Posted by alexandra_k on January 4, 2005, at 2:24:18
In reply to Re: must one marry for love? » eugenia, posted by annierose on January 3, 2005, at 22:10:46
Well, just to give a hearing to the other side I am not sure 'being in love' is all it is cracked up to be.
The western notion of 'romantic love' is a fairly recent 'discovery', if you like, and there are other parts of the world which do not put such high value on it.
I once went out with a guy from Sri Lanka and he said that there arranged marriages were still quite common. Now probably that brings up the same horrific images for you as it did for me at first - but we talked about it.
The notion is that people decide that they want to get married and they want to start a family. They advertise in the paper or whatever to find someone of similar age and similar caste / social class. They get sent something similar to CV's. Pictures, hobbies etc. From there the bride or groom to be sit down with their family and (ideally) they all narrow down the selection to some that everyone seems to like and then the dating begins.
They are looking for something more along the lines of a close and intimate friend / companion. It is not supposed to be about the 'high' that we typically think of as love. It is more a rational decision. Do I want to be a companion to this person for the rest of my life? Would they be a good mother / father to my children?
Divorce is frowned upon. You are supposed to honour your committment.
Of course we can think of loads that could go wrong with this - and this is just the way that he told the story to me. But the point is that there are a lot of people in the world who are happy with this, and who are happy with this as an ideal. I would say - no better, no worse, just different. I would ask
- Do you think you would make good companions?
- Do you think he would be happy with you and what it is that you can offer him?
- Do you think that you could return his devotion to you with action - even if someone you felt a 'buzz' for came along.If it is yes yes yes then I would say yes go on and marry him by all means.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:437316
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20041223/msgs/437532.html