Should arranged marriages be instituted in the US?

[Anonymous]

With marraige now failing at a rate of 70% with 5 years, maybe it is time to do something different? Parents could act as matchmakers, and nothing would be forced - child would have to agree. Parents at least presumably have a successful marriage, and want the best for their child...

Updates

1 y

I don't think a healthy country has the high divorce rate of the US - yet we have it. The point of this question is to get people to think about the problem, and think about some possible solutions to tthe problem - not to give up. Although I admit that giving up is certainly a viable choice and given the situation and its recent history, perhaps the best choice.

[Anonymous]

The problem with marriage in the west is it simply doesn't really exist among people who think its about their personal feelings or happiness rather than a commitment for family.

You don't get marriage among people who think the union can end when their feelings do, or for that matter judge the union even possible among members of the same sex incapable of its family propose.

In both cases it hardly matter if they have a state license or not, they were never married and should not be expected to fulfill the practical propose of the union when their feelings invariably change.

Arranged marriages has 2 benefits:

1: It allows people with the actual wisdom to make good partnerships to do so on behave of loved ones actually young enough to benefit from them.

Because again Kids shockingly (Sarcasm) don't have good judgement in either what is important in life or who will be important. That takes life experience.

2: It abolishes the idea that marriage should be about feelings or infatuation rather than a family partnership. After all if your parents are picking someone for you you shouldn't expect them to be the most attractive person in the world not demand feelings.

Your feelings were designed for a world that cease to exist 10s of thousands of years ago. Some of them really millions of years ago when our species was less monogamous.

[Darklydarkened]

And why would anyone marry someone their parents have chosen for them?

And why do you even think that marrige will work? The reason why marriages fail is usually economic, or completely social. Back in the day, having a family was the single most important thing for society. Go a bit back and only thing you can do with your life was raising your own family

That's not the reality youth live in today. They are very diverse, their interests, life choices all differ, and their overall expectations are also differ.

Parents want the best for their child, that doesn't mean they know the best for their child. Parents, are the kernel of society, they're literally there to make you become, whatever your society needs you to be

And that, doesn't bode well with modern people

[Asker]

I'm not sure any of it would work but what's being done now? Is arguably not working either. It doesn't hurt to try something New.

[Darklydarkened]

Something new also needs to make sense

You're not focusing on causes, just want to shift the result with a clever trick.

Imagine a young man, who is just out of university. There's no way for him to fucking sustain his life with any sort of luxury, everything is expensive, housing is expensive, there's literally no way a 25 year old man to even hope buying his own house with just working in some company

Also, women are competitive, they're not in agricultural society norms anymore, they also have massive personal problems

Not only that, dating is hard, meeting people from your social class is hard, getting along with people is becoming increasingly hard.

And even if you start a home together, financial burden of raising a family is fucking hard!

And why should anyone even marry and have kids in this situation? Ordinary people do not feel secure anymore

Even medieval peasants, felt more secure in their livelyhoods, I assure you. So long as a disease didn't kill them, their life was consistent.

That's not the case for modern working class youth. And in this insecurity, they'll not be dumb enough take insane risks like having a child or lingering in a disfunctional marriage

[monorprise]

Not sure if you have noticed but "youth live in today" isn't working at all. @Darklydarkened
There are nowhere near enough babies being born & raised to even sustain any of those 'culture'.

I use quotes because both life and culture require a sustainable practice as such what modern youth in the west are doing doesn't really qualify. This 'life style' will be gone with the life it doesn't sustain within a generation or so.

So keeping that "life style" really isn't an option.

We have to reintroduce the institution of marriage.

having it be arranged would both reinforce the fact that it is NOT about your feelings but your partnership and allow said partnerships to be setup by people actually experienced enough in life to know what combinations of skills are required.

[Darklydarkened]

@monorprise And why should anyone give a damn about sustainability? People from elder generations didn't do things for sustainability's sake

Technically speaking, considering how climate will be in 40 years, and how the world will be fucked over, the question of "Should we even bring a life in this world" is not that far off.

It's not about lifestyle. Forget about lifestyle, fertility rates drop at any country with various levels of development. And it's more about economy than "lifestyle"

"having it be arranged would both reinforce the fact that it is NOT about your feelings but your partnership and allow said partnerships to be setup by people actually experienced enough in life to know what combinations of skills are required."

