forced arrangements that rouse unhappiness, depression, and misery.

People wedded through arranged marriages lack ownership of the nuptials. These people rarely feel in control of the institution as everything about it, including, whom to marry, when to wed and the type of wedding to have are a choice and plan of their families. Additionally, even after marriage, families control and weigh in on their actions and plans. Thus, the married couple misses opportune moments for them to bond, own the process and the resulting marriage. Moreover, it instills lack of decisiveness and direction for the institution.

In conclusion, arranged marriages avail numerous benefits that pave the way for long-lasting successful marriages for many couples. However, it is worth noting that lack of freedom and control of the choice of a spouse one ends up married to, increasingly results in these marriages failing.

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Ielts writing task 2 sample 63 - marriages are arranged by the parents but in other cases, people choose their own marriage partner, ielts writing task 2/ ielts essay:, in some countries, marriages are arranged by the parents but in other cases, people choose their own marriage partner..

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Times of San Diego

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Opinion: Genealogy Is Popular, But There’s Danger in Uncovering Our Family Past

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As Mother’s Day approaches, commercial genealogical sites will once again target the inboxes of Americans with special offers to delve electronically into their family history. Many will take the plunge, enticed by an online trove of information and the chance to learn a fascinating detail in the recesses of an unexplored past. But fair warning: prepare for the possibility of dramatic, even unwelcome finds in establishing the historical record.

My entry into census data unexpectedly bared my late mother’s real first name; a banished immigrant grandfather I was told had died before my birth but who lived until I was 14; and relatives from his second family I had no inkling existed, with stories heartening and heartbreaking.

Discovery of family secrets began with an innocent click on the Ancestry.com page for the 1930 census. My mother was listed as a 12-year old together with my grandmother as rooming-house boarders in a small south Kentucky town. The town’s name checked; ‘boarders’ seemed strange. Could my grandfather have died so young?

I moved backwards to the 1920 census. There he was, along with my grandmother, a 13-year old daughter (my aunt) and my infant mom, whose given name was Zenobia, after a third-century Palmyran ruler romanticized by 19th-century European writers smitten with the ancient Roman East. My sisters and I never knew.

Curiosity heightened, I returned to 1930 and, to my astonishment, located my grandfather living at another address in town with a second wife 18 years younger and a five-year-old daughter. In the 1940 census, he was again there with his second wife, and an additional daughter. 

Despite a sense of looming sordidness, I determined to unravel the tale, mining a plethora of data available through the census, genealogy links and obscure Internet listings that harbored layers of tragedy. I concluded my mom had found “Zenobia” embarrassing; she substituted her middle name for the rest of her life in census, school, work and marriage records.

I located divorce proceedings from 1924, so ugly with accounts of my grandfather’s cruelty that the court partially sealed them in awarding custody of the children to my grandmother, with no visiting rights. No matter to him: 10 days later he remarried. A marriage license showed that he eloped with his 20-year-old store clerk across the nearby state line to a Tennessee justice of the peace because her father, a local farmer, disapproved.

As best I reconstructed, neither daughter ever spoke another word to him. My aunt soon graduated high school, earning a music scholarship, never to return. My mom avoided him until leaving after graduation a decade later, no easy task given his prominence as a hustling Jewish immigrant with a strong Russian accent in a small southern town owning clothing stores, oil wells and a gas station at various times.

Aware today of the lasting bitterness, I now understand their studied indifference, puzzling to me at the time, when in 1984 I mentioned driving through the town during a business trip. And their lie about my grandfather’s death. To them, he  was  dead.

Pairing census and city directory listings, I located the oldest daughter by his second wife. Though unaware of the contentious first marriage, she painted a similar picture of the second filled with household strife due to his horrific temper, culminating after 17 years in another bitter divorce, confirmed by equally stinging court records.

After high school graduation, the oldest daughter saw her father only once more, the following year, and attended his funeral two decades later only at her husband’s insistence. She became a college professor after earning the first chemistry masters degree by a woman from the University of Illinois. 

The second wife consented to visiting rights for the youngest child, age eight at the time of the divorce. Daughter and father had a monthly Sunday lunch until her high school graduation; the 1950 census shows him living alone in an apartment above his clothing store. She later arranged for medical care during his final years, and now believes he was attempting to atone for familial failures by holding onto a relationship with her.

But he never mentioned his first family, never referenced his roots or his business, and never voiced regrets. She enjoyed a successful career teaching math. In retirement with her husband, a longtime corporation president, they have donated tens of millions of dollars to multiple colleges and universities to enhance learning.

My grandfather died in 1964. In death, he revealed unrepentant and unreconciled feelings during his life; the will bizarrely stipulated $10 checks to his three estranged daughters. Strangely, one local paper listed only my mom and aunt as survivors. Equally strange, the other paper listed only his daughters from the second marriage. Neither listed an estranged surviving brother who had emigrated to Chicago but ended contact with my grandfather after the first divorce. 

