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Post by lola on Feb 10, 2010 22:21:32 GMT
Marriage is tricky no matter what. Interesting to read about your insights, deyana.
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Post by tillystar on Feb 11, 2010 11:46:12 GMT
A bit of an aside but I don’t think women being treated as mere property is tied to “primitive” cultures. It is easy to forget that it is only in the last 100 years women have been able to own property (it previously belonged to their father or husband), have access to education and vote in many “modern” countries. Women were still told who to marry well into the last century. It is only within the last 25 years that rape within marriage has been illegal in the UK.
Attitudes have obviously changed greatly over the last century changed towards women and more and more laws are made each year to promote an equality of the sexes. But I don’t believe patriarchal supremacy is such a thing of the past as we would like to believe, if it was these new laws wouldn’t be needed.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2010 12:17:32 GMT
In my grandparents' village, there is an old man of Algerian origin who was basically my grandfather's spritual son. He had chosen France in 1962 when Algeria became independent and never looked back. He worked in the mines and steel mills of the region and married an Italian woman. They raised a daughter, but the wife went astray one way or another, and there was an ugly divorce and he lost everything.
I'm not sure how he went about it, but a few years later, he contacted family or friends in Algeria with the message "I need a wife." And his new bride appeared one day, not a sweet young thing but a divorced or widowed mother of two. She had to leave her children behind, which was a tragedy to her, but at least she knew that she would be able to provide for them properly with this arrangement.
So, they got married and then they got to know each other. I have no idea how much friction there was, since he left a hefty part of his wages in just about all of the cafés and bars of the region, but I think that his wife had been raised to obey her husband and to accept whatever happened.
They had a son, who was first a little hellion and then a teenage delinquent, and now he is a highly rated officer in the French army, and his parents beam with pride whenever they mention him.
They're old now. He must be about 82 years old and has Parkinson's disease. He hardly leaves their shabby apartment anymore because he can't drive now. She must be around 70, and soon she will be a widow in a tiny French village where she made her life whether she wanted to or not.
I don't know if she regrets anything or if on the contrary she feels that she took advantage of a wonderful opportunity. Most people in the world have indeed been raised to accept whatever life dishes out to them, and they have no say in the matter and almost never any choice.
Are they any unhappier than we might be?
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Post by spindrift on Feb 11, 2010 13:01:59 GMT
I recall times when I was married to my Indian, but Kenyan-born, husband and living in Nairobi. Within our close-knit circle of friends, all of whom were educated and most of whom were rich, there was a high proportion of arranged marriages. There was not one case, in my perception, that did not 'work out' and was not happy.
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Post by bjd on Feb 11, 2010 13:52:42 GMT
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Post by existentialcrisis on Feb 11, 2010 13:57:12 GMT
I'm starting to wonder whether the practice of marriage itself is at all viable or meaningful in a progressive liberal culture...
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Post by spindrift on Feb 11, 2010 14:39:42 GMT
bjd - of course there are difficulties....many many difficulties. As I thought I made clear - I meant the arranged marriages that I personally observed.
I wonder the same.....
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Post by bjd on Feb 11, 2010 15:15:58 GMT
Actually -- that was an attempt at humour! Imagine getting your first sight of your bride and discovering she has a beard.
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Post by spindrift on Feb 11, 2010 18:18:12 GMT
bjd - Oh! sorry.... and yes, it was funny! I read that...
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Post by hwinpp on Feb 12, 2010 2:30:56 GMT
Just discovered this thread.
Arranged marriages, forced marriages and 'bought' brides are different things. All can be found all over Asia, probably less in Singapore and very few in Japan but all over the Near/Middle East, the 'Stans (probably slightly less because of their commie history), the subcontinent, South East Asia and rural China.
I don't mind arranged marriages, all my friends who're my age or older here in Cambodia are in arranged marriages, most are quite happy about it, both the husbands and the wives.
My grandfather was married when he was 5 and the girl was 3, that turned out to be very bad for the girl later on but my grandfather wasn't incapable of relationships, just incapable of taking care of that woman. He was married to two other women on top of that child bride, those marriages worked well.
