Technically, ours wasn't an arranged marriage, but let me tell you our story.

My dad had a friend who he'd known from about age 10. Best buddies. They grew up, were still friends. Got married. Both couples were pregnant with their first-born, due within a few days of each other. My dad named me so that if I married his friend's son, my married name would be the same as that of his favorite movie star. After we were born, when we were about 4/5 weeks old (I really don't recall--LOL), they introduced us.

We grew up, but weren't pushed together. As a matter of fact, we knew about each other, but saw each other only occasionally (we lived in adjoining towns, so weren't thrown together in school, or anything). When we were 17, we happened to meet after not seeing each other for many years. We both had an instant crush on the other (had we bonded as infants?)--but were too young, too shy to do anything about it. Didn't see each other for about 5 more years, when our paths crossed once more. At that point, we both decided independently, that we were going to do whatever it took to get to know the other better. We started dating within the week, were going steady after 3 weeks, got engaged a year later, and married 6 months after that.

We're STILL together, still madly in love, after 34 years of marriage. We often joke to friends that we had an 'arranged marriage'. We didn't--no one ever pushed us to date or marry--but if they HAD....

Anyway, looks like Dad did a pretty good job picking out my husband, before we were ever born. I can't complain.

Not something I'd ever do for (to?) my dd, though. I think everyone should have the opportunity to meet and fall in love on their own. I just hoped that she'd not jump into an early marriage, since at 18, 19, 20, one still has SO much growing up to do. Of course, that wasn't too likely as she's always told us that we were WAY too young to marry (we were 23). She's now in her mid-20's and picky enough to still be looking for her perfect mate. Hope their paths will cross soon, for her.

No.I dont believe in arranged marriages. It is hard enough to do good in a marriage where you already know the person and have a chemical/physical attraction. Throwing two people together and hoping for the best is not my style. I respect cultures who do it,but it is not something I wish for my own child.

What a great story, azzalea.

I love your story too, azzalea. Hope you have many more happy years together.

Mine is an arrange marraige. And from wht i have seen married life is not easy anyways . The only consolation one has in an arrange marriage is that they can belame their parents to wht ever they r going through but in love marriage i guess they belame themselves.
Well when both know and accept that there wil be differnces in opinions and likes and dislikes all wil be fine. But i wud like to point one thing ...when going for arrange marriage make ur expectations clear. and convey to the person concerned as wht do u want from the other person. Let them contemplate if they fit in to expectations . and then let them decide.

Arranged marriages are not unusual in the culture where I am from. And even in the Bible, for a great example, some of people were arranged to marry (Abraham asked his servant to find a wife for his son, IsaacÂwritten in the book of Genesis.) Most of wise parents know what a son/a daughter needs to have in their life. I know some people from my culture who arranged marriage and live happily. If you have a strong connection such as the same faith, I believe the marriage will last forever even if it was arranged. GOOD LUCK !!!!

When I read this post I felt the need to reply.This is a second marriage for both of us.The first time around we both had weddings with our ex's.

The second time around my DH had an arranged wedding.I contaced the JP and inquired about a marriage license.When he came home from work.I proposed to him and he said yes.That has been almost 23 years ago.If I had waited on him to ask me we would still be living together.

That is how my DH had an arranged wedding.Little did he know that while he was at work that day.I was planning our arranged wedding.

I know this is not the "arranged" wedding that the OP is talking about, but this is our arranged wedding.

Whatever works!

And I gotta say, I like your style!

The idea of my parents picking out my husband? Unthinkable! The idea of me picking out mates for my children? Brilliant!

I have known quite a few people with arranged marriages. One was a girl that I worked with. When she was 16 she went with family to another country for a family members wedding. While she was there a man met her and was interested and her family arranged the marriage less than 2 weeks later. She told me of her horrified experience of consumating their vows on their wedding night, since this man was a complete stranger who was almost 30. After marrying him, her mother sent her to bed with this man and gave her a pin, told her if she did not bleed as she was supposed to then she needed to prick herself somewhere (maybe a finger?) and put blood on the sheets! The girl did tell me that she was "lucky" because her marriage was a good one, because this man does treat her well. Her cousin had an arranged marriage and gets beaten, but the family does not believe in divorce.

I also know an older couple with grown kids that are friends of my family. They had a marriage arranged by their parents. He has always been unfaithful to her, bringing random women over to my parents house and out with my family when I was growing up. Always made me feel bad for his kids and wife! As we got older his kids would tell me how mean their father was to their mother and even they knew about affairs!

So, I guess that my experience with arranged marriages is that 1 out of 3 that I know of are good. (guess that is almost right there with regular marriage statistics!)

