me: i'm watching this thing on arranged marriages. this pakistani muslim american girl who is 28 was sooooo frustrated & tired of dating that she actually went back to her parents & asked them to find her a husband...
b2: thats gonna be me
me: NO! we must NEVER get that desperate
b2: at this rate we might have to!
unfortunately, b2, you might be right.
so like most single girls my age i was home in bed watching OWN - we all know how i feel about Oprah right? - & the lisa ling show "our america" came on after dateline & the subject of this episode was "holy matrimonies"
the show followed 3 couples - devout christian, muslim, & hasidic jewish - who went the way of faith based arranged marriages.
they also followed one woman as she went backwards a bit. she is 28, muslim american, living on her own miles a way from her family. successful, independent, and she was getting to the point in her life where dating just didn't seem to make sense anymore. she started to feel like finding a spouse on her own was impossible so she decided to ditch a bit of her independence and go back to her parents to find a life partner.
was she really feeling the pressure to be married that much? at 28? yes, she was & i can obvi understand it - a good chunk of the girls i went to high school with are either engaged, married, or have a kid & we're only turning 24 this year. despite not wanting ANY of those things for a VERY LONG time, i mean it'd be nice if i had the option ya know?
but i don't & apparently if i keep going at this rate, im gonna end up 28 & alone & in search of a pakistani matchmaker.
now im pretty sure this is only because its 93 degrees in my room & my insides are boiling down to mush, but the idea of an arranged marriage doesn't seem like too bad an idea.
we know the divorce rate right? 50% or something like that?
well most arranged marriages last longer than what we consider to be conventional marriages
& based on what i saw tonight, its not just because divorce is completely unheard of in these cultures.
i think it has to do with the fact that despite having only known each other 4 months (& in the case of the muslim couple, had only met in person 2 times) or 6 months or what we all consider to be a really short period of time to know someone before we commit to spending the rest of our lives with them, they get to bond over the fact that they've only known each other for 4 months, they've never been alone with another female/male EVER, they've never touched, never experienced alllll the things they will experience together for the rest of their lives.
if that doesnt bring 2 people together, what will?
they talked a lot about how faith trumps love or how their union that is sanctioned by their faith, by their "God" can only lead to love...how there was no way they could have known love before finding the other half that their scriptures and their elders talk about so deeply. that all makes a lot of sense to me.
when you marry someone based on their faith & how it holds up against your own, there is no way that marriage can ever cease to exist because as long as you have your faith you have your love & i totally get that.
now being the girl of very litte faith that i am, im probably never going to get into a faith based arranged marriage...
but maybe as i get closer & closer to that age where my biological clock is hitting snooze way too many times & i feel the need to marry for the first thing i see, i'll keep this 1 hour documentary in mind.
it wasn't the kind of response to arranged marriage that we're all used to seeing on tv.
they were all very happy! happier than most married couple who actually spent 2 years with each other & decided that despite all their difference they'd get married anyway...
they may not have loved each other on their wedding days, but they've grown to love each other & seemingly will always love each other & i guess thats the most important thing?
i guess all im saying is that my future husband better feel exactly the same way i do about the 90s or its just not going to work. if he can't understand why i'm still slightly devastated by lance bass coming out of the closet then we just can't be together. we need to be on the same pageeeeee
no but really. when you google arranged marriage or anything like that you see a lot about couples being "forced" - none of the couples on "our america" were forced into their marriages. they all chose to go this route & they have a wayyy better chance of having their marriages last than the rest of us...
i kind of felt happy for them & lord knows "happiness" is something i NEVER feel for couples.
now please excuse me while i eat these oreos before they melt.
-this has been the late night ramblings of overheated twenty something-
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