You're assuming I'm non-ethnic American. You're wrong, not to mention making an assumption about Americans in general that doesn't hold a whole lot of water. Not all of us are pampered, middle-class Euromutts, not even all Salon readers. You are, in short, making exactly the same kinds of assumptions about me that you accuse Americans of making about other people.

You're also assuming I was arguing against arranged marriage per se. You're wrong there, too.

What I'm arguing against is 1. the idea that marriage is or should be an entitlement. It's not, at least not in this country. It's not true that anyone can marry and it's not true that there's someone out there for everyone. And that's a good thing, as far as I'm concerned. Some people have no business being married.

I'm also arguing that Mommy and Daddy are sometimes capable of functioning out of selfish, even destructive, motives with little or no regard for the good of their offspring. This can happen at any stage of life, up to and including the point at which the offspring can be expected to marry.

Sadly, a history of child abuse can push an adult into dangerous marriages, just because of the psychological habits it creates. Not having arranged marriages doesn't guarantee a way out.

My third point is that a guarantee of anything can create an environment conducive to complacency. I saw the "I can do anything I want to my spouse because I have met the minimum requirements for social status and income and they can't legally leave" behavior in my own family, not on a documentary.

Sadly, she really couldn't leave. Not only would her family have rejected her, but they had helped see to it that she had no job skills that could support her. She couldn't even drive. She was married for over 50 years to a vicious brute her family adored because he could tick the proper boxes for job, religion, and social status. Thankfully, his sons had fewer guarantees and were thus held to a higher standard.

There's a reason why I'm so cynical about marriage, arranged or not, but as the Matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof says, this isn't something to go into blindly or with an eye on the social or economic prize. Decent humanity cannot be taken for granted, and personally, I think it should be held in higher esteem than income, looks or status, especially since the latter are subject to change without notice.

Miss Jain seems to be looking for a place in which she's guaranteed a good marriage with a man who will please both her and her parents, and there's no such place. Nothing can guarantee her what she wants, neither American dating nor Indian arranged marriage.

Nothing can guarantee anyone what they want, and being too fixed on what you want can blind you not only to the dangers involved, but to what you have already that's worth holding on to. In the quest for anything, it's not just about what you can gain, but also about what you can lose.

Back to Rome for a second.

Rome wasn't built in a day but it was widowed and spinstered in a day. August 2, 216 B.C.E. to be exact. 1 in 5 Roman men between the ages of 19 and 40 was killed at the Battle of Cannae.

What do you suppose the surplus women did?

It seems to me there have been people throughout history who have had to either find happiness where they could in life without a lifelong mate, or waste their lives in unhappiness because they couldn't get that one thing. Granted it's something we all want but we don't all get. On the other hand, perhaps it was a great time when women were given more moneymaking and property-holding opportunity (like after the Civil War.) After the Civil War mamy properties and businesses had to pass to the daughters because the sons were all gone, and the women got a chance to be fulfilled in feeling useful and supporting their aging dads...this does not mean the role of wife and mother wouldn't have been fulfilling, it just means when there were no sons, the daughters for once got to inherit and to try their hands at making the living. It's a kind of fulfillment should a woman wish to take pleasure and satisfaction in it, and maybe the same thing happened in 218 B.C.E.

but when marriage are arranged...there's no penalty for drinking heavily or beating your wife, nobody's going to care whether you're a drunk or a wife beater, especially if you're a doctor or an engineer.

There is this misconception in the West that women in arranged marriages are oppressed, that the low divorce rates in those cultures are the result of women not having the option of divorcing, and that parents arrange marriages only for prestige. The assumption is that unlike western parents, eastern parents do not love their children enough to want them to be happy. The understanding is stuck in the 1800s, when the culture of arranged marriages among Arab, Farsis, Indians, Lankans, Chinese, Japanese, Malays, etc., were demonized by colonialists, and described as being acts of a barbaric people who did not have the rational understanding of self to recognize the value of love and courtship.

First of all, close to 3 billion people around the world have arranged marriages (half the world's population): Most of Asia (just that is 2.5 billion people) and most of the Middle East. I am not too familiar with eastern Europeans, but my Bosnian Muslim friends say that they also have arranged marriages.

So what is this barbaric practice?

In MOST CASES, arranged marriages start with inquiries, starting when a girl or boy hits a marriageable age. A person can get close to 100 "proposals" before one partner is agreed upon. The selection process is extremely rigorous, and almost every part of one's life is researched. If we find a history of alcoholism, trust me, that proposal will get a very curt "no." By the time the back and forth "interest" process runs its course, there is very little that one does not know about the other person. Of course one can never really know someone, even if one lived with someone for years.

Both the groom and the bride have a lot of say in the matter--especially since these matters can drag on for months, and sometimes years. The potential bride and groom may not have their say with each other, at a dinner followed by a movie and awkward, fumbling make-out sessions, but they do have a voice.

Parents look for "doctors' and "engineers" because in class-conscious societies (especially caste-driven societies), these qualifications reflect a family with a commitment to and means for education. When you consider how low literacy rates are in these nations, having an education is a sign of perseverance, of values in the right place, etc. In America, anyone can get an education if they want to. That is not the case in most of the world. So parents' want their daughters to have a better life than they had, and IN THE CONTEXT of the cultures, doctors and engineers offer more security (especially in countries where, often, nothing much is secure). So one should be aware of orientalist perspectives when judging the institution of arranged marriages.

Are there cases of domestic violence in these marriages? Of course. Do some couple end up miserable? Sure. Some stick it out, because they choose to--kinda like darling Hillary and lovely Lizzie Edwards and awesome Silda Spitzer. Of course Americans will now say that only white women have choices and others don't, but that's femimperialists thinking fueled by arrogance and willful ignorance.

In cases of abuse, most families help the abused get out. You don't hear about those stories because Americans LOVE to pity other people (seriously, check out StuffWhitePeopleLike), so you only hear the horrific stories and not the other 2.9 billion working marriages and loving families. Of course, we do need to work towards greater rights for men and women in these nations, but then so does most of the world.

Now, I don't know what "personal happiness" or "whole being" mean. The idea that one can only be in a healthy marriage if one is "whole" sounds like something peddled by psychologists and big pharma, so that people can spend their 20s and 30s in therapy and on meds. People will grow throughout their lives (if they are lucky), and if one waits to be "whole" before committing to marriage, well, then one should wait forever. I have met (white/black American) women in their late 40s who go to therapy once a week, and have been for decades, and are on all kinds of antidepressants and tranquilizers. I guess they will never be ready for marriage? Sounds ridiculous to me.

In conclusion (I feel like I am back in college), if people want to live with their partners and marry or not marry or whatever, that's cool. Considering the number of gross-gross-gross married white/black men who have hit on me and my friends for years, I don't think the recipe is working. But that's for white/black America to sort out for themselves.

Basically, a non-ethnic American's understanding of arranged marriages seems to be stuck in the same place as her understanding of contemporary cricket or England, where, apparently, everyone drinks tea with their pinkies raised and say things like 'I say, Reginald, ol' chap, we must throw a ball and we must have crumpets."