A Perfect Arrangement

Move-in day inspires many a colorful conversation among newly acquainted parents. My mother’s comments about her arranged marriage to my father received quite a look of shock from my roommate’s mother—a Jewish woman from Brooklyn who agonized over “the perfect man” until she met her husband shortly before her 30th birthday. It was on that fated move-in day that my mother commented somewhat whimsically about how she met and married my father: “I wasn’t scared to marry him. My father had chosen him, our horoscopes matched. And that was that.”

But to my roommate’s mother (and my roommate, too), the notion of an arranged marriage intimated something unfair—a childhood betrothal that failed to recognize that love should bind people together through their own volition. But there is more to an arranged marriage than that simple stereotype.

Granted, like every other little girl in this country, I was raised on a solid serving of Disney princesses. I grew up dreaming of falling in love in a storybook fashion; my glance would fall upon the doting eyes of my soul mate—love at first sight! A diamond ring, gorgeous white wedding dress, “’til death do us part,” and we’d walk together, hand in hand, happily ever after. Or at least, we’d be high school or college sweethearts, maybe even meet through friends while clerking for the Supreme Court.

My parents’ story was somewhat different. By the time my mother had graduated from college, her parents had begun looking for an appropriate husband for her—a man who was a few years older, well educated, healthy, and good-looking, and, of course, had an amenable horoscope. She was introduced to my father with the expectation that, if they got along well enough, they would be wed. Granted, “getting along” didn’t include things like sexual chemistry—simple compatibility took priority. So, two months later, they were engaged; six months later, they were wed. Now, more than 26 years later, they are still happily married, very much in love, and, I dare say, walking together, hand-in-hand, happily ever after.

While our American culture may not be amenable to that 1970s version of an Indian marriage, it does have much to learn from that custom. Arranged marriages highlight those aspects of matrimony which seem to have been lost in the mayhem of our Western mating rituals. Our dating culture permits us to run for the door at any sign of a small quirk or peculiarity, making us lose sight of the most important component of a marriage: compatibility. “Seinfeld,” for instance, immortalized this cultural reality: Jerry and Elaine rejected countless dates for trivial reasons—man hands, face painting at hockey games, or overuse of the high-five.

My parents, on the other hand, walked into their marriage ready to accept all those small flaws, ready to grow accustomed to one another, ready to love one another. Though often criticized, their method of meeting forced them to make the conscious decision to wholly commit themselves to each other without fleeing at the first sign of imperfection. For all the reverence that Western culture has for the romanticized notion of “love,” it somehow fails to recognize that love is something we often have to work to maintain.

Growing up, I’ve always faced these two opposing views of marriage—one that demands love before the vows are taken, and one that promises that love will grow with time and familiarity. And, while I am culturally immersed in that first fairytale version, I have at least come to see that arranged marriages help us return to the most basic requirements of a functioning marriage—real commitment, compatibility, and, perhaps, a good horoscope.



Ramya Parthasarathy ’09, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Stoughton Hall.