Arranged Marriage: Love vs. Material Benefits

[learningphysics]

sneez,

I did not mean to upset or offend. You said in your post that a man and woman in an arranged marriage have no choice but to fall in love. You said that this was due to chemistry involved.

How exactly does this chemical reaction take place? Does it happen when a man and woman live together? I know you're probably not saying that any man and woman in proximity to each other fall in love... so I'm wondering what the criteria are for the chemical reaction to take place. Time spend together?

It seems like you're just throwing out any criteria like compatibility... physical attractiveness and saying that any man can fall in love with any woman. If this is really the case then are parents wasting time by trying to match their children with appropriate partners, when in fact any other partner would do?

 

[sneez]

in no sense i felt offended but your next question proves to me you did not read or missed important point in my post. I stressed very much the other factors involved in "love" and marriage that they exists. However, i was trying portray how our "animal" self works and how we feel about love versus how we perceive love. I in no sense claimed that my post are the ultimate guide to "love". My post were merelly make you guys think of the reality we experience and what science says about it and you will see how much the scientists can preditct based on the knowledge of chemistry involved. IF you read my post or the articles you will see how our grand father were correct in arranging marriages and not letting ppl "freely" falling in "love" left and right. Love is a state of stress for a body and cannot sustain it more than 2 years. I bet we all can confirm that with experience! "Love" (sexual desire which our society transaltes it into) is nothing than a drive to procreate, which we know almost everything about in terms of chemistry.

Read my post and raise arguments rather than disagreements to move this discussion forward rather than stagnate here.

Im not going to repeat the posts again. I am confident i answered your objection in my previous post and if i did not feel free to read those articles i posted links to. If still there is confusion ill be more than happy explain.

regards sneez

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

Read my post and raise arguments rather than disagreements to move this discussion forward rather than stagnate here.

What if our arguments disagree with yours? Are we not allowed to post them?
People may be having difficulty pointing out why there is no connection between chemistry and arranged marriage, and why due to chemsitry and man and women (what about man and man, or woman and woman) will inevitably fall in love, because it is not clear where you think these connections are. The links you posted did indeed describe a connection between love and chemistry, but they did not mention the benefit of arranged marriage. As you too have not actually explained how arranged marriage is scientifically proven to be beneficial, it is rather difficult for someone to comment on this connection - they can only point out the lack of connection in your argument. You cannot seriously propose the existence of something, refuse to explain it, and then challenge people to disprove it. Can you, for instance, disprove the existence of a humpfloogle? I made it up, but you have no basis to debunk it for you know nothing about it.
You have to present a reason why love's chemical nature requires arranged marriage, rather than just say that is does. Only then is there a basis for argument. Likewise you need to explain why you think two people of opposite sex will, if cohabiting, inevitably fall in love rather than, say, hate each other's guts every day.
There is also a difference between people not reading your posts, not understanding them, and understanding them but being apathetic.

 

[sneez]

Absolutelly I am just arguing from the perspective of those articles so anyone is free to post any opinion one wants but rather than claim "i disagree" it would be easier to say "why" also so we can have argument.

SO to reiterate my point:(im not going to go into chemistry agains since we car read it in those articles, there are more i read recently about women and their brain and stuff but that's for later)

So it seems that arranged marriage has its value because the two will "have to" fall in love since its their first time for them as far as physical contact. DUring orgasm necessary chemistry happens which will give them the feeling of love. THere are other 2 stages (which i talked about ) which are perfectly suited for arranged marriage as oppose to random "sex" till the age of 30 and then get married to whomever one goes out the last. THose stages are unnecessary if our nature would be doing the later.

Oppose to "dating" scheme because the feeling of love is not designed to yield the same results over and over for FUN! It is seriously purposfully developed to ensure procreation. The "love" we get from dating is a joke to pursue since it does not exist. Its just a notion we fool ourselves with. The articles prove that love is not everlasting neither is it some esotheric thing that pervades universe. ITs very simple chemistry designed for a purpose. On our animalistic level our body does not play jokes on us as we might think. The chemisty works best when reinfoced on one person as the articles show.