All this unspooled from pursuing a single census entry, and the Pandora’s Box stayed open. The daughters by his second marriage knew nothing of his pre-Kentucky life that I assembled from Ellis Island debarkations, applications for citizenship and draft registration cards: marriage in Russia and birth in 1907 of his oldest daughter; escape from a dismal future there by solo passage in steerage to America in 1910 aboard the Lusitania; three itinerant years in New England, Chicago and West Virginia while anglicizing first and last names twice; settling into a retail niche in Kentucky and sending for his family in 1913.

There’s my grandfather’s nasty split in 1921 with his business partner and close family acquaintance, apparently after arguments over my grandfather’s philandering. Newspaper ads show that he then used ruthless price competition to force his former friend’s new business into bankruptcy and drive him out of town. And there’s the dismaying fact that, even as an immigrant who fled and never forgave Russia for discrimination and violence against Jews, he acquiesced fully to Jim Crow laws and barred Blacks from his various retail establishments though some local merchants allowed intermixing.

How stark a contrast to the disgust he had expressed, less than one month after arriving in New York City on June 10, 1910, at deadly nationwide riots by white mobs following Black boxing heavyweight champion Jack Johnson’s knockout of challenger Jack Jeffries (“The Great White Hope”) on Independence Day.

The record uncovered makes clear a life lived as an enigma: an often-nimble, image-conscious businessman whose advertising pitches spanning four decades boasted of honesty and integrity; yet a repugnant, mean-spirited competitor and a husband whom courts twice hammered for inflicting severe mental cruelty. Better to have let sleeping dogs lie? Many extended family members say yes, and certainly my mom and aunt thought so, hiding the shame they carried to the grave in believing that their offspring should be spared the knowledge. The oldest daughter from the second marriage reminisced only with great reluctance.

Some academics who have studied the proliferation of online genealogical quests assert that a search for roots today is subliminally an effort to link family history positively with status in economic, ethnic or clan-like terms. They’re wrong in my case and I suspect in those of others. I had no knowledge, agenda or expectation, only a simple curiosity about an immigrant past that the Internet facilitated. Such curiosity is integral to the human condition which longs for meaning in our brief time on a small planet in an ever-mysterious universe.

Once I began, I was driven to continue. That the revelations have been stunning, even hurtful, fails to diminish their necessity for building historical memory.

David Smollar is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer. He lives in Tierrasanta.

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Opinion: ‘The Golden Bachelor’ divorce did us a favor

Opinion by Deborah Carr

(CNN) — Now that we know the fairy tale didn’t happen, what can we learn from “The  Golden Bachelor ” divorce?

The show inspired viewers young and old to believe that everlasting love is possible, even in later life, More than 5 million people tuned in to watch the televised  January 4, 2024 wedding  of 72-year-old widower and retired restaurateur Gerry Turner and his love, 70-year-old widow and financial services professional Theresa Nist. The ceremony featured heartfelt toasts from the bride and groom’s grown daughters from their prior marriages, teen grandchildren as junior bridesmaids and groomsmen and a six-year-old grandson ambling down the aisle as an adorable ringbearer.

Imagine the shock and sadness of  “Bachelor Nation ” – just  three months later  – when the couple called it quits. In an April 12 appearance on  Good Morning America , the newlyweds announced that they were divorcing. As Gerry explained to viewers, “Theresa and I have … come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to — dissolve our marriage. We just feel like it’s best for the happiness of each of us to, to live apart.”

While romantics and Bachelor devotees were crestfallen by the quick collapse of the marriage, Today Show personality  Al Roker had a simpler, if unkind, assessment : “It just goes to show that old people can be just as stupid” — presumably as younger people — when it comes to love and marriage.

I watched “The Golden Bachelor” series religiously, my interest piqued by my professional background as a  researcher of older adults’ romantic relationships . But I’m also a sucker for a happy ending — especially for two seemingly kind and thoughtful people who found new love years after the devastating deaths of their former spouses. My gut reaction to the golden divorce wasn’t surprise or snark or sadness. Rather, my first thought was “I told you so ….”

In an essay I wrote last year about “The Golden Bachelor,” I cautioned that Gerry’s final rose ceremony  “[didn’t] require a Neil Lane engagement ring.”  And I stand by that assessment. Marriage didn’t have to be the end-all and be-all for Gerry and Theresa. Rather, there are many ways to enjoy love, companionship and intimacy without legally marrying — especially the second time around.

Here are three lessons we can all learn from the “golden” divorce.

