The Half-Hearted Case for Arranged Marriage

committing to one even though “there are plenty of fish in the sea”

This article is part of the Claritas spring 2023 issue, Love. Read the full print release here.

By: Frank Fang

It was the summer of my senior year of high school, and I was high on getting into Cornell. Not only would I never have to worry about my career again, but I would also have something extra special for my Hinge profile. I envisioned the scene: “Wow, he plays the cello, AND he’s going to Cornell?” *Swipe* With this mindset, I flew to another city to win over a crush of mine. One week and $300 later, I flew home in the friend zone, lamenting my decisions and rethinking my life. My mind flashed to Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians: “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” [1] Perhaps, it would be better for me to stay single forever, like Paul. I would save so much time and heartache. I could have donated that $300 to a charity or my church instead of indulging in a fruitless romantic pursuit. When I went to my dad with my heartbreaking news, he had the nerve to rub salt in my open wound by proposing that he arrange a marriage for me (because even he could see that I was hopeless). 

He might have had a point. Wouldn’t it be easier if my parents just chose someone for me? Since I clearly “burn with passion,” it would be a win-win! During my era of singleness, I could harness my burning passion toward a more productive avenue, such as my relationship with God or my neglected homework. And when the time came for my dad to choose a spouse for me, I would have a more secure foundation with the Lord, or at the very least, better grades. 

Intrigued by my dad’s offer, I scoured the internet and dug up some interesting facts about arranged marriages. I couldn’t find any statistics on the rate of arranged marriages in America, but I found that a staggering 40-50% of marriages in the US end in divorce. By contrast, 55% of marriages around the globe today are still arranged, with only 6.3% ending in divorce. [3] In fact, arranged marriages have been the norm for most of human history. According to the HuffPost, love only became a primary reason for marriage in the 18th and 19th centuries when Enlightenment thinkers began promoting the “right to personal happiness.” [4]

Now, I want to clarify that I am not actually advocating a cultural shift back to arranged marriages. I would rather die single than allow my father to choose a woman for me. And, there are plenty of valid arguments against arranged marriages. For example, arranged marriages are most prevalent in cultures where women do not have as much autonomy. I am also speaking out of a place of singleness, so I have no credibility (and I don’t actually have a Hinge profile). However, I perceive that mainstream marriage and (in particular) dating culture at Cornell and of this generation is fundamentally flawed because relationships are founded on self-ish rather than self-less motives.

The dating culture at Cornell involves predominantly transactional interactions that gratify some selfish and fleeting desire for both parties. These interactions are facilitated by one of many dating apps that present potentially suitable partners that may or may not have traits that you find desirable. It takes just a few seconds out of your day to mindlessly swipe through people. If you match with someone, you enter a low-risk “getting to know you” stage. If that goes well, you’ll start dating more formally or maybe hooking up. But if, at any point, the other person does something that displeases you, you can just drop them! There are plenty of fish in the (Big Red) sea anyways, especially with the unlimited catalog of people on Tinder or Christian Mingle. 

This model of relationships reflects an individualistic culture centered on self-gratification. It grants people the entitlement to freely cast others off since there is an endless supply of better and more attractive people to invest in (similar to the entitlement that the admissions officers feel when they cast 91% of Cornell applicants into the void). However, in the name of love, out of free will, we have actually dehumanized people. We think of them as potential merchandise in a marketplace of “love” made easy and convenient by the multi-billion-dollar dating industry. With all its ills, arranged marriages see people as people, embedded in families and social contexts. Dating profiles depict someone's son or daughter, not just an object or a collection of photos.

