A friend of mine is going through the arranged marriage process and experiencing all the trials and tribulations I went through when searching for a suitable boy. I empathised with her as