For older couples, marriage may not be the best course

More and more older adults today are eschewing marriage and cohabitation for “ living apart together (LAT)”  — which essentially means “going steady,” with each keeping their own separate home. Some older adults want love, intimacy, support and companionship from a committed romantic partner, but they want to keep their home and remain in their own community where they have friends, family and routines. LAT arrangements also help older adults simplify finances and inheritance for their children, maintain their independence, keep their routines and schedules and avoid the strain of  round-the-clock spousal caregiving.

Gerry and Theresa mentioned these very concerns when explaining why they called it quits. Gerry was retired and living in his  dream lake house in Indiana , while Theresa was still working as a  financial services professional  in New Jersey. They had talked about buying a home together in South Carolina, but those plans never became a reality.

As Theresa explained, “we just looked at homes after home, but we never got to the point where we made that decision.” Like many other older adults, Gerry and Theresa were happy in their separate lives, and the prospect of togetherness didn’t strike them as an improvement. Would a long-distance dating or LAT relationship have been a better choice? I think so, but the truth is, we’ll never know.

Late-life marriage is about more than love: It’s the merging of two multi-generational families

The public spin that Gerry and Theresa put on their divorce announcement was that they were splitting, in part, for the sake of their families. As Gerry shared on Good Morning America, “The thing that strikes me the most in our conversations … [is] how dedicated both of us are to our families … We just feel like it’s best for the happiness of each of us to, to live apart.”

Whether it’s spin or the truth,  the merging of two families  is a challenge facing nearly all older adults as they form new romantic relationships. Older couples often need to  make complex decisions as an extended family,  about mundane matters like where to host family holidays or a grandchild’s birthday party as well as more serious issues, like caregiving responsibilities, nursing home moves, inheritance, end-of-life medical decisions and more. These challenges often are easier when parents, children and grandchildren  live in proximity  to each other and are all on the same page about major life decisions.

At any age, romantic partners need to respect and support each other’s personal goals and priorities

Some of the most talked about moments of “The Golden Bachelor” were the  minor spats  between women in the house, and the spirited  pickleball matches . But for me, another scene stood out.

Very late in the season, on their “Fantasy Suite” final date, Gerry asked Theresa for the first time about her work life. Theresa lit up, and spoke proudly about her transition from a wife and mother to a highly successful stock trader. She explained that once her children got older, she developed a passion for the stock market and read every book she could find on stocks and the markets. In her late 40s, Theresa got an entry-level position and then ascended the ranks at a financial services firm — where she continues to work today.

According to some media reports, Theresa’s commitment to her career was the death knell for the marriage. Her desire to keep working was at odds with Gerry’s retirement plan . “I still work, so that’s the hurdle,”  Theresa shared on a podcast. Gerry, however, told listeners, “I’ve been retired for a long time. I wanted fun [and] adventure … So that is the crux of it.”

Regardless of the specifics of this case, couples need more than just one another to be happy. If a partner cannot support and cheer on one another’s passions (even if they don’t share those passions themselves), the relationship may sputter and die. While shared interests — whether for board games, gardening, Broadway musicals or politics, also are a key to a happy relationship,  it’s respect for differences  that can sustain a couple in the longer haul.

The-CNN-Wire ™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

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Opinion The Ezra Klein show

Salman Rushdie Is Not Who You Think He Is

Credit... Andres Kudacki/Associated Press

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Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’

• April 26, 2024

Salman Rushdie

[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App , Apple , Spotify , Amazon Music , Google or wherever you get your podcasts .]

I feel as if I’ve always known who Salman Rushdie is. He sat in my consciousness as the author of this eerie-sounding novel called “ The Satanic Verses, ” a novel so somehow dangerous, he had to go into hiding after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran, said Rushdie and anyone involved in its publication should be killed for blaspheming Islam.

In August of 2022, more than 30 years after the fatwa, a fanatic with a knife attacked and tried to kill Rushdie. He survived, though he lost an eye. His latest book, “ Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder ,” is about the attack and its aftermath. But it’s also about his life. It’s about his marriage. It’s about his children. And it’s about the invention of other versions of him that became more real in the world than he was, other versions of him that almost got him killed.

This is what I now understand after reading “Knife,” what I now understand after I went and read, for the first time, “The Satanic Verses”: I have never known who Salman Rushdie is. And maybe not just him. How many people out there do I wrongly think that I know?

Rushdie and I talked for an episode of my podcast. This is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Ezra Klein: I want to begin with a story you mention a little bit offhandedly in the book: “The Shadow” by Hans Christian Andersen.

Salman Rushdie: I think it’s my favorite story of his. It’s about a man whose shadow gets detached from him and goes away.

For many years, he loses his shadow. The shadow has traveled the world. The shadow is quite sophisticated and cool and in some ways is more interesting than the man. The shadow returns and the man and the shadow spend some time together. Then the man meets this princess, who he’s very taken by and interested in. And the princess decides that she prefers the shadow to the man, and actually the shadow manages to persuade her that he’s the real thing and the man is the echo or the phony or the shadow.