Ironically, there is also an arranged-marriage-like element of modern dating culture that still defers responsibility for finding a mate to someone else. Cornell’s Perfect Match [5] is literally arranged dating, but instead of trusting the judgment of the parents who raised you, you entrust your fate to some sophomore Computer Science major juiced up on Celsius and parental expectations who only knows your height, zodiac sign, and favorite hook-up song. Cornell even has something called the “Cornell Marriage Pact,” where you can take a quiz for an algorithm to arrange a marriage pact for you. [6]

In arranged marriages, you lose this ability to move from relationship to relationship freely. You’re kind of just matched with someone and stuck with them. You meet a person where they are and build a life together. There are also generally more factors than just love involved in an arranged marriage, such as familial influences. Maybe your family found you this person to marry because it would honor the family name, or there is some political reason for your marriage. While these are not necessarily the cleanest intentions, this relationship that you’re put into is for something bigger than just the two of you. There’s no expectation that this person will satisfy your personal pursuit of joy. Instead, marriages persist because of selfless love. 

One of my favorite plays growing up was Fiddler on the Roof (because I was a strange little boy that was fascinated with sorrow and Jewish music). This musical is mainly about cultural change between two generations, which gets explored in a subplot where the father, Tevye, tries to arrange a marriage for his daughter, Hodel, who has subscribed to a new cultural norm of falling in love before getting married. This tension causes Tevye to contemplate his arranged marriage with his wife, Golde. A conversation between these two unfolds in a musical number entitled “Do You Love Me?” in which Tevye persistently asks this question to his wife. Golde first responds by listing the duties that she’s completed for her husband. 

Do I love you? For twenty-five years I've washed your clothes

Cooked your meals, cleaned your house

Given you children, milked the cow

After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?” 

Tevye again asks the question, and Golde concludes that her service and life with Tevye are enough to warrant love. 

“Do I love him?

For twenty-five years I've lived with him

Fought him, starved with him

Twenty-five years my bed is his

If that's not love, what is?”

The song ends with Golde’s realization that:

“It doesn't change a thing

 But even so

After twenty-five years

 It's nice to know.” 

“Do You Love Me?” paints a beautiful picture of a selfless marriage. Over twenty-five years, Golde devotes her time, livelihood, energy, and life to a man she met for the first time on her wedding day. She even suffers with and for Tevye by giving him children, enduring fights with him, and starving with him. These two individuals were mutually self-sacrificial through a difficult twenty-five years, all within a culture and tradition of marriage that we claim was not “founded on love.” [7]

Multiple marriage stories in the Bible also seem to favor arranged marriages. The first “marriage” in Genesis is arranged. Adam does not choose Eve out of love, or vice versa, but rather, the Father places Eve into the life of Adam [8]. There are several other examples of successful arranged marriages in the Bible, most notably the faithful and God-ordained union of Isaac and Rebekah. [9] 

In contrast, marriages that result from passion and self-serving interests in the Bible are messier and often enmeshed in polygamy. Out of love for Rachel, Jacob works for 14 years to earn her from Laban, Rachel’s father, who initially tricks him into marrying his older daughter, Leah. [10] King David sleeps with Bathsheba, the wife of his soldier, Uriah, then has him killed in battle to justify his wedlock marriage. [11] King Solomon even turns away from the Lord because of his wives. [12] Further, David and Solomon had many wives in addition to those that led them away from the will of God, which suggests that any satisfaction those marriages provided did not satisfy their passions long-term.

The fleeting satisfaction of romantic relationships is a well-studied phenomenon. According to Lucy Brown, professor of neurology at Einstein College of Medicine in New York, the attraction between romantic partners, defined as the “Early Attachment Stage,” only lasts about five years. Afterward, married couples enter the “Crisis Stage,” which makes or breaks relationships. [13] Perhaps, David and Solomon tried to resolve their “crisis stage” by simply obtaining more wives.

Thus, statistics and the Bible both suggest that arranged marriages are more successful than marriages out of attachment and attraction. If the Enlightenment idea of a “right to personal happiness” is the foundation of a romantic relationship, it seems fated that both parties will struggle to pivot and embody a selfless love like Tevye and Golde's when the relationship enters the “crisis stage.”

