As someone said before, matchmaking is still pretty common in India and a majority of marriages are such in which the girl and the boy have not known each other before.
Considering that the divorce rates in India are extremely small compared to the west, it is obvious that “knowing” or being in love with someone before getting married is not an essential ingredient for a long and happy marriage.
IMO, what happens in marriages where the couple know each other before the marriage is that they go into it on the basis of what they have known about each other and with the assumption that since each partner has known the other and then decided to accept him/her, there is obviously little need to put anything further to make the marriage work. I
f and when things start going wrong, the response is that of frustration and defence and holding the partner responsible for not having been open earlier.
In an arranged marriage the partners go into union with the conviction that the marriage has to be made to work and each partner puts his full energy into it since neither have any preconceived notions and so no one to blame. And when two people live together without without animosity, sharing everything in life, love does not take long to develop.
That’s not entirely unreasonable. Who decides when we go to the store? My wife. Who decides what kind of furniture to get? My wife. To be fair, these things don’t really matter to me as much as it does to her so I defer to her in most cases. There are other areas where I don’t defer and any relationship without power dynamics isn’t a real relationship.
However, I find something quite odd about a man who has to turn to turn to foreign brides who are desperate to escape their impoverished surroundings. You may think it’s all the same but I don’t.
To expand a bit on what neutron star had to say, since he sounds a lot like me:
I’ve seen numerous threads here and elsewhere discussing the way young American girls dress these days, and people (mostly women) bemoaning the revealing, too-tight, too-low-cut styles. I read about young women with eating disorders. In almost every discussion, more than one person will put the blame on the way the media and advertisers bombard girls and young women with images of what they ought to look like.
Yet nobody wants to blame the media for programming these same girls with regard to what kind of man they want. We men who aren’t cocky or arrogant, who don’t drive loud four-wheel-drive pickups, who don’t pick fights at the drop of the hat, who don’t party every weekend don’t stand a chance.
I’m no Brad Pitt, but I’m not bad looking, and I’m generally physically fit. I’m extremely intelligent. I’m an excellent singer and talented instrumentalist, composer and songwriter. I’m knowledgeable on a wide range of topics. I’m well-read. I’m an outstanding cook. I’m funny. I’m an excellent listener. I’m kind and considerate, and I love children. It’s amazing how many parents have told me what a great father I’m going to be after seeing me interact with their children.
You know what? I seem to get along great with women who are married or otherwise unavailable. But single women … I can never seem to establish any kind of rapport with them. Maybe I’m just no good at reading the signs, but I can think of exactly one unmarried woman in the last ten years who showed the slightest interest in me. I ended up dating her briefly, until her combination of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder wrecked that (I tried, I really tried, and I apparently hung in there with her longer than anybody else ever had, but it just plain wasn’t going to work).
Maybe I just look so desperate that I scare these single women off before they get to know me. I don’t know.
So the idea of a foreign woman who hasn’t been programmed by American media is quite appealing.
Or that marriage is what it is - it isn’t all “happily ever after” and there are worse things in life than to be married to someone who you learned to like and respect after marriage.
(This is in no way talking about any marriage where abuse happens).
I think that marriage for love often gives people an unrealistic idea of what marriage is. People frequently get married while deep in the infatuation stage, and that sort of love doesn’t necessarily stand up to the reality of $7 in the checkbook, a colicky baby, and your mother-in-law moving in.
Where a lot of marriages that happen in other cultures that are arranged have a lot of the disappointment built right into the expectation of marriage. You’ll be lucky to get a spouse who is both good looking and a good provider, of course your mother in law will move in, and of course you will be stuck with the baby. But the reality for women in a lot of the world is they don’t have economic choices other than marriage. And if your expectation of marriage is a lifelong business arrangement involving children and sex, there isn’t a lot of reason to get divorced just because your spouse doesn’t live up to your dreams.
Or, its the Pride and Prejudice Charlotte Collins situation - be a burden or be married to a man who isn’t Prince Charming, but isn’t abusive either. And, as was said earlier in the thread, at least if you mail order yourself to the states, once you get here you have some protection against being abused - that you may not be able to expect if you marry back home.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If you somehow reach a place where you sincerely aren’t bothered by what they think, good or bad, you’re suddenly catnip. I don’t know what in the freaking Hell it is, but for me at least, showing interest was not the path to dating success the great majority of the time. Then one day I said “fuck it” and it’s like someone threw a big switch somewhere that changed the female half of the planet. I know it’s me that changed (though I don’t quite know how), but I didn’t really feel all that different. I don’t think you have to look desperate. Just…too goody-nicey-nice. Too available. Too eager to please, I guess. Major turnoff, it seems.
Since we’re in the Pit and all, Fuck You. I get so tired of hearing this kind of whiny bullshit on the board. They’re always blaming the women for being too picky, programmed by society, what-the-fuck-ever. Different people want different things, and not everyone wants you. Maybe someone does, but not everyone. Get over it and go fuck off.