And in the end, the shadow manages to arrange for the man to be executed. So the shadow takes over the life of the man.

So what did that story mean to you?

It meant to me that a thing that happens — more and more often, I think — is that a shadow self can separate itself from the person and end up becoming, in some way, more real than the original person. People believe the shadow and don’t believe the self.

If I’d asked you in 1986, to describe how you understood yourself, what would your capsule sense of Salman Rushdie have been?

The ’80s were a very good decade for me. It began in 1981 with the publication and success of “Midnight’s Children,” which was important to me for a number of reasons.

First of all, because it was my first literary success, and there’s nothing quite like first success. And secondly, it financially allowed me to begin to live as a writer, rather than having to work in advertising, which I’d been doing.

It also deeply reconnected me to India. I had worried, living in London, that I was kind of drifting away from those roots. The novel was a very conscious attempt to try and reclaim them. And that was actually what made me happiest about the reception of the book — was the way in which it was received in India.

What was your public reputation at the time?

I had become identified as one of a rising group of British-based writers. Writers like Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro and Martin Amis and Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson. I also had become perhaps a little bit more politically engaged than some of the others. So I had written and done things on television about racism in England and postcolonialism, the remnants of the empire, and so I was also associated with that kind of subject. Then came “The Satanic Verses,” and it changed everything.

When you began writing “The Satanic Verses,” what kind of book did you think you were writing?

I was writing these three stories. One was about a character named Gibreel, which is the Indian version of Gabriel, who was a movie actor who’s losing his mind and arrives rather dramatically, as a result of an airplane explosion, in 1980s London, at a time when the race relations situation was quite tense. This was the period of Margaret Thatcher’s government.

I guess what I thought I was doing was thinking about what happens to people when they migrate from one culture to another and how much of their identity is brought into question by doing that. They’re suddenly in a language that isn’t their first language, and they’re in a community that doesn’t know them. They very often are surrounded by belief systems different from their own. They face all these challenges.

And I remember thinking I should try and make the novel itself that kind of challenge. And so the question of religious belief becomes one of the subjects of the book — Gibreel having these dreams about the birth of a religion. And I thought I’d made sufficient distance, because in the novel and in his dreams, the religion is not called Islam and the prophet is not called Muhammad and the city is not called Mecca. All this is happening in the dreams of somebody who’s losing his mind.

I thought, you know, this is what we call fiction. Some people took it the wrong way.

What is the actual story you tell in the book that causes the offense?

Well, of course, the people who attacked the book had not read it. So there’s that.

There is a well-known story that is in many of the traditions of Islam. To put it simply, there were three very successful popular winged goddesses in Mecca at the time whose temples were at the gates of the city. This is a big trading city, so people would come and go through the gates, and they would make offerings at these temples — or, put it another way, they would pay taxes.

The families that ran these temples were very wealthy and powerful in the city. And so the theory is that the Prophet was offered a deal, and the story goes that he comes down from the mountain and recites some verses which accept the status of these goddesses at the level of the angels. And then it seems as if there was a lot of opposition to his statement from amongst the new faithful.

And after a short period of time, he rejects those verses, and he says that the devil spoke to him in the guise of the angel and that these were satanic verses which should be expunged from the Quran, which they were, and replaced by other verses in which he discounts these goddesses.

So that’s the episode about a possible temptation and then the rejection of the temptation. I came across this story when I was at university, when I was at Cambridge. One of the things I was studying was early Islamic history. And I remember thinking, you know, good story. That was 1968. Twenty years later, I find out how good a story it was.

To the best of your understanding now, why does the fatwa happen?

Well, there’s a political reason why it happens, which is that chronologically the moment in Iran at which it happened was very soon after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, in which essentially a whole generation of young Iranian people had died for no gain.

The revolution was probably more unpopular and in greater danger at that moment than at any other moment. And I think, frankly, Khomeini was looking for a way of rallying the troops, and unfortunately, I became it.

People involved with the book in other countries were attacked and killed, which is something I did not know.

The worst thing was the Japanese translator of the book, who was a college professor who was actually a specialist in Islamic history and art, was murdered one night near his office on campus in Japan. My Italian translator was attacked at his residence and fortunately survived. My Norwegian publisher was shot several times in the back while getting up in the morning to go to work. He also miraculously survived.

I felt horrible, because they felt like proxy attacks. They really wanted me. They couldn’t get at me, so they got at them.

And I remember calling William Nygaard, who is my Norwegian publisher, to apologize to him. And he said, “Salman, don’t apologize. I’m a grown-up. I knew that I wanted to publish ‘The Satanic Verses,’ and I’m very happy that I did.” And then in a kind of wonderfully publishing way, he said, “Guess what. I’ve just ordered a very large reprint.”

