[Anonymous]

Hailing from a traditional family from India, I found myself in an eternal dilemma over this question. To give you some background, most people in India do not have any romantic partners until marriage. This may come as a surprise to most of you but it mysteriously works somehow. I was a little different and after all these years, having utterly disappointed with the quest for finding true love – I am here to share what I learnt.

My reasoning is based on the postulate that “Deep down everyone is good”.
I have had my share of love and it has always ended being unrequited. The pattern repeated and it was in time that I realized; it’s not a problem in me or a problem in others but it’s rather a problem in the very idea of love. A love marriage, more often than not is based on feelings and intimacy (by intimacy I do not just mean physical intimacy but also emotional intimacy)

Once feelings stop, love stops and love turns acrid. In contrast an arranged marriage is based on commitment. Come what may, I am going to stay with this person for the rest of my life and that is why it works. The reason being — Deep down everyone is good !!!

Search for love is just a frivolous skylarking. People try other people to see if they are compatible and can love each other. They experience a breadth of options. I don’t think this will ever work; for, no one is ever truly compatible. The truth is if one can know just one person and one person alone deeply enough, one is bound to fall in love with them because deep down everyone is basically good. It’s just a matter of working around the incompatibilities and celebrating the strengths.

I am 23 now and in a couple of years, I hope my parents will find someone suitable whom I can devote to for the rest of my life 🙂 I am not angry on anyone – I just wish people in my past were a little more wise and a little more committed to making life beautiful.

Thanks for reading. I hope you all found it piquant.

[Lenka]

It´s very interesting but due to my very different cultural background (Europe), it´s something what I can never understand.
I don´t believe all people are good, in fact I think the most of them (at least 90%) are pure evil. That´s what I´ve learnt.
If I lived in your country or any coutry where arranged marriages are the norm, I would kill myslef. I am afraid of people and it takes me many months or years to develop at least basic feelings of trust to someone, and in most cases, when I get to know someone I wish it never happened.
I hate to be touched by strangers. It makes me feel physically sick. I´m strongly repulsed by sex, no matter with whom it would be.
I´m glad I live in the country where no relationship is an option.

I don´t get how arranged marriages can work. If you don´t care about the other person, feel totally NOTHING towards them etc., how can it work, if relationships are so hard to build even with people you DO care about?
Arranged marriages are like bussiness, and relatinships shouldn´t be like bussiness.

[Raell5]

I’ve often envied people in arranged marriages because so many seemed to work out and my love/compatible ones always crashed and burned eventually. But I would FAR rather have the option to take off once a partner turns hostile and dangerous than to be stuck with him.

In MY case, I’m not “female” enough to instinctively control males by “withdrawing” and giving men the silent treatment anytime they don’t please me, and not “male” enough to turn my life over to a female to run everything.

Eventually any male partner learns he can do as he please,s without consequence, since I’m too male to care, so he begins walking all over me, and taking me for granted, until he becomes so dangerous I end the relationship.
All I ever wanted from men is friendship and a fun companion with which to do things-dancing, hiking, traveling, reading, riding horses, building businesses together. I always had that for a few years with each one, so don’t regret my relationships.

I keep hoping I can find the answer, though.

[Yvonne]

I can relate! I married (now 2 years separated) into an Indian family in South Africa (I’ve been to India twice), and I get this. I’m Hindu with a little Buddhism sprinkled in the mix and I just want to focus on my devotional family life, with all of the standards but I’d rather chant mantras and meditate and go to temples and do puja and read rather than think of sex.

[Author]

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