I recently told someone that I am grateful I was not born in an era, social status, or culture that practices forced and/or arranged marriages because I know my mother, and she would’ve chosen the sorriest sumbitch she could find for me.
But assuming that you had been born in a different era or culture, but your parents were still fundamentally themselves, would they have made a good choice with regard to a spouse for you? Or would they in all likelihood have paired you up with a walking disaster?
No way. Neither of them would have chosen anything remotely suitable for me. I’ve no doubt she’d be reasonably good-looking, and I trust my father’s judgment here, but she’d probably be all sweet and girly. I like 'em mean and sarcastic and embittered, but tolerant of and devoted to me to the extreme. I bet she’d be all girly-girl and bake cookies for some church bake sale or some shit, knowing my mother.
That would be a negatory good buddy.
I barely trust my family to choose Christmas gifts for me, let alone someone I’d have to marry. Not to say I did a better job myself, but still.
Oh HELL no. My parents were constantly trying to pound my square self into the round hole of traditional gender roles. I probably would have ended up killing any guy they picked out for me.
And while I trust my little brother to pick out gifts for me, the rest of the family is bemused and puzzled by most of what I want.
Yeah, my mum would have picked a good 'un for me. She once said that if she’d had to chose a husband for me, she’d have picked Crusoe, so chances are things wouldn’t have worked out any differently.
They would have tried really hard and probably gotten it mostly right, if they’d have been able to agree on someone. Near the end of their marriage, when I was myself reaching a marriageable age, they were an unhappy, arguing, bitter mess, so I don’t think they were in a state of mind to be joining forces to select a perfect mate for their daughter. I could see them competing to win my love by each trying to find me the best husband, instead of one-upping each other with lavish Christmas presents.
They had a decent idea of my preferences, based on my teenage crushes on classmates and Tiger Beat superstars, so I think they could have gotten close, but with my luck, I’d probably be the one they left unmarried on purpose so I could care for them in their old age.
Yes, actually.
After all, Mom stopped one step short of picking my Sister’s husband for her, & they have a great marriage.
Yes. Had I grown up in a culture of arranged marriages, my parents would have picked well for me. Certainly better than I chose for myself the first time.
picked out…no.
however my family has an unerring sense of people, if i introduced someone to them and they said, “hmmmm, i don’t know… something isn’t quite???”
i’d find the quickest way out of the relationship. i’ve told them that i would believe them and to tell me straight out.
there is in love, and then there is stupid in love.
If my parents had been able to meet my husband (which is pretty likely given an Indian-style service), they would totally have picked him.
In some respects, yes. They probably would have found someone more financially stable than I did. They would probably have found some nice research fellow or lawyer or middle management drone to buy me a house in the suburbs (probably their suburb) with a white picket fence and a new car every 4 years.
And I probably would have adapted to such an existence pretty well, honestly. But it’s so very different from the world I live and love now that I have trouble imagining my free-spirited hippie chick (broke) self really thriving. But I wouldn’t *be *the me I am today, and the me I was 20 years ago could have gone so many different ways…
So yes, they’d probably have done a good job from a parental perspective, and I’d have been at least as happy as I was in my first marriage (which wasn’t very), but it would have led to the development of a very different person than I am today. So different that to contemplate it feels like considering my own annihilation.
No way. Then again, my mom saw my future as hers - housewife from the 50s raising a pile of kids. I saw that too, for a while, but the day I decided to join the Navy, that all changed.
She also didn’t approve of the man I did marry… at first. As she’s gotten to know him, she has realized that I got a good one. But she never would have picked him in the first place. Lucky for me, that wasn’t an issue. 
They did! I backed out of it because I was younger and believed in compatibility and shit like that, but I totally regret it. If I could turn the clock back 5 years I’d go ahead and marry him. He was hot hot hot but never talked. At 27 it irritated me, at 32 I see the possibilities to gab as much as I like without having to pretend to listen 
Then again, who’s to say that I’d be having as much fun as I am now? Most of my bio family took the vapours over the fact that my parents “let” me go to grad school again, and I don’t know how many men would have tolerated it and my sister and I both take after my mother…willful and not particularly docile. One of the reasons I’ve avoided getting married this way is that I’m pretty certain my parents’ liberalism has spoiled me to the extent that I’m fairly ripe for a divorce.
Good lord, no.
I love my parents whole-heartedly, but if was up to them, my mom would do the choosing (my dad would, typically, be uninterested) and I am absolutely certain she would have chosen the most materialistic Jewish American Princess stereotype she could find. I could not imagine being happy with such a person.
It has always been my mom’s minor tragedy that, although she herself is a true eccentric, she was brought up to admire the banal and materialistic JAP as an ideal - one which she herself never even attempted to ‘live up’ to.
Yes, probably. At any rate, I think they would have done a better job than I seem to be capable of doing for myself 
Yes, if my historic era parents were the same essential people they really are, I’m sure they would’ve done a good job picking out a husband for me. They did a good job picking their own spouses (each other) and they’ve always been the kind of parents who believe in supporting your child in who she is not molding her into something you want.
They would’ve been the kind of match makers that made sure you had lots of suitable men to meet and basically let you pick, while “arranging” the match within the constraints of the society.
They adore the husband I picked for myself (sometimes I think they like him more than me).
Come to think of it, maybe they did do a little arranging. They looked at the colleges I had applied to, said “you can do better”, did the only real pushing of their parental career and got me going to a college where I am certain I was happier than I would’ve been at the ones I picked, and that’s where I met my very compatible husband.
Hell, no, and I come from a culture where arranged marriages are the norm. Had my parents had the final input (or much input at all), their choices would have been a disaster. They were both idiots. My mother had a completely different personality than me and never understood me (or anyone else that didn’t see have her same opinions and perferences in life). I thank whatever powers exist and the luck of random chance that in an extended family, idiot decisions by parents can be dismissed, overruled, and tossed aside by elders.
Given that, when I was young, slim, fairly pretty and had just finished a master’s degree, mother thought that a suitable match for me was a fat ugly bald ma who’d never had a job or got any GCSEs and - most importantly of all - had an extremely unpleasant personality, I’d say no.
I actually had this conversation with my mom some years back, when an ethnically Indian friend of mine was complaining that his parents were desperately trying to fix him up with random nice Indian girls, some of whom lived in other time zones. (He wasn’t about to rule out nice Indian girls, but he wasn’t so interested in dating people in other time zones just because they happened to be Indian, either. Ended up marrying a nice non-Indian girl I fixed him up with. 
) The conversation with Mom started with my thanking my lucky stars that I’m at least 3 - 4 generations removed from that being the norm.
Her response? “But I think I’d be able to make a decent match for you.” Given that my parents have been quite acrimoniously divroced since I was about 10 years old, and that a match would likely involve being in the same room with each other without lawyeers present, I’m guessing it wouldn’t have worked out very well. Luckily, she approves of my choice of husband, not that she had any say in the matter - she didn’t even meet him until after we were shacking up. 