I guess in publishing, that is the best revenge.

There’ve been occasions where I felt myself in the company of really brave people. I think if you’ve just been shot three times in the back and your reaction to that is to order a reprint, that’s courage.

I hadn’t read “The Satanic Verses” until preparing for this show with you. I think I’d always assumed it must be a pretty extreme and offensive piece of literature. And then I went and read it, and it’s not. It’s a very fun, stuffed, manic, exciting, imaginative novel, but it’s nothing like what I had assumed.

I can’t even tell you how many times that people who, like you, have finally got around to reading the book, have said to me, “Well, where’s the problem? Where’s the dirty bit?” And the other thing people say to me is, “Who knew it was funny?”

That was actually my first reaction. I didn’t expect the tone of the book at all. It’s very funny. Before “The Satanic Verses,” people thought my books were funny. People would write about me as a funny writer. After “The Satanic Verses,” for a long time, nobody wrote about me as a funny writer. It was as if, because the thing that had happened to me was not funny — that it was dark and obscurely theological — I must be dark and obscurely theological.

The characteristics of the attack were transposed onto the person being attacked. And that other me, who was funny and antic and interested in mythology and fantasy and politics and history — that person vanished.

In a way, the biggest damage that the attack on “The Satanic Verses” did to me was not physical danger. It was the damage to people’s thinking about my writing. A lot of people, I think, who might have enjoyed the book and might have enjoyed my books in general have been put off by the shadow of the Islamist attack.

But it was almost universally true that the people who attacked it did not read it. I remember seeing a television interview, when I was still living in England, with one of the leaders of the Indian Muslim protest against the book. The television reporters asked him if he’d read it, and he said this rather wonderful thing. He said, “No, I don’t need to walk in the gutter to know that it contains filth.”

So that was the kind of attitude: You don’t need to read it. It’s just bad.

We’ve talked a bit about who the public Salman was, before the book. And as I understood you describe it, you’re a postcolonial writer. To an extent, you’re a man of politics, a man roughly of the left, critical of Thatcher. Who emerges now?

Well, what happens is that entire self that had been how I was seen and how I thought of myself for a decade was just erased overnight. It’s as if it didn’t exist. And what was created instead was this irresponsible, selfish, arrogant, bad writer and bad person who had deliberately set out to offend the great world religion and only just about deserved to be protected from harm. Only just about.

It was very shocking. First of all, I had been quite a vocal critic of the Margaret Thatcher government, and that was the government that had to offer me protection. So on the one hand, there were accusations of hypocrisy. And then there was a very upsetting literary strain to the hostility. Writers I wouldn’t expect — John Berger, Germaine Greer, John le Carré. One of that group said nobody can insult a great world religion with impunity. As if to say: If you do that, then you don’t deserve to be safe.

I remember being very surprised to find Jimmy Carter on the side of the detractors. That was almost more shocking to me than the Islamic attack, because I thought, you know, the Iranian regime is a tyrannical, authoritarian regime, and if it behaves in a tyrannical, authoritarian way, it’s not entirely surprising. But to have Western artists and intellectuals doing that was very, very upsetting.

And in India, too. My family was originally Kashmiri. And I’ve written a lot about Kashmir. I wrote about it in “Midnight’s Children,” and I wrote about it in “Shalimar the Clown.” And I now know, because a kind of jihadist mind-set has increased in Kashmir, that if I were to go there, I might not be safe. And that feels horrible. The place from which my family comes is a place to which I can’t safely go. Both my parents are buried in Karachi, Pakistan, and there’s no way I can ever go and visit their grave.

Obviously you do not like the version of yourself that was created that was worthy of being murdered. What is your relationship to the more sainted public version of yourself — the symbol?

I feel like a working artist, and I would like to be known and judged by the work that I make.

Having said that, I was involved in the free speech issue before anything happened to me. I was working with the British branch of PEN, trying to defend various writers in trouble in various parts of the world. A lot of writers’ organizations really stood up for me. And I was very grateful for that.

So that became a part of how I saw myself. I have to say a secondary part because I still think the person who sits alone in a room and makes things up is who I really am.

How did your writing change under this pressure?

I tried to not let it change. I remember thinking very consciously quite early after the fatwa and all that — of course, there was physical danger, but there was also artistic danger. There were ways in which this attack could destroy me as an artist. It could frighten me, and so then I would not write anything risky.

I would write safe little frightened books, or it would fill me so much with anger and a desire for revenge that I would write revenge books. And I’ve told myself that both of those would be the destruction of my artistic independence and whatever quality I have as a writer, it would destroy. I think probably the — one of the greatest acts of will that I’ve ever performed in my life was to try and not let my writing be knocked off track by the attack on “The Satanic Verses.”