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Post by fumobici on Feb 12, 2010 21:17:59 GMT
A bit of an aside but I don’t think women being treated as mere property is tied to “primitive” cultures. It is easy to forget that it is only in the last 100 years women have been able to own property (it previously belonged to their father or husband), have access to education and vote in many “modern” countries. Women were still told who to marry well into the last century. It is only within the last 25 years that rape within marriage has been illegal in the UK. Attitudes have obviously changed greatly over the last century changed towards women and more and more laws are made each year to promote an equality of the sexes. But I don’t believe patriarchal supremacy is such a thing of the past as we would like to believe, if it was these new laws wouldn’t be needed. I would wholeheartedly agree that in the West things have changed a lot in what is historically a very brief period of time. Even though the changes have been so recent and deep here, I still feel that Western cultural practices of even 100 years or less ago were hugely primitive or unevolved by our present standards. The critical distance traveled here isn't as much temporal as ideological. Millennia of blinkered cultural inertia are crashing up against the products of modern liberal Western cultural evolution throughout the world thanks to modern communications and transportation technologies. I wouldn't want to be the ones trying to hold back the progressive tide and I doubt that there is much of a viable middle way. The two world views are fundamentally incompatible. I doubt the little girls being born into the Indian middle class today will be willing to quietly submit to arranged marriages. We'll see though. Probably the best short-term hope for delaying cultural evolution is going fully medieval like the Taliban and trying to hold the entire modern world completely at bay and stubbornly paying the cost in lack of economic development.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2010 1:39:12 GMT
Marriage is tricky no matter what. Interesting to read about your insights, deyana. Thanks lola Any more questions, just ask.
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Post by komsomol on Mar 3, 2010 10:19:38 GMT
I wondering if people who get married 3 or 4 times are happier than someone who married someone out of duty and just stuck with them. Multiple marriages probably mean multiple unhappiness.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2010 22:51:05 GMT
. Multiple marriages probably mean multiple unhappiness. Hmm...perhaps. I do wonder if the whole concept of marriage is worth it actually.
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Post by gertie on Mar 19, 2010 0:52:37 GMT
I don't know, fumobici, if arranged marriage dies out just because of how things are in modern, Western countries. I had two friends in college, sisters. They were Indian and their parents were very proud of their accomplishments, including acceptance to an excellent American college. The parents actually told them when in Rome, you must try to do as they do, and will be seeing so many things you don't see here, so if you wish to be released from the arrangements of marriage we made when you were toddlers, we understand. Both girls were full of lively fun and dated guys we knew, but one always made it clear she was remaining virginal, even to never kissing, and returning to the young man she was promised to as an infant. I've always wondered about that...She said she wasn't in love with him, but that didn't matter. She had, however, met him at celebration events the families had shared over the years, so maybe she was at least attracted to him. The other sister married a friend of ours and is still in the this country, still married to him.
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Post by spindrift on Mar 19, 2010 20:56:44 GMT
I now have no doubt that an arranged marriage would have been better for me than what I got.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2010 21:02:09 GMT
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had gone ahead and married the man my parents wanted me to Marry, at the age of 17 no less. He was only a few years older than me, but mega wealthy, from a good Canadian family. hmmm.... Unfortunately, I had been put in a situation where I had had to be independent from a very young age and marriage was the last thing on my mind, no matter who it was to.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2010 21:22:59 GMT
Ha, I was just on the verge of asking if your parents had arranged anything for you! If it's any consolation, my grandparents did their best to set up my mother with someone. I would not exist if she had not rebelled.
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Post by Kimby on Mar 19, 2010 21:29:03 GMT
The comments about dowry have me wondering. What differentiates cultures that have the bride's family pay a dowry from the cultures where a "bride price" is paid by the groom's family to the bride's family? Are females more highly valued/respected in the bride price countries?
There's a fascinating book I've mentioned before by Leonard Shlain called The Alphabet vs. The Goddess, which addresses the evolution of human society from matriarchal, goddess-worshipping cultures to left-brained war-mongering patriarchal societies. Shlain notes that the timing of this cultural shift, in every case, coincided with the discovery/adoption of a written language.