That does not ensure sucessfull marriage. There are many other factors in it but from chemistry perspective we are monogamist creatures who have a choice to become polygamist if they want but in general monogamist we are according to science. Hence the "dating" and stuff is just not us by desing.

i hope i put it better in perspective...

sneez

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

So it seems that arranged marriage has its value because the two will "have to" fall in love since its their first time for them as far as physical contact.

Why is this special to arranged marriage? You have yet to clarify the following:
- why, due to the chemical nature of love, is it inevitable that two people will fall in love if they live together? Just because something CAN happen, doesn't mean it will.
- why, if living together is all that is required, do the couple have to be married?
- why, if they are to be married, is arranged marriage beneficial if physical contact is the only requirement?
- if physical contact is necessary (in which case, why do I love Monica Bellucci?), why is cohabitation the only way to do this? Most people fall in love, then cohabit, well enough without having people choose with whom they do so.
A 'first time' for physical contact does not necessitate cohabitation, nor marriage, nor arranged marriage. Nor do any of those necessitate love. At least, not from the facts, rather than your own opinions, with which you have presented us.

During orgasm necessary chemistry happens which will give them the feeling of love.

Clean your mouth out with soap and water. None of your sleazy sex talk here.

THere are other 2 stages (which i talked about ) which are perfectly suited for arranged marriage as oppose to random "sex" till the age of 30 and then get married to whomever one goes out the last.

Are those the only options? How about having a meaningful relationship with someone important to you? And you underestimate the greatness of random sex.

Oppose to "dating" scheme because the feeling of love is not designed to yield the same results over and over for FUN!

Most intelligent animals have courting rituals. Ours are just... not as good. Could you imagine two vultures courting by pecking together at carrion? Yuck!

The "love" we get from dating is a joke to pursue since it does not exist.

On the contrary, even without the (possible) illusion of love, courtship is still a necessary phase of choosing the right partner - i.e. the one who's traits you wish your progeny to inherit. Dating is very Darwinian.

The articles prove that love is not everlasting neither is it some esotheric thing that pervades universe.

The articles prove nothing. It is theory.

There are many other factors in it but from chemistry perspective we are monogamist creatures who have a choice to become polygamist if they want but in general monogamist we are according to science.

I didn't see anything in those links that suggested 'chemical love' as leading naturally to monogamy, and I would distrust an article that did so as biased selection of facts. Spreading the genes apart as far and wide as possible is another tactic to preserve the bloodline.

i hope i put it better in perspective...

Not really. There are some major leaps of reasoning in your argument. You could address these in more depth.

 

[sneez]

why, due to the chemical nature of love, is it inevitable that two people will fall in love if they live together? Just because something CAN happen, doesn't mean it will.

There is almost 100% certanty it will since its math.

why, if living together is all that is required, do the couple have to be married?

Living together is fine, given that you do not change partners during or too often to put your chemistry in imbalance.
But if you do not plan on it than get married i guess. Note that arranged marriage as i use it is not imposed marriage neither against someones will. Arranged means that no dating before hand took place.

- if physical contact is necessary (in which case, why do I love Monica Bellucci?), why is cohabitation the only way to do this? Most people fall in love, then cohabit, well enough without having people choose with whom they do so.

Liking and releasing oxytocin is different. There are look also but you cannot fall in love with that person just by looking at him/her. IF i remove the image from you, you will forget about her very quickly or at least in the sense of "love".

As i explained earlier falling in love is not for phun at our animalistic level. ITs highly stressfull situation for body and it cannot sustain it for long time. Why i suggested arranged marriage is the fact that it utilizes the system of chemistry the best. Falling in and out of love will demage the balance and one of the articles even mentions this.

Clean your mouth out with soap and water. None of your sleazy sex talk here.