You moved to New York in 2000. And that becomes another shadow self that you talk about in [“Knife”], where you develop a reputation. I think you call it Salman the party animal.

A party boy, yeah. And I’m truly not.

Would you own it if you were?

I actually don’t really like big parties. I’m sociable, that’s true. But I like to see my friends one at a time so we can actually talk to each other.

When I started living in New York, I realized that it wasn’t so much a question of me being frightened, as people being frightened of me, because of the threat of danger hovering over them. Like a dark angel over my head. And I thought, “If people can see that I’m not being scared, then maybe they’ll stop being scared.” So I deliberately embarked on a policy of public visibility, going to places where I knew I’d be photographed and where, you know, The New York Post would write about me. And it worked, because after quite a short period of time, people thought, “Oh yeah, he’s around and about, and it’s fine.”

It kind of went too far that I turned into this social butterfly, which, in my view, I’m not really.

I’m going to try something a little tricky here. I don’t, in any way, want to trivialize the violence, the terror you’ve lived through.

I was struck with the thought that, for decades now, you have lived the most extreme possible version of a very modern condition, in which little scraps of yourself — scraps of things you’ve written or echoes of interpretations of things you’ve written — ricochet around an internet or a world and create this other version of you that people begin to believe in.

This happens in a very small and much less terrorizing way to people all the time on TikTok, on Facebook, on X. They say something, and soon a version of them emerges that is more real to other people than they are. Do you think this is a more common thing?

I agree entirely with how you describe the creation of false selves by this new weapon of social media. I’ve often thought that if these things had existed in 1989, I would have been in far more danger because the speed with which material can be transmitted is so much greater and the way in which groupthink can be created and mobs can be created would have enormously escalated the danger.

At that time, the most sophisticated method of transmission was the fax machine, and that kept the lid on it to some degree — until Khomeini blew the lid off.

I know that there are two or three graphics containing absolutely false quotes from me — things I’ve never even come close to saying — which keep cropping up. People keep retweeting them and repeating them. And even though I have once or twice said, “Look, I never said this,” that doesn’t stop it. It just keeps going. So there are quotes ascribed to me, you know, views ascribed to me, which I don’t hold, which are actually antithetical to things that I think. But they’re out there.

I think, to some degree, it’s always been the case, before social media, that there’s a disconnect between the private self of the writer and the way in which they’re publicly perceived. Various writers — Günter Grass, Jorge Luis Borges, Graham Greene — they all had this sense of there being a public self, which wasn’t quite them but which was how they were seen. And I had a kind of magnified version of that, and social media certainly helps to magnify it.

I know people who have gone through public scandal who didn’t deserve it, who hadn’t done the thing or there really was no thing.

One thing I’ve noticed is many of them go through a period — sometimes don’t even get out of the period — of believing they must somehow deserve it. They almost have to believe they did something deserving of it for their reality to make sense to them. Did that happen to you?

Yeah, right at the beginning, I began to believe two things. First of all, there was a kind of category mistake about “The Satanic Verses,” which was being treated as a work of polemical fact, whereas actually it’s a work of imagination and fiction. If I could just explain that this is not fact, this is fiction, people would say, “Oh, yeah, we get it now.” And that was kind of foolish. And then I thought if I can just explain in interviews and essays and so on who I am and what I thought I was doing and why I believe it to be completely legitimate, the people would again go, “Oh, gosh, we made a terrible mistake.”

About a year or a year and a half into the story, when I was very, very depressed and didn’t see how it would ever end, I thought maybe what I have to do is to reach out to the Muslim community and try and apologize. And I did, and it rebounded very hard in my face.

And actually, my sister, whom I love and is closer to me than anybody else in the world, called me when she heard me making these apologias. She said, “What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” And I thought, you know, “Yes, I have. I’m behaving in a deranged way.” And that felt to me like hitting rock bottom.

I hate that this is true about culture right now. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it be the case that apologizing — whether the person did something or did not do something — helps. Because what apologizing seems to me to do now is it gives people the license to believe that it was all justified in the first place.

That’s why there’s a crazed power to people like Donald Trump, who exist in a world without, I think, personal shame. Because they don’t apologize, they’re able to keep the instability of the different realities coherent: I never lost the election. I never did anything wrong. I never did any of it.

So there never needs to be a moment where the people who are on their side have to reconcile the sort of admission of wrongdoing. Whereas the people who try to come out and be decent people about it suffer.

Shamelessness is the great public weapon of our time. If you really have it — and yes, of course, he does in spades — you can do what he’s done, which is to spend a lifetime getting away with it. I mean, not just since he’s been in politics, but way before then. I mean, getting away with it is his great skill.

And the tool that he uses is absolute lack of shame. And I mean, I would put, in a miniature way, ex-British prime minister Boris Johnson in the same bag. Absolute, I mean, total liar in everything he says and does and totally shameless about it and gets away with it. Until he didn’t.

