From: sn00+@andrew.cmu.edu (Sudha Neelakantan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Arranged Marriages...
Date: 13 Apr 92 16:06:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.wduP5ju00WBNI3=t4M
Organization: Masters student, Urban and Public Affairs, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts From Captions of netnews.soc.culture.indian:
13-Apr-92  Re: Arranged Marriages...      PhD-in-Training@en.ecn.p (1143)   
>This is an age old question that still needs an answer:
> 
>If the dating-->romantic love marriage system SO SUPERIOR
>to the arranged marriage system then how come:
> 
[lots of stuff deleted -- equivalent to bad outcomes either way]
> 
>Either the above two remarks are false, or the above two remarks
>are much stronger for arranged marriages.  I say that they are
>not.  If the profile of the resulting marriages from each system
>is not different, then how can using either method be of any consequence?

>Perhaps some intelligent IIWs can enlighten my simple "MCP" mind with
>some concrete facts/argument as opposed to spewing feminist rhetoric.

>Come on, I dare yas!
Regardless of what percentage of love marriages vs arranged ones remain
utopian I personally would pick the former.  But i think your statistics
are not indicative of the fact that neither of the two may have
sufficient economic freedom esp in India to actually be able to get a
divorece even if it were necessary.  I wouldn't want to consider people
staying married coz of social mores to necessarily be considered married.

My argument is simple.  W/ a love marrige I'm guaranteed atleast a brief
period of love is blind and everything is wonderful.  beats having to
take even that on chance!

Excerpts From Captions of netnews.soc.culture.indian:
13-Apr-92  Re: Arranged Marriages...      Sanjoy Ghosh@sp1.csrd.ui (1611)   
>So to answer your question about "knowing their partner pretty
>well", the answer is yes they knew their partner pretty well
>when they got married.  But human beings change, grow, mature,
>flower, etc.  And so either they might not know their partner
>now, or might know that they don't want to be together anymore.
>Neither possibility implies failure, at least to me.
 
I think it does imply a failure, I wouldn't want to marry a person
unless I felt that I respected them enough to want to be a supportive
partner regardless of their changes and feel that its probably not worth
getting married unless I go into it w/ the assumption of permanency.  I
would rather just live in w/ them or whatever

BTW  Perhaps the marriage certificate is just a societal safety blanket
to ensure economic support of women i.e.  I feel that society on the
whole has fewer expectations of men being monogamous and historically
this probably just ensures that men take responsibilty for atleast some
of their so's.
I think it might be irrelevant to actually get married.  Hard to see a
need to feel insecure enough about a relationship to want to legalize it
and tie the partner to one's apron strings. the only use i can see for
this is in extracting alimony?   Couldn't one trust ones partner enough
to do without this (figurative) chain around ones neck?

:-)



Sudha

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<*>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
 Sudha K. Neelakantan     < Clouds come floating into my life,  
       School of           \ no longer to carry rain or usher storm  
 Urban & Public Affairs     \ but to add color to my sunset sky.
    Carnegie Mellon          >    - Rabindranath Tagore -
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian