I don't begrudge Nadia or her lover. If anything, it pleases me that she is able to find happiness. I understand the desire of some in my community to remain in a socially sanctioned marriage that provides a blanket of respectability and security while keeping another partner who can meet their emotional and physical needs. Having grown up on a combined diet of romantic Hindi films and the Western notion of love and marriage, I want a balance that reflects my complex bicultural landscapes of romance and pragmatism, a partner with whom I have space to move and grow as an individual, a sexuality of my own. I understand the desire of some in my community to remain in a socially sanctioned marriage that provides a blanket of respectability and security while keeping another partner who can meet their emotional and physical needs.
People remain bound to arranged marriage either because they choose to, or they see no alternative.
I imagine that adultery in an arranged marriage in which there is a tacit understanding between partners must be very much like an open relationship in the West, but with the difference of a culturally induced commitment to stay together. For those of us caught between cultures, this may be a happy compromise between tradition and modernity. Through the years, I have danced toward and away from an arranged marriage, tempted by the fruits of a practical companionship, yet afraid of experiencing the bitter aftertaste of a loss of independence. But I reserve the right to allow experience and life to change my beliefs. Although there are times when loneliness drives me to consider an arranged marriage, I can't imagine that I will ever exercise that option.