Arranged Marriages Aren't Necessarily Happy

As we approach Memorial Day, a reminder of the struggles of our troops to secure the cause of freedom, it is especially relevant to contemplate how many countries around the world do not have the liberties that we take for granted in the United States of America.

I just read an article from the Tehran (Iran) Times Women’s Desk. Putting aside the possible oxymorons (concern for women + Iran) and (Iran + free press), I want to address the logic-deprived argument in an article from May 25, 2009.

The article claimed that 90 percent of “love marriages” in Iran end in divorce, compared with only 15% of arranged marriages. I have a few problems with these premises, and maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t understand this stuff, but I doubt it.

1) I thought a “love marriage” was a “marriage.” Yes, certain people enter into marriage without the loving bond that they should have, or with some ulterior motive. But in general, marriages are predicated on love. For a country to differentiate between marriages of love and marriages not based on the love between the two spouses – and then to condemn the ones based on love – is beyond me.

2) The article tries to imply that arranged marriages are a better idea because they fail less often. That’s like saying marriages were stronger in the 1950s because not as many people got divorced. Nonsense. There were crappy marriages in the 1950s also, but there was less of an ability to get out of them because of fault-based divorce (no-fault divorce had not yet arrived and would not arrive for several more decades) and there was a stronger societal pressure to remain married.

Just because there are far fewer divorcees among those whose families have arranged their marriages, it doesn’t show me that they have stronger unions. Instead, it suggests to me that they are more submissive to the will of their family members, as they allowed their family members to choose their spouses in the first place. The desire not to disappoint the family, or the intent not to incite backlash, seems the driving factor in the continuity of those marriages, rather than the thorough harmony of the husband and the wife.