Hmm i don't know what's the problem. DUring orgasm you brain releases oxytocin which in turn produces dopamin which makes you feel good. No matter which way you reach the orgasm. HOwever, the oxytocin when there is partner is associated with that partner in your brain. (ALso that's why masturbation can be addictive, it association process. )

Are those the only options? How about having a meaningful relationship with someone important to you? And you underestimate the greatness of random sex.

Im not forcing you to stop having as much sex as you want. I am saying that we are not designed for that. Read again what happnes during sex in your brain and you will see you can just take an injection with the right substance and have feel the same effect. Research by Dan Ariely (MIT Sloan School of Management) and Hans Breiter (Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston), published in the November 2001 issue of the journal Neuron, indicates that in men, female beauty stimulates the same pleasure centers of the brain as those stimulated by food and cocaine. Can you see wha i see ?


Meaningfull relationship comes through chemistry. IF on "animal" level of pheromones etc the two are not compatible there will never be a relationship. NOte alse i never got into psychology of relationship, I am talking purelly about "love".

Most intelligent animals have courting rituals. Ours are just... not as good. Could you imagine two vultures courting by pecking together at carrion? Yuck!

97% of animals are incapable of monogamist relationship. WHat is your point? Human goes into 3%.

On the contrary, even without the (possible) illusion of love, courtship is still a necessary phase of choosing the right partner - i.e. the one who's traits you wish your progeny to inherit. Dating is very Darwinian.

NO on animalistic level is about pheromones/testosteron/etc. This is very clearly covered in the articles. The behaviou of male changes immediatelly when close to women he is attracted. IF you talk about that its due to testosteron which gives him the drive. Aftere that its psychology but I am not even going to go there. Note alse that for man and women there are different criteria to select partner but on the chemistry level we are very similar. Again I am not taking dating from you. SO stop beging defensive of it.

The articles prove nothing. It is theory.

What is not a theory? The articles clearly document research that proves that love is just chemistry.

I didn't see anything in those links that suggested 'chemical love' as leading naturally to monogamy, and I would distrust an article that did so as biased selection of facts. Spreading the genes apart as far and wide as possible is another tactic to preserve the bloodline.

Read again its explicitly stated there.

Not really. There are some major leaps of reasoning in your argument. You could address these in more depth.

Well there are more than 100 pages in those articles. I know its a lot to read but if you are interested ..., it will give you the depth i think for sure. I can post even more links if you need.

sneez

 

[El Hombre Invisible]

There is almost 100% certanty it will since its math.

You have to validate this statement. Neutron decay is pure weak nuclear interaction, but that doesn't mean every neutron in my body is going to spontaneously decay. Likewise simply because love is purely chemistry, does not make it inevitable. By your reasoning, every arranged marriage is a loving marriage. This is certainly not true.

Living together is fine, given that you do not change partners during or too often to put your chemistry in imbalance.

An explanation of this would be cool too. Are you saying falling in love can adversely effect your chemistry? This would be odd since falling in love, you say, is a result of chemistry.

Arranged means that no dating before hand took place.

Ah. So you can meet the person, but not flirt?

Liking and releasing oxytocin is different. There are look also but you cannot fall in love with that person just by looking at him/her. IF i remove the image from you, you will forget about her very quickly or at least in the sense of "love".

I was kidding.

Why i suggested arranged marriage is the fact that it utilizes the system of chemistry the best. Falling in and out of love will demage the balance and one of the articles even mentions this.

Again, arranged marriage is not required. If two people inevitably fall in love regardless of who the other person is, it may as well be someone of their own choosing. Also, how can someone fall out of love if physical contact makes love inevitable. How, for instance, am I more likely to fall out of love with my girlfriend whom I loved before I lived with than someone who lives with a man or woman they have not previously met? This is a chemical argument for monogamy, yes, but not arranged marriage, and it is not the only consideration to take when comparing monogamy to polygamy. It has long been known that male sex drive is a likely candidate for their shorter life expectancy, but it is also known that the more females a male impregnates, the safer his bloodline is.