Well you see, there’s this apparently fine line between “not everyone” and “nobody at all”.
I suppose there is the slight possibility that I’m so damn fine that none of these women think they have a chance, so they don’t bother expressing interest. That would explain why the only interest I’ve gotten was from a severely mentally ill woman.
I somewhat identify with neutron star and Phase42, and I’ve seen this advice before, and I’d love to put it into practice. The one thing I don’t understand, though, is how do you, well, show interest without showing interest? How do you act like you don’t care at all while still managing to interact with them, invite them to do something with you, and spend time with them? I work in a hospital, and there are tons of cute nurses around. What should I do, not say hi to them or make eye contact when they get on the elevator with me? I’m already doing that, and they’re not exactly jumping all over me.
Weird that this should come up at this time! Earlier this month I went to the courthouse to get my truck tags, and Ol’ Fred was workin’ the machine where you gotta’ take the coins out of your pockets and what-not.
Did y’all know that you can’t take your pistol or knife into the courthouse anymore? Now-a-days you gotta’ leave such stuff outside in the truck, or Ol’ Fred has to keep it for you until you’re through buyin’ tags and are leavin’ out.
Anyways, I asked Ol’ Fred what he was doin’ workin’ there, ‘cause usually at this time of year he hires out to Bubba to help get up the Fall honey crop.
Ol’ Fred said Bubba went back to Kiev, and the third time was a charm, ‘cause this time Bubba got himself one of them Ukraine girls, one that already has an 8 year-old daughter. The mail order bride and her daughter are helpin’ get the honey crop in so Bubba didn’t need to hire Ol’ Fred this year.
I have not seen the Blushing Bride. I mean, it would be kinda’ rude to dash over to Bubba’s house and say: Hey Bubba! Let’s get a look at the chick! I will be more alert now, though. Bubba has some 80 beehives in the corner of my pasture. When they come to gather the honey I’ll go down there to say howdy and check this situation out.
For those wondering what sort of man resorts to a mail order bride: Bubba is 41 years old, never married, not at all good-looking, and he’s got an overbearing, grouchy personality.
Someone once suggested that there should be some Bubbettes around that would find him suitable. Possibly so, but he doesn’t find them suitable. He wanted a young (20-something), very attractive woman that is subservient and is also willing to have several children with him.
My guess is that he found a young, attractive woman that wanted a ticket out of Russia for herself and her daughter. After a year or two she’ll probably light out for greener pastures without having any of Bubba’s kids. Or not, who knows?
For those contemplating doing such a thing, I believe that Bubba spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 on this before he finally got an actual woman over here. Caveat Emptor. (or however the hell you spell it.)
Well, it was only an hour and 22 minutes between neutron star mentioning the banning and you chiming in with your pungent observation on the glory that was oldmanwinter. But, whatever. Noli id perspirare, fluiddruid
In some places, and within limits, yes. See the custom of “going sighting”: parents (often at a market or parliament meeting, depending on social class) would find out they had children of marriageable age and opposite genders; after checking out that the two families weren’t too close genetically or otherwise unacceptable, they’d arrange to bring both families to a festival (usually a “romeria”, which includes walking up to an isolated church and there having a Mass, food and dance), let the kids walk on their own under their relatives vigilant eyes and later question them - if the children refused the match it didn’t go on. The children could refuse at any point during the courting period.
The bride of Sancho VII the Strong (7’ tall in an age when the average height for most of southern Europe was 5’4"-5’5") was a french noblewoman. An embassy who’d gone to France to negotiate a trade treaty and they happened to meet this 5’11" girl - “oooooh my,” they thought, “this one looks perfect for the Prince!” They managed to convince her parents to send her to Navarra “as the Prince’s intended bride.” While the kings of Navarra were notoriously bad at keeping records of their daily lives (and what they had got burned down in several wars), some letters from her to her mother remain. Including the ones when she tells of her surprise when she:
finds herself looking many of our “Northern Big Boys” eye-to-eye
and her intended so large that she feels petite
the wedding not happening right away (with consummation whenever Sancho happened to feel like it), but instead being held a year later only, and only if, both her and Sancho want to get married
and if either says “no”, she’s welcome to stay or go back home as she prefers and it’s also fine if she chooses another knight
eh? No, your marriage or not marriage and the trade treaty are not linked, you’re not a cow!
if she stays, she’ll be expected to manage her husband’s lands in his absence (she was coming from a court were ladies were expected to look decorative and sew), so they’re expecting her to learn our Customs and Laws, being present and paying attention when the King or Prince receive people
XII-XIIIth century. Our Castillian neighbors spent over 1000 years accusing us of being “a matriarchate”, by which they actually meant “henpecked”. I believe there is a direct relationship between Navarra’s small size and this kind of liberality, but I don’t care what caused with and I like both the small size and the liberality.
If I knew where your kind congregated, I’d be there in a heartbeat!