No, but they met and paired off in a day. They didn't need no stinkin' eharmony!

Anyone curious and unfamiliar with the story, google "Sabine Women"

Although EVERY OTHER PLACE may have plenty of straight men, in other cities (besides the large coastal meccas), people tend to get married early. There was an article in Salon about a year ago by a mid-thirties single female writer who moved to Houston (and out of NYC) in order to escape the fate of the forever single New York City woman. Unfortunately for her, she found that almost everyone in Houston was already paired off. Fourth largest city, to boot.

So, there's really no easy solution for older singles.

Frankly, the above things are all very important, but I think it is assumed that most people have these qualities. They are a given, not distinguishing features.

You'd think so, wouldn't you, but when marriage are arranged--in any sense!--primarily for the good of the family, for status or for money, these things can be considered secondary. They can also, in an environment where marriage is taken for granted, be considered not worth cultivating. Why bother? When 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.

That's what I don't get when people say, "everybody has somebody out there who's right for them". Okay, what about the heroin addicts. Is there someone we would wish them on? Or those with violent tempers? Um...yeah. And while there are women who write love letters to axe murderers, do we really think they should be given a green light to marry them? Or do we think they're not really sane and maybe need to be protected from themselves?

Parents can push their kids into all kinds of weird, harmful crap. Bad marriages is only one of many, many options, but it is an option.

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."