The balance point between the freedom of romantic marriages and the endurance of arranged marriages is perfectly captured by the Greek word, Agape love, which means selflessly loving someone. [14] Paul uses this word in Ephesians 5:25 to describe selfless love in marriage. Agape is the same word used to describe God’s selfless and perfect love for us. “Husbands, love (agape) your wives, just as Christ also loved (agape) the church and gave Himself for it.” [15] This love is not Eros, the romantic and sexual passion we might instinctively associate with dating relationships. Our relationships and marriages are not necessarily about the happiness and gratification we temporarily feel, though that may be a positive byproduct. Instead, we are meant to joyfully sacrifice ourselves and our will for the one God has placed in our lives. 

Despite everything I’ve said in this article, I do not think it is practical or even desirable for our individualistic culture to try and resurrect arranged marriages. After all, 50-60% of people in America do stay successfully married until death after choosing their spouse themselves. I also want to reiterate that I would never want my dad to arrange my marriage! However, there is something to be learned about the statistical success and the model of sacrifice that arranged marriages depict. 

Arranged marriages depict giving up your desires for the sake of someone else and for factors greater than your own desires. Marriage is supposed to represent Christ and the Church, and Jesus suffered and died for the church out of Agape love. [16] In contrast, the modern pursuit of romance is flighty and entitled to endless options. We seek personal gratification, and as soon as that feeling is lost, we have the option of divorce. How would we approach marriage (and analogously, dating) if there just wasn’t an option to do that? In the Bible, the only two conditions for divorce are sexual immorality and abandonment by an unbeliever, and wedding vows are often capped off with “until death do us part.” [17, 18] There is permanence here. What if we considered the idea that there is a greater purpose to our relationship than just trying to find someone who will satisfy our fleeting desires? What if we were to remember the permanence of a Godly ordained marriage? What if we recognized that each “fish in the sea” is a person created in the image of God? 

Marriage is a representation of God and the church. It is a blessing to us that we can use our relationships for the extraordinary purpose of glorifying the one who controls it all, including our relational outcomes. Even if our culture does not arrange marriages, in our modern pursuit of romance, we should adopt a posture of selflessness and self-sacrifice. 

This article appeared in Claritas’ spring 2023 Love Issue

Sources

[1] Corinthians 7:9 NIV

[2]  Zuckerman, written by Arthur. “56 Marriage Statistics: 2020/2021 Global Data, Analysis & Trends.” CompareCamp.com, February 12, 2021. https://comparecamp.com/marriage-statistics/#TOC4. 

[3] “Divorce and Child Custody.” American Psychological Association. American Psychological Association. Accessed April 29, 2023. https://www.apa.org/topics/divorce-child-custody. 

[4] Tribune, 2014 Salt Lake. “Marriage: What's Love Got to Do with It?” HuffPost. HuffPost, February 14, 2014. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/love-marriage-history_n_4774740

[5] “Let's Find Your Perfect Match!” Perfect Match. Accessed April 29, 2023. https://perfectmatch.ai/. 

[6] Cornell Marriage Pact. Accessed April 29, 2023. https://cornell.marriagepact.com/. 

[7] "Fiddler on the Roof." Music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, book by Joseph Stein. 

[8] Genesis 2 NIV

[9] Genesis 24 NIV

[10] Genesis 29 NIV

[11] 2 Samuel 11 NIV

[12] 1 Kings 11 NIV

[13] Allison Abrams, LCSW-R. “Navigating the 4 Stages of a Relationship.” Verywell Mind. Verywell Mind, January 6, 2023. https://www.verywellmind.com/the-four-stages-of-relationships-4163472

[14] Kennedy, Katie T. “What Does the Bible Say about Arranged Marriages?” Crosswalk.com. Crosswalk.com, June 29, 2022. https://www.crosswalk.com/family/marriage/what-does-the-bible-say-about-arranged-marriages.html. 

[15] Ephesians 5:25 NIV

[16] Ephesians 5:21 NIV

[17] Matthew 5:32, 19:9 NIV

[18] 1 Corinthians 7:15 NIV