Hmm i don't know what's the problem. DUring orgasm you brain releases oxytocin which in turn produces dopamin which makes you feel good.

So... for a happy marriage, smoke crack!

Im not forcing you to stop having as much sex as you want. I am saying that we are not designed for that.

My sex drive begs to differ. We may not be designed in one aspect, but we may be in others. If you subscribe to evolution, rather than intelligent design, there is no reason why two functions of the human body have to be complimentary.

Research by Dan Ariely (MIT Sloan School of Management) and Hans Breiter (Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston), published in the November 2001 issue of the journal Neuron, indicates that in men, female beauty stimulates the same pleasure centers of the brain as those stimulated by food and cocaine. Can you see wha i see ?

Oh, I believe you. But sex is free. And legal. And no matter how much coke you snort, you will not have a baby. I'm not sure of the relevance of this.

Meaningfull relationship comes through chemistry.

A meaningful relationship is a sociological issue. I don't think chemistry is designed for 'meaningful' relationships, just successful ones. Polygamy, again, is a successful trait, in that it aids survival (to an extent - you don't want one male banging every female because two generations later everyone will have six toes on one foot). Actually I don't even know what a 'meaningful' relationship is. Forget I said it.

97% of animals are incapable of monogamist relationship. WHat is your point? Human goes into 3%.

99.9999999999999999% of animals are incapable writing a best-selling novel too. This does not make me an author.

The behaviou of male changes immediatelly when close to women he is attracted. IF you talk about that its due to testosteron which gives him the drive. Aftere that its psychology but I am not even going to go there.

Precisely - there are other considerations. Again, just because something CAN happen, does not mean it WILL. And also, just because one chemical impulse makes one action desirable, it does not another will not override it. Furthermore, are you saying peacock's use psychology? I would suspect it is no less physical than testosterone. I'm not defending dating, I'm explaining what it's for and why it is not rendered useless or hazardous by your view on love. It has nothing necessarily to do with love. It's a kind of genetic screening really. Your daughter will be more likely to reproduce if she has blond hair and big boobs. Therefore you want to check to hair colour and boob size of your prospective spouse. (That's two examples, to some men the most important two.)

What is not a theory? The articles clearly document research that proves that love is just chemistry.

No - it suggests, based on current thinking and latest evidence. It is not a proof, just a way forward.

 

[NoGeniusJustSensible]

OK on this issue... arranged marriages do not neccessarily mean a person is betrothed to someone. It is a marriage planned yes, by others, and MAY NOT be consented to by the bride/groom. though this is not much in practice anymore, as both individuals usually consent to marriage. My parents had an arranged marriage. They did not chose each other, but agreed to marry after their parents had paired them up. They do not love each other less than people who may have had a "love marriage", infact i could say they love each other more than people who've had "love marriages".
So, it doesn't make arranged marriages inhuman or immoral, it could be a boon, but then again it could be a curse as well.
It depends on the situation really.
Whereas being betrothed to someone is just sad... cos then their parents havn't consulted the person concerned and that could lead to a lot of parent-child issues...

 

[Nomy-the wanderer]

I've an opinion, when i was a teenager i thought that this is the best way to elad a miserable life, but after a second thought, i can't be satisfied if soemthing like that happened to me...I can't accept it and that's it.

But arranged marriage in a community is the result of a culture, a way of growing some certain concepts, so i think the families choose their kids partners depending on the family's wealth, social position, environment, stuff liek that..

It happens that both of the partners if accepting such a marriage, will find many common things due to the similar conditions they were brought ion, acceptance will make them try to make it work...

And there r many cases, because this acceptance really made it work and really are in love with each other now...

But since this is not my culture nor my family's..I was brought into this world, knowing that it's not enough to accept what my folks say or what my teahcer's say, i knew i have to try and choose for myself...

