Is love the key to a long and happy marriage?
Is true love really the best ground plate for a happy marriage?
Love marriage vs Arranged marriage.
Getting married. For billions of people around the world, it’s a milestone, a doorway, a passage to the mature part of your life. Before-After. Child-Adult. And billions of us dream about that special person who is going to conquer our hearts. Or we sip the teacup and lovingly gaze at our partner, happy and grateful for a long life spent together in harmony.
But how do we get there?
How do we find that special one? How do we connect to that perfect stranger who then has to take part in the fullness of our life? … Birthdays, work, holidays, parents, siblings… And our children, the children that are half me and half that other human being that I call my wife/husband. It’s an incredible commitment. How do we choose the winning candidate?
How do we find the perfect partner?
For the sake of this article, we will define the two ways to find your life partner. Love marriage vs arranged marriage.
The love marriage is a term often used in the past to define a marriage of choice. It was often frowned upon as foolish and shortsighted, as two young people clearly didn’t have the experience and wisdom to make a rational choice of partner. The love marriage could also be motivated by money or power, a marriage by convenience, but it’s difficult to distinguish one love from another. Most people wouldn’t admit to choosing money and wealth anyway. So love marriage, by definition, is when the couple decides for themselves. Today, marrying for love is the norm in the western world.
The arranged marriage is everything that isn’t of the pair’s own choice. The parents could choose a partner based on honest concern for their children. It could also be for political, or religious reasons… Or even for money. It can also be outside the parents’ control and totally be decided by other members of the clan or the family. In some countries, it is common to have a third party who evaluates and matches the potential bride and groom.
Marriage in different cultures
There are great differences in how people get together in various parts of the world. Not only that, but the cultural differences can be overwhelming also within one country. We are all different and we seek different things in a partner.
In very general terms, one can say that the stronger the position of the woman is in a community and the more gender equality there is – the more that community tends to promote love marriage.
One can also say that the richer a society is – the more love marriages it shows.
More very general tendencies are, in Europe and in America, it’s often regarded as obvious, that anyone has a free will, with whom to marry, when to marry, or even whether or not to marry at all.
In many parts of Asia and Africa, it is regarded as common sense to let the more experienced choose the right person.
Love marriages are connected to the idea that marriage matters only for the people involved. While arranged marriages are something that concerns the family, and the community, as well.
Love marriage vs Arranged marriage. Which is better?
Looking at the literature, films, and theater plays, there is no doubt which is the preferred system. But it’s evident that a book about passionate love is more selling than a partnership based on rational consideration.
The idea of marrying for love is also rather new. It’s been growing for no more than two centuries:
Stephanie Coontz: People have always fallen in love, and throughout the ages, many couples have loved each other deeply. But only rarely in history has love been seen as the main reason for getting married.
But, is it always better to trust love? To trust your instincts?
What do psychologists say?
Love marriage vs arranged marriage. Most psychologists agree upon love not being nearly enough for a long and happy marriage. And the love they mean is the typical blood-pumping passion that makes us fly two feet off the ground and behave like morons. It takes much, much more than that.
- Communication is a keyword. In all interactions between individuals, communication is extremely important and difficult. But in a marriage it’s fundamental. And in a hetero-marriage, you also have the problem to try to understand someone who has a different signal system than you. It takes a lot of work.
Jonathan Robinson: The number one thing is that people want to be understood and they want to feel like their emotions are being valued.
- Integrity – Honesty – Trust. We need space, and we need to know that the other person loves us even when we grow, something that will happen inevitably. But to have space we need trust, and to have trust we need the partner to be reasonably honest.
Barton Goldsmith: Honesty builds your internal security so that you not only feel good about your partner, but you also feel better about life…
- Commitment. If you want a relationship to last, you have to work on it. And work hard. We’re looking at a lifetime of struggle here. You also need to know that your partner is committed. Invest in your marriage and show that you’re investing.
Thomas Bradbury: There are two kinds of commitment. “I like this relationship and I’m committed to it” and “I’m committed to doing what it takes to make this relationship work”. “The second kind of commitment predicts lower divorce rates and slower rates of deterioration in the relationship.”
The two objections to love marriages
- Marriage is a framework of living that includes other important factors besides love.
- Passionate love is a short-term experience in our lives.
What do the statistics say?
In 2012 Dr. Pamela Regan of California State University performed a study on two groups of American couples. All of Indian origin, 35 years of age on average, and married for 10 years. In one group the participants had married for love, while the other consisted of arranged marriages. All marriages were conducted in the US.
The result was that there were no differences between the level of satisfaction in the two groups. And both groups scored very high.
In 2005 Jayamala Madathil, Jane E. Myers, and Lynne R. Tingle interviewed 22 couples and one widowed person in arranged marriages in India. They then compared the data to couples in the US who had married for love. Love marriage vs arranged marriage.
Even here the outcome was similar. While differences could be seen in the importance the participants gave to the love aspect of a marriage and the loyalty they felt towards their partner, no difference could be seen in satisfaction levels.
Dr. Robert Epstein studied more than 100 Indian, Pakistani, and Orthodox Jew couples all in arranged marriages. He compared the results to the research on love-based marriages in western countries. His study suggests that feelings of love in love marriages begin to fade by as much as a half in 18 months. The arranged marriage, on the other hand, has a growing curve. In about five years it surpasses the love marriage. After ten years, the affection felt by those in arranged marriages is typically twice as strong as those in love marriages.
The importance of choosing wisely
Most psychologists agree that one very important issue is the choice you make. Whether you marry by love, or by arrangement, or not marry at all… Choosing a partner is a very important step. And although in many countries it’s easy to divorce, and maybe you don’t intend to spend the rest of your life with one single person anyway. It’s still a good idea to think chose wisely.
Child marriages
In many parts of the world, child marriages are common. This is a violation of Article 16(2) of the Universal Declaration of human rights. In the world today there are around 650 million women who were married under the age of 18. Every year more than 5 million girls under 18 are forced to marry.
- Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school.
- They have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers.
- Pregnancy during adolescence increases the risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth.
- Child marriage isolates the girl from family and friends and excludes her from participating in her community.
Child marriages are all arranged marriages.
Conclusion
It’s difficult, close to impossible to determine if a marriage is to become successful, harmonic, and happy beforehand. There are so many different issues to account for. And, it depends on factors like traditions, religion, nationality, welfare, wealth, social community structure, and others.
Love marriage vs arranged marriage, which one is the winner?
Interestingly, it seems to be the consensus among psychologists, marriage counselors, as well as scientists, is that passionate love doesn’t make a better platform to build a lasting relationship upon. A happy marriage depends on many other things.
Most important of all is maybe the knowledge that it doesn’t come for free. You have to work on it.
No, it seems that passionate love at the beginning of a marriage doesn’t determine how it’s turning out. There are many other circumstances that are more important.
sources