This is nice and all, but it completely is at odds with what people from nowadays see the world as. An entire generation been raised by individualism, being a member of the workforce, building a life for himself etc.

You can't just cancel that and go "Hey, turns out your life isn't even about you"

Won't work in no way, shape or form. It may work only in rural or provincial areas.

[monorprise]

@Darklydarkened You would not exist if any former generation didn't care about the sustainability. You are the first to truly not care.

Because you really don't care no others of your family will ever exist to again care or not care from now until the earth uselessly burns up in 4 billion years for lack of people to care.

That is the magnitude of Your apathy, and it dwarfs anything any one of your ancestors ever did.

[monorprise]

@Darklydarkened Regarding climate you seem to have been sold an outrageous lie by environmental extremist.

40 years from now the climate will be more or less unchanged from what it is now, even the most pessimistic predictions would takes hundreds if not a thousand of years for CO2 to have such an effect which is likely to say never.

That is time to either fix it or recognize its a good thing to warm a planet would otherwise return to the Glacial conditions that dominate the on going Ice age in which we live.

The Earth for the last 11 thousand years has been in what is known as a inter-glacial period they tend to last about 10 thousand years give or take. This one is called the Holocene and it is part of a larger cycle of glacial and inter-glacial periods known as an Ice age, this ice age is known as the Quaternary Ice Age and its been going on for the last 2.5 million years since the collision of North & South America at Panama.

An ice age is defined as having permanent ice on both poles, a a very unusual period representing only about 15% of earth's history.

While the Inter-glacial 's are relatively brief, the glacial periods tend to last around 100 thousand years give or take.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period

UN scientist predict even if we used all of Earth's fossil fuel reserves at best we could delay the next 5 Glacial periods, or rather half a million years of living in a relatively warm earth.

What some people are freaking out about is sea level changes which WILL happen on their own regardless of what we do, and that likewise will take hundreds of years.

So don't panic, your great, great, great, great grand children won't even know anything was different.

[monorprise]

@Darklydarkened said: "This is nice and all, but it completely is at odds with what people from nowadays see the world as. An entire generation been raised by individualism, being a member of the workforce, building a life for himself etc. "

It is in your indiviual interest to have children most people in fact want them they just live under unrealistic standards no doubt set by the urban community and culture in which they exist.

In history it is possible to get such people to make the effort such as post world war 2 an effort that feeds on itself as the more babies people see the more they tend to accept and even desire them. So perhaps mandating media feature children and child raising in every film?

[Darklydarkened]

@monorprise I don't exist because former generations were about sustaining mankind, they just wanted kids, that's all

And your argument about climate is just, funny.

Obviously human effect to it is minimal in the grand scale, but I am near 33, even I feel in my own lifetime that climate is going berserk. You're probably American, so you might miss it out but that will not end world directly, obviously

Mass migrations usually are caused by climate effects throughout history, such changes toppled civilisations before and judging how messed up we are even now, optimism is fucking stupid at this point

Nobody gives a damn about sea levels, that's not the point at all

"In history it is possible to get such people to make the effort such as post world war 2 an effort that feeds on itself as the more babies people see the more they tend to accept and even desire them. So perhaps mandating media feature children and child raising in every film?"

I personally think children are mostly boring in films and they don't make me want to have children at all

[monorprise]

@Darklydarkened
I am older than you and while I have seen an endless stream of lies by climate extremist trying to associate everything with "climate change". I have looked at the numbers and there is no significance change. Nor have i nor any of my elders ever seen any significant change at all personalty reflecting the numbers.

Instead I hear extremist trying to associate everything from storms (which are NOT more frequent or powerful) to as you seem to actually believe immigration. Which is to be frank nonsense.

The people in question are coming from some of the most environmentally stable countries on earth. They are furthermore coming primarily for economic reasons, hence the largely young male demographics.

If there were an environmental disaster in your country everyone would be coming, you wouldn't leave your parents, wife, and kids behind to suffer. If however you are coming for economic reasons your mostly just going to send young working age people, and that is what they are sending.

When you ask them they often tell you frankly that is what they want.

Furthermost if you actually look at the regions from which they come they are generally the most economically stable.

As the Earth warms it will disproportionately moderate the North not the south.

Theses are rather obvious climate extremist lies

[Asker]

@monorprise You are an intelligent person, but you are not a scientist, and your disbelief in climate change is not persuasive. People who have spent their lives studying weather and the climate are the people we should be listening to - not politicians.