I don't remember what if anything he might have said about arranged marriages, though.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2010 14:52:50 GMT
Ha, I was just on the verge of asking if your parents had arranged anything for you! If it's any consolation, my grandparents did their best to set up my mother with someone. I would not exist if she had not rebelled. I think rebelling is something I was simply born to do. Sometimes it's for the best. I'm glad your mother made that decision too, Kerouac! Giving up on what you truly believe in is like giving up a part of your soul, something I was never willing to do.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2010 14:59:54 GMT
The comments about dowry have me wondering. What differentiates cultures that have the bride's family pay a dowry from the cultures where a " bride price" is paid by the groom's family to the bride's family? Are females more highly valued/respected in the bride price countries? I guess the difference is that, the dowry system is institutionalized. In that, no matter what the law may say, no matter how unfair or wrong we know it is, it is still expected and usually demanded. As for a the 'value' of a female, that's an interesting question. I wonder what will happen in the (near) future as the female population is declining in India? The reason for this is, of course that female foetuses are aborted at an alarming rate in favour for the male ones. In some villages and towns the men are finding it hard to find a wife, as the male/female ratio is becoming so uneven. Will this mean that, one day, the males may have to start giving out the dowries to their their future wives' families?....
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 26, 2010 10:27:53 GMT
It means a rise in human trafficking.
Happening in China already.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2010 18:24:18 GMT
Is that right? It's a shame it has to be that way..
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Post by spindrift on Mar 26, 2010 18:41:47 GMT
And do you feel that living life has been a good experience and worth the effort? huh?
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Post by hwinpp on Mar 27, 2010 2:37:46 GMT
Is that right? It's a shame it has to be that way.. Yes, it's terrible. Usually the girls get kidnapped in Burma, Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia. Then they get sent north. Quite a few of them are ethnic Chinese. Of course there's also a lot of domestic trafficking. Girls getting bought or kidnapped in the city slums and then being sent out to the countryside for the farmers.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2010 14:24:22 GMT
hwinpp, I saw a show in T.V. about this just recently. It's quite awful. Some of the girls are 'given away' by their families or they run away to the city in hope of a better life.
And some end up working in brothels, it's very sad. The people in these brothels promise them a life, but all they get is being used.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2010 17:03:11 GMT
And do you feel that living life has been a good experience and worth the effort? huh? Kind of hard to compare with the alternative!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2010 17:22:01 GMT
I wonder how many people, who do not have 'arranged marriages' as part of their tradition, would volunteer for one, if asked?
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Post by gertie on Apr 17, 2010 3:42:56 GMT
I guess it depends on the sort of arranged marriage. Most of the cases I've read about or know about were arranged for reasons of money and property, even unto the old Jewish tradition of match maker. There are even websites geared toward this tradition, where one can pay a fee to be matched to meet only potential spouses of similar educational and financial level. Given how bad my first marriage was, an arranged marriage could hardly have been much worse. The attitude in arranged marriage societies seems to be to bend to the marriage rather than the marriage to you. In such a society the ex and I would probably still be stuck with each other. What an awful thought for both of us! From a personal standpoint at this time in my life, I can see how valuable it might have been to have someone adept in human nature and personality to arrange people according to those things as opposed to wealth, property, or education only. A lot of time is spent on sex education, but not much in the way of teaching young people to really think on what is most important to them and then look for that. My darling husband now is the result of my decision to work from a list of what was important. Although I did not at all find him in the way I had decided to proceed, so I guess you can't plot everything! Actually, it was a great and very happy surprise after we had met to go through my list and realize he met nearly every item. There have still been surprises for both of us. I'd have volunteered if I got to choose the criteria and could expect to be treated as a valued partner in the marriage after my first dismal failure, for sure, but when I was young and knew it all, no way!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2010 13:13:55 GMT
It's true, gertie. Arranged marriages are based on money, property, education and standing in community. It's not all bad. The problem arises if the couple have all that in common but still can't get along or can even stand each other. And in some cases it is very, very hard to get out of such a marriage if things get too bad. I've personally given up on marriage completely. I was married once, but for all the wrong reasons. And I realize that I'm definitely not the marrying type and never was. Spindrift and I were discussing this on my HANG site the other day. We'd hate to get entangled in a marriage that would be financially detrimental to us if it didn't work. But for those that do go for it and it works for them, and they are happy with it, then all power to them. It's just not a commitment I would ever make again, whether arranged or otherwise. ....Unless my soul mate came along and persuaded me to change my mind that is...
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