We live in this age where you have an algorithmic global community. And communities discipline through shaming each other and eliciting shame in each other. That’s a supercharged dynamic in modern life. So if you happen to be immune to it, it’s a superpower.

This is maybe a function of being almost 77 years old, but I really go less and less toward social media. I barely use it, and every time I go there, I kind of wish I hadn’t. So I think maybe I’ll just, whatever years are left to me, manage to do it without being a part of the modern world.

Let’s go quite a bit forward in time. It’s 2022, before the Chautauqua event where the attack happens. At this point, who are you to yourself? And who do you think you are at that point to the public?

I genuinely thought that the risk was in the past. I had 22 years of evidence for that, so it wasn’t unreasonable to believe that. But at this point, I had more or less completely regained, let’s say, the life of a writer, where I was doing everything that writers get asked to do. I was doing book tours and literary festivals and lectures and readings and all of that. Especially after near sequestration, it was very pleasant to be back in the world.

Where are you on Aug. 12, and what happens?

I was in New York City. On Aug. 11, I had flown up to do an event at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York. My friend Henry Reese had been running an asylum program in Pittsburgh. He had a whole little street of houses which he made available to writers from various countries who needed a safe place. Chautauqua had invited Henry to come and talk about that, and he asked me if I would come and have the conversation with him.

We had just come out onstage. The Chautauqua Amphitheater is a very large space. And there were probably something like 1,500 people there. Henry and I came out and were introduced by someone from the institution. We were sitting in chairs on the stage. Almost the moment the introduction was over, I saw this man approaching rapidly from my right. He came sprinting up the steps and attacked me.

You write , “This is as close to understanding my inaction as I’ve been able to get: The targets of violence experience a crisis in their understanding of the real.” What do you mean?

I mean that we all live in a picture of the real. We all have a sense of how things are, and that sense of how things are is our reality. And then when something calamitous happens, somebody arrives in a picture of school with an assault rifle.

Somebody arrives in a church with a gun or in a shopping mall, you know. Everybody in those locations has a picture of what they’re doing. If you’re in a church, you’re there for reasons of belief and worship. If you’re in a shopping mall, you’re there to shop. If you’re in a school, you’re there to be at school.

And that’s how you see the world. And the explosion of violence into that picture destroys that reality. And then you literally don’t know the shape of the world. And very often, I think, people are paralyzed and don’t know what to do. How do you act in a moment when the thing that’s happened isn’t a part of the narrative you think you’re in?

And that’s what happened to me. I thought I was frozen.

The attack was a knife attack. And you write that “a gunshot is action at a distance but a knife attack is a kind of intimacy.” What’s intimate about it?

There wasn’t even an inch of space between him and me. He’s not shooting from a distance. He’s right up in my face, sticking a knife in me. And then, of course, I fell down, and he was on top of me.

So that’s about as intimate as you can get, to be underneath somebody who’s on top of you. I mean, there are other occasions when that happens, and those are more pleasurable.

Some of the book is about trying to understand the attacker. What do you know about him?

I know very little. There have been just a couple of newspaper reports on which I base my knowledge of him. What seems to be the story, as far as I can piece it together, is that his parents were of Lebanese origin. They moved to the United States, and he was born and raised in Jersey. His parents separated. His father went back to Lebanon. His mother stayed in New Jersey with himself and his sisters.

Until he was approximately 19 years old, he was a kid growing up in Jersey and had no criminal record. And then at about that time, he chooses to go to Lebanon to visit his father. His father lives in a village which is very near the Israeli border and is a very strongly Hezbollah village with billboards of Hezbollah heroes around the streets. His mother says that when he first got there, he really didn’t like it, he wanted to come home right away. But he stayed.

He came back a month later and, according to his mother, had completely transformed, was a different person and was now angry with her for not having taught him properly about religion. His mother’s house in Fairview has a basement, and he went and sequestered himself in the basement, lived separately from everyone else, playing video games and watching YouTube videos.

Essentially, he lived a pretty solitary life for something like four years, between his visit to Lebanon and his decision to attack me. And somehow, in that period of time, he becomes the kind of person who can commit murder.

At a certain point, he sees something on Twitter from the Chautauqua Institution, announcing their program of events, and he saw that I was listed on the program and decided to make his plan.

The idea that he could become someone who could murder seems, in some ways, less improbable than that you could end up as his target. This is somebody born after “The Satanic Verses.” And you’re just not there anymore. There’s a lot that has happened — the war on terrorism, the invasion of Iraq. How does he end up focusing on you?

This is what I don’t know. I can guess that while he was with his father in this very Hezbollah-dominated village that somebody might have mentioned my name as a bad guy, anti-Muslim, and it maybe was triggered by his seeing something on social media about my upcoming talk. But I don’t really know.