[Darklydarkened]

Yeah sure, because "scientists" are all super honest and some of them are not working to push specific agendas or political doctrines

I mean, climate experts aren't as vile as economists at least, on that you're right

[Darklydarkened]

And by the way, "numbers" is not a good thing. Because statistics can literally be used to create complete lies

I was once arguing with some liberal on Twitter, and just randomly, showed me a graph that shows GDP overall per capita is increasing worldwide so that proves capitalism is the best system.

Completely ignoring that average income and wealth, doesn't include distribution in its modelling, so GDP per capita is just a nonsensical metric that doesn't measure any sort of real wealth of people

Choose your scientist, choose your method and you'll choose your conclusion

[Kelley1]

I have no idea how that could be implemented. Nevertheless, arranged marriage would be far more successful.

[Kelley1]

Thank you for the MHO.

[LazerBean]

It's not illegal or anything, people can do that if they want.

[RavVid]

Is that 70% within 5 years? I thought it bad when it was 70% by 8 years.

Maybe make it no fault divorce is not permitted after the first child is conceived and only becomes possible when the last child is 20. In between it is fault based divorce, so if some one cheats they get nothing.

[Asker]

I think it's actually 70% by 8 years. If we made everything fault-based divorce it would be fairer to men, but it would not probably reduce the rate of divorce. Arguably it might increase the rate of infidelity by women.

[RavVid]

Yeah, I was conscious of that as I wrote.

8 years is interesting cause that is about the time it takes to pop out 2 babies and get both into elementary school with it's built in child minding. Woman at least get the house and child support but without an annoying husband.

The reason why arranged marriages work is because there is a lot of prohibition on behaving badly in marriage. As there was in love matches in the west. The only real way to change this is to reintroduce punishment for bad marriage behavior and penalties. If the wife cheats the husband gets the kids and house. If the husband cheats the reverse.

There is sufficient difference in outcomes for the children to justify this.

Or just say there is no marriage anymore.

[Asker]

Excellent analysis - thanks! I would also add alimony as a current punishment but only for men, as it is not imposed on women except very infrequently, and if it is, it is not enforced. The same conditions presently prevail for child support - rare judgments against women, no enforcement at all.

Child support and alimony judgments are routinely made against men, and very vigorously enforced here in California.

[monorprise]

That would give more of a practical propose to the institution.

[RavVid]

On the update, The only solution is societal enforcement. It was once very bad to be divorced as it was a statement you were no good as a wife or husband and single men or women wouldn't consider you.

Some guys just left for parts unknown back in the day. Being more worldly wise now, possibly these guys found out their wife was cheating and just left everything behind them rather than initiating divorce which they couldn't get.

I am saying a societal refresh is needed for it to be solved. No nofault divorce and punishment for fault - including alimony - might be a way forward. You'll need cameras in every room to protect against allegations of violence though.

[Asker]

or body cams on all men.

[RavVid]

We don't have alimony anymore... Hurrah! ... wait a moment, it is called spousal support :(

If a wife no fault divorces then there should be no alimony/spousal support at all.

[Asker]

Ok, alimony and spousal support are the same thing - conceded without argument. Still means $$$ and time out of some man's pocket.

[ProbablyClueless]

Probably not... As well as they work for most people, arranged marriages are a nightmare when they go poorly.

[CheeseMonster]

If nothing would be forced, then how would it be instituted? What actual change are you proposing here?

[Asker]

The change is that the parents select a proposed spouse and vet that person, then if satisfactory present that person to their child, who of course has to approve and agree - or not.

[CheeseMonster]

What if the child disagrees before the parents have a chance to pick any partner? What if they just disagree to the whole idea of arranged marriage? That's what most children do, and why arranged marriage would be very hard to make popular in the United states.

[CheeseMonster]

Also, what if the parents don't want to do that work, or can't find someone they believe is satisfactory for their child? That would also happen quite often.

[Asker]

Things don't need to be forced in order to change if they work well and are popular.

[Asker]

If the parents don't want to do it or there is nobody satisfactory then it doesn't happen. No harm done.

[CheeseMonster]

Okay. So... what changes? It is already possible to do this in the United States. Some people do this. The reason most don't is that the child does not want to or the parents do not want to.

[Asker]

Yes, it can be done in the US and also in other places. Voluntarily. So what? Why do you care?