I think it's like that..

 

[Antiphon]

In the West, arranged marriages were a way of keeping family wealth
concentrated. Wealthy people married other wealthy or influential families.

There was a time when people still recognized that material things and money
meant a whole lot to the next generation's ability to survive. Today love and
attraction are considered more important by many. Perhaps this is because the
difficulty of surviving is much lower than in earlier times.

 

[physics4ever]

Hi everyone,

I just happened to see this thread and thought I would comment because my parents had an arranged marriage. In our community, the boy, along with his family, goes and meets the girl and her family. The families talk to each other about the prospective marriage, while the boy and the girl talk in private. Both of them are under no obligations to marry and can opt out of it anytime. My mother agreed to marry my father only after going out on a few 'dates' with him, and exchanging a LOT of letters. So it is like dating, only the courtship is shorter. There is usually a year's gap between the engagement and the marriage, so that the boy and girl get to know each other.

In India, the girl usually lives with the boy and his family after she gets married. So it is absolutely essential that she gets along with the boy's family, which is why the two families interact so much before the marriage.

My parents are pretty happy in their marriage. My mother, however tells me she may have thought twice about marrying my father if she had known him longer. But I don't think this is because they had an arranged marriage, but because you really get to know your partner only after marriage.

Having said all this, I would not dream of going in for an arranged marriage. I guess this is because of the rapidly changing Indian culture.

Sunayana.

 

[Astronuc]

My parents are pretty happy in their marriage. My mother, however tells me she may have thought twice about marrying my father if she had known him longer. But I don't think this is because they had an arranged marriage, but because you really get to know your partner only after marriage.

I know several marriages where this is the case, i.e. one of the partners has doubts about the other, and these marriages were not arranged, but simply happened when both partners where much younger.

I know a several divorced people who tell me that had they known more about the person to whom they were married (and the marriage was not arranged), then they would not have married that person. In some cases, the couples divorce after 20-30+ years of marriage.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I know several marriages where this is the case, i.e. one of the partners has doubts about the other, and these marriages were not arranged, but simply happened when both partners where much younger.

I know a several divorced people who tell me that had they known more about the person to whom they were married (and the marriage was not arranged), then they would not have married that person. In some cases, the couples divorce after 20-30+ years of marriage.

But after 20 or 30 years of marriage, the person you have come to know is no longer the person you married. The experiences of the marriage themselves have changed both partners, so if they no longer recognize each other as the person they married it's not surprising. On the other hand having those experiences together will sometimes weld two disparate personalities in a common bond they could not have visualized when young.

 

[Jarvis Bull Dawg]

Let me tell you something from my own experience. Arranged marriages (on average) outlast any 'love' or pre-marital sexual relation (and then marriage). Arranged marriages are not all that you see on CNN. These days most families do ask consult the going-to-be bride or groom. So its not as blind as it used to be. I do have to admit that men do have an upper hand because they get most of the choice, even if its 'yes', 'no', and 'show me the next one'.

My friend's of Indian origin, so I have some idea how it goes around.

 

[Dayle Record]

I just read a long, harrowing article in the New York Times, regarding fistulas in women that give birth at a very early age, whose babies die, and the women become infected and spend years incontinent with both urine and fecal matter. These marriages are arranged and the girls are married off at age 11-12 frequently before the onset of menses, and then certainly after the onset of menses. This is an area where we aren't giving out condoms any more, I guess people don't realize that arranged marriage is often the giving of children to adults for sex. It is also forgotten that in almost direct proportion to the ignorance and poverty of the society, is the low age of girls given in marriage, it is always about power and economics, and basically it is abandonment. The tales in this article are absolutely harrowing, I think I will link it.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/international/africa/28africa.html?hp&ex=1127880000&en=fc2820b1b20c4bbb&ei=5094&partner=homepage>

There it is. This article is not for the faint of heart, and it shows the results of the lower end of the spectrum of arranged marriage.