The old fashioned traditional notion of arranged marriage is wrong. It is wrong to force people to marry, and there are laws against it. Also people who marry should know each other and want to spend their lives together. Marrying complete strangers, hastily jumping into such big decisions for the sake of the family should be discouraged.
Arranged marriage has evolved and it is not bad how it used to be. When you are ready to get married, your parents, family, and family friends who know about try to find suitable matches. People have a lot more freedom to wait till they are ready. The pressure to marry just because you are a certain age is slowly going down. You meet the person, go out a few times, talk on the phone and you decide if you want to pursue it further. There is no pressure that you have to marry a specific person. Many people turn down matches because they did not click or have chemistry. Many people have met someone they adored through these arrangements and happily went forward with arranged marriages.
Dating is not that drastically different. In dating friends, coworkers, dating sites help you find people you may like and you hope to click and have a relationship. If it goes well perhaps marriage some day.
There are many benefits of arranged marriage over dating as well. It is a great system for people who don't have time, are not too social or very shy. The pressure to meet people and socialize is reduced and family who knows you well tries to connect you with people you may like. One common complaint of people dating is the confusion whether the relationship is ready for the next level, the fear whether talk of marriage or children will scare the other person away, the fear of bringing up conversations that will scare the other persona way. In the arranged marriage system that guesswork and uneasiness is gone. These people are ready to get married. You also can bring up conversations like kids, pets, running a household, and all sorts of marital questions without being afraid that the other person will freak out.
Shaadi.com is just match.com kicked up another notch. 😆 Even many western people raised in the environment of dating and making their own matches find the liberal system of arranged marriages appealing.
I also want to add arranged marriage is not a desi thing. In the upper class western world, marriage is often arranged based on social status, business alliances, family names etc. Sometimes even as archaic as the desi model where people are forced or emotionally blackmailed to marry their parent's choice. Even in the middle and lower class you have parents trying to exert their influence on their children.
As long as the two people getting married genuinely want to do so and share a life together, it does not matter whether they met on their own or their families arranged it. Similarly, whether it is a love match or arranged, rushing to marry, marrying when you are not ready, not knowing each other well enough etc are wrong and should be discouraged.
Anupamaa
