I found this editorial in a campus newspaper. The college was Westmont College. Westmont College is a Christian college located near Santa Barbara, California. The editorial was written by a female student.
It is called: Practically Ever After: Arranged marriages are the way to go
The whole piece is written tongue-in-cheek ... and meant to be funny. But beneath the surface, arranged marriages do have some appeal. A large part of the world still maintains this practice, and as far as statistics go, their divorce rates appear to be much lower than "love" marriages. It got me thinking about the whole topic of marriage. Is it truly all about love?
Anyway, here is her editorial.
Practically Ever After: Arranged marriages are the way to go
Although I am grateful to be a woman coming-of-age in a time when freedom, independence, and autonomy are no longer “masculine” characteristics, there is one skeleton in the closet of subordination that I wouldn’t mind resurrecting.
“Resurrect,” though, isn’t the correct term, because in some countries this practice — which I should warn you is a repulsive idea to us modern American women — is still alive and well, and commonly accepted as a rational means of writing the “happily ever after” into one’s story. And wouldn’t we all love that?
My drastic solution for finding Prince Charming, is really not my own. I’ve borrowed the strategy from the Indian culture, English nobility and a few Disney movies.
If you’ve seen the recent “Bride and Prejudice” you can guess where I’m going with this. Arranged Marriages — just the sound of it puts my mind at ease.
To know that mommy and daddy had taken care of that pesky little detail of a significant other, so I could concentrate on more important things — like having a life that doesn’t revolve around the dating game — sounds like a great deal. Where do I sign?
Having a pre-determined mate would make things so much easier. Or, perhaps you’re thinking this is an outlandish blasphemy of the doctrine of free will, and that I should be writing this to my parents, if anyone.
Well, I’m hoping this idea — the ancient art of controlled matchmaking — might bring a sheepish smile to more faces than just my own. Let’s start out with a familiar parallel.
When it comes to shopping, I enjoy the occasional visit to the mall, but I have a limit just like any other woman.
No matter how attractive the newest fashions are, I grow weary of sorting through the crammed racks, shaking my fist at the misleading sale signs, and enduring the uncomplimentary fluorescent lighting in those dressing rooms.
The same sentiment can be applied to the man-hunt. Men; they seem to be everywhere — perhaps not at Westmont, but we know they’re out there — and for a delirious moment they can appear to be just what we’ve been searching for, much like the dresses that looked so much better in the window.
Soon you realize that boyfriends are about as gratifying as those patent leather pants you bought for $90...or the high-heeled sneakers you adored in junior high, or, to make a more accurate comparison, the belly-button ring that is now just an ugly scar.
Let’s be honest: the seemingly perfect guy usually ends up being as unforgiving as your jeans after Thanksgiving dinner. It’s impossible to squeeze into the fantasy-woman-mold (and I’m not just talking about size and shape. You’ve got to have morals, and spiritual intuition, and the wonderful gift of submission on top of that), so you secretly resign yourself to the idea of ordering a non-refundable specimen from Grooms-R-Us just to get it over with. It may sound extreme, but online dating services have paved the way already.
Oh, the torture of dating; of feeling that instant connection and then desperately trying to keep it mutually satisfying and increasingly stimulating is utterly painful, not to mention pathetic.
We should all know by now that those momentary romances usually end with someone thinking ‘it’s just not fun anymore’ and along comes the dump truck. But if you skip fun altogether (with a nice, straightforward arranged marriage), you can only improve from there!