One of my co-workers has an arranged marriage and she seems quite happy. She is from India, and at our summer picnic told my friend and I about it. We were shocked! I guess it is normal in her culture, I just didn't really think about it much. She told us that they do it by horoscope and caste. (Cue me and my unmarried friend: HUH????) She was apparently very sheltered growing up and although she is very book smart, she has no common sense. She grew up with a maid and a cook. Her mother stayed with her for 6 months after she had a baby to do everything. When her mother left, she basically freaked out. At work sometimes she needs me to find the creamers for her coffee for her (which is just weird). Then she proceeds about her day as a software engineer. Once a group of us were talking about marriage and she said, "you have to realize that there are going to be problems and tough times. There will also be good times and happy times. This is marriage, this is what you signed on for." This from a woman who needs help with her coffee.

honey2be...I agree!

Ditto, HoneyB2.

I think marriage is a pig in a poke no matter how you do it. First of all, people usually get married when they are young and then they keep evolving and changing and pretty soon the person you meet at the breakfast table is not the one you knew at the altar, and neither are you. You may as well use astrology or numerology or your shoe size divided by his IQ or whatever. Sure, you can do this or that to make it work, a ton of people have made their fortunes trying to sell marriage adjustments: Dr. Phil and Dr.Laura and Dr.Whomever. But when it all comes down, you're either lucky or you aren't.

Lucky? I think not. That leaves all us generally unlucky people without hope- it just isn't so.

Little story. A boy sits in an airplane terminal, watching people come and go. He sees a man reunite with his family- several children and a wife- they hug and kiss and chatter - the boy stares, watching the scene - the man looks over at the boy and smiles. Embarassed for staring, the boy says, "excuse me. Looks like you're very happy - I hope I'm so lucky one day." The man stops smiling and looks at the boy very seriously and says, "son, my happiness is not luck. It is a choice."

I believe in creating your own reality - if your spouse is willing (and it may require your change first for him or her to be willing), you can make your marriage better than you could have ever imagined. Mine was once grounds for many a divorce - now it is the sweetest, deepest most precious thing - after years of tears, pain and willingness to become someone new. I believe any marriage can be happy, arranged, or otherwise. It just requires you to want to be happy, and to want it badly enough to do something about it.

Granted some people are "unlucky" enough to get the angry wife beater type, but that's not what I'm talking about - that statistic is relatively small compared to the number of people who are just stuck and generally unhappy.

Yep, I have to agree with Amy, here.

The secret to a successful life, including marriage, is knowing how to make yourself happy. If you are happy you can weather any storm and come out shining.

Since I have headed down the "happy road", things are rosey.

And what if the shoe just doesn't fit? Or you choose the Happy Face and the other person doesn't? It's not that simple.

No, to say 'put on a happy face and all will be well' is misleading. No one in their right mind would agree to such a philosophy -

However, it must be aknowleged that often times, people don't recognize the power they have in themselves /the relatnshp to make changes.

In an arranged marriage, there is the assumption that marriage is an agreement, rather than a romantic bond. Philosophically, that agreement requires a lot of work - and where in the western world we believe that there must be feelings of affection to make the marriage work, the arranged marriage would suggest that, even though there are not necessarily fuzzy feelings of affection, a union and commitment and family solidarity can still exist. Sometimes, such commitment leads to those feelings of affection.

We could use some of that philosophy here, where it seems that when the feelings are dead or even waning, perhaps it's not 'meant to be' and there might be greener pastures elsewhere - it's difficult to find reasons to trudge through life's pain, and the hardships of a long term marriage, when divorce is commonplace for reasons of "I just didn't love him any more" or "I found love elsewhere".

No simple answers, but we cannot ignore the fact that divorce in the US is commonplace, and it might have something to do with our emphasis on "me" and on "feelings" rather than on "us" and "work" and "what can I do differently"-

Note, i'm not talking about the beaten woman who thinks that making a better meal will stop the beatings, so let's not go there! LOL

I am a living proof of an arranged marriaged. When my mother told me that she picked out a guy for me, I was saying no no no.....but she gave me details about him, and I agreed to meet. The guy didn't talk very much and I didn't like him at first. Well, he was nice and kept asking me out and after 1 year of dating, we set a date. That was over 20 years ago and I never regret... I am very happy with him.
He is very gentle and a hard working man. Doesn't smoke or drinking, he helps me with so many things around the house and gave me the whole paycheck every 2 weeks.

Shortgirl

"he helps me with so many things around the house and gave me the whole paycheck every 2 weeks"

Yep...sounds like incurable love to me!!