I remember saying to my editor at Random House that if I was to write a story in which somebody, by his own admission, had read only two pages of somebody’s writing and seen a couple of YouTube videos and then would to decide to murder that person, my editor would say to me, that’s not convincing. It’s not enough motivation.

You say in the book that your attempted murder seemed undermotivated, which is one of the funnier — I mean, darkly funny — lines I’ve read in a while.

I was thinking about Iago and Othello, that the only thing that happens to Iago is that he’s passed over for a promotion. That’s it. That’s his beef. And because of that, he decides to destroy the lives of two people, Othello and Desdemona.

And I often wondered, “Is there such a thing as a person who is simply evil, just a bad guy, doesn’t need much of a motive?” And the reason that doesn’t quite work in this case is because, prior to his visit to Lebanon, he was a perfectly nice person. The transformation is what’s interesting.

There’s a way in which he’s trying to kill some other version of you. He doesn’t actually know anything about you.

No, he didn’t do any research. He seemed, in a way, very uninterested. I guess he’d heard from people he was influenced by that I was some kind of demonic figure. There is a very effective degree of demonization that has taken place across the Islamic world, in which there’s a lot of people who grow up thinking that I’m a kind of boogeyman. On the other hand, his own family were not like that. They were not fanatics. They were perfectly secularized American citizens. So I don’t know where he got it from.

The core of the book is this imagined dialogue between the two of you. And one thing you say to him in this imagined dialogue is, “I know that it is possible to construct an image of a man, a second self, that bears very little resemblance to the first self, but the second self gains credibility because it is repeated over and over again, until it begins to feel real, more real than the first self.”

You imagine saying this to him, almost as a way of helping him understand what he was doing. You’re creating his shadow self — a version of him that is now more real in the world than he is. Tell me about that.

I included this anecdote about Samuel Beckett being the victim of a knife attack, and he almost died. In his case, he actually did go to confront his attacker in court and said to him, “Why do you do it?” And all the man was able to say was, “I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry.”

And I thought, “That’s useless.” Even if I was permitted by his lawyer to have a meeting, I probably wouldn’t get an apology, because there’s no indication of any remorse. I would get some form of sloganized answer, which wouldn’t answer this hole in my understanding of him. But how can somebody with so little knowledge of a person agree to murder them?

So I thought, maybe the best way to do this is to use my skill of imagination and storytelling to try and get inside his head and at least create a character that I can believe might do something like this. Whether it’s his real character or not actually becomes secondary.

I took the book as a very deep, intense assertion of the reality of your actual self. The book is physical and intimate and graphic about your rehabilitation and your hospital stay. It felt to me like a deep insistence that the Salman Rushdie who mattered was the one who actually lived through all this.

Well, I hope that people read it that way, because I’ve rarely in my life felt so deeply physically connected to my body as I have in this last year and a half. It was such an incredibly physical thing that happened, both the attack and the recovery and the psychological ramifications of all of that.

I always think publishing a book is a little bit like undressing in public. But this one really is. The memoir form was more or less invented by Rousseau in his confessions. And ever since then, I’ve always thought the principle of the autobiographical memoir is: Tell as much truth as possible. If you’re not going to tell the whole, naked, unvarnished truth, don’t write the book.

Did trying to write this self-portrait change your sense of yourself?

That’s a good question. No, I think it in some way clarified it.

One of the questions I ask myself in the book is: Given that you’ve been, by great good fortune and medical skill, given a second act that you weren’t supposed to have, how are you going to use it? What will you do with that gift of time?

And the reason why so much of the book is about love and family is because that’s what’s right at the front of my head now. In whatever time I have left — I hope it’ll be a while — that’s what I want to focus on. That and work and, frankly, nothing else.

Look, this is the 22nd book. If there aren’t any more books, that’s OK. The priority now is to lead a life of loving and being loved. That’s what I think this thing has taught me.

I think that’s a nice place to end. So then always our final question: What are three books you would recommend to the audience?

I would recommend “Don Quixote” — for many people, the first great masterpiece in the novel form. There’s now a wonderful new translation of it by Edith Grossman, which makes it very accessible to English readers. Previous translations were, frankly, a little dull. But this one is fantastically vivid and alive.

“One Hundred Years of Solitude” is one of the most joyful books ever written. From the first sentence, you are plunged into this world of magic.

And of the three great masters of the 20th century — Joyce, Proust and Kafka — we live in Kafka’s world. So I would probably say “The Trial” or “The Castle.”

Salman Rushdie, thank you very much.

You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App , Apple , Spotify , Google or wherever you get your podcasts . View a list of book recommendations from our guests here .

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin and Aman Sahota. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero and Mrinalini Chakravorty.

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