[CheeseMonster]

I want to know how it can be done. What you propose seems like nothing. This is already the case that parents arrange marriages unless they don't want to or the child doesn't want them to. So what do you want to change to make it more common?

[Asker]

You popularize it, offer it, and educate people about it. It is most certainly not nothing if it reduces the divorce rate.

[CheeseMonster]

So you promote it? Okay. How would arranged marriages reduce divorce rates though? Most cultures where it is popular has low divorce rates because divorce seen as a shameful failure and a sin, not just because the marriages are arranged.

[Asker]

You have made the point. If divorce is regarded as a shameful failure and a sin, perhaps people will be more careful about entering into marriage and will make greater efforts to resolve problems than they do now. That might reduce the divorce rate.

Divorces are generally (~90%) initiated by women because it has monetary value for them and it is easy for them to find another man. If it resulted in shame and it was not so profitable, and it was not so easy to find another man, perhaps they would not initiate it so easily.

[CheeseMonster]

So what do any of those supposed reasons for divorce have to do with arranged marriages? That is a completely unnecessary step to popularize. You could just depopularize divorce and skip all the other stuff, and it would have a much greater effect on divorce. It doesn't even have to effect the potential "payout" or how careful someone is when choosing to get married. If divorce is shamed, people will stay married more often, even if it means they suffer monetarily and/or relationally.

[CheeseMonster]

That is why divorce is so low in many places with arranged marriages. Even if the marriage is awful and they want to divorce, they don't because they would be shamed.

[Asker]

Well it's not so easy to create a climate of shame around divorce. Divorce is highly profitable for many women and that alone will serve to nullify the effect of any shaming that occurs. Divorce also allows many women to have multiple male partners which hypergamy dictates they aspire to. Shaming is not going to change that.

[Asker]

I don't understand what's in it for you to keep attacking this from every angle you can think of. I didn't ask you to do this and I don't have any history with you as far as I know. I'm not sure who you are or why you are doing this, but I'm getting a little tired of having to respond to your concerns. Think it through for yourself.

[CheeseMonster]

I thought you just wanted arranged marriages to happen. I was confused how you would do that without forcing it. Then you said the whole point was actually to lower divorce rates, which is a completely separate issue that you can only really do by making it shameful or extremely difficult / illegal, and usually both at the same time. Interestingly enough, this actually causes higher depression and suicide rates for women as well. Personally I dont think such such exchange is worth it. I don't know who you are because you're anonymous. You do not have to reply to me. I find your reasoning to be strange.

[Asker]

It's okay. I find your objections to be odd. This is just a hypothetical. Anyway. Nobody is going to do arranged marriages in the US that they aren't already doing informally. some subcultures in the US do this I believe, although I'm not sure how extensive it is.

[Static_In_The_Attic]

If the failure rate is that high maybe people shouldn’t get married in the first place.

[Asker]

You are right. In the United States with no fault divorce, men are completely insane if they get married. And men are increasingly not getting married.

[Static_In_The_Attic]

Marriage is like a hurricane there is a lot of blowing in the beginning & when it’s all said & done your house is gone.

[Static_In_The_Attic]

You are right as well & to to answer your question arranged marriages shouldn’t be instituted. As for me I live in the United States & when it comes to marriage nowadays you would have to be out of your mind to say I DO. You say I Do say goodbye to half or all your shit. As for me I have never been married & I don’t plan on it as well & if I’m stupid enough to get married hopefully I’m smart enough to have a prenuptial agreement in place & have a divorce lawyer on retainer.

[monorprise]

Most of them were not really married in the first place given how common their excuse is simply their feelings changing.

If that is how they defined marriage your right they shouldn't have been given a license.

[Asker]

@static_in_the_attic I think you are quite correct in this...

[Asker]

Lol - so true!

[Asker]

A Prenup is worthless. A judge can modify or nullify it at will, they will in favor of the woman.

[slatyb]

Arranged marriages aren't happier.

[Asker]

How do you know that or is that just your opinion?

[slatyb]

The divorce statistics are not useful as there is a high social cost to divorcing in south Asia.

[Asker]

What happens?

[slatyb]

For one thing, a lot of wives are murdered.

[Asker]

You have some data to support this up or is this again? Just your opinion?

[squadrista]

There are those kinds of things in the south.

[Asker]

Interesting - can you write more about it, please?

[Anonymous]

Women might actually be happier

[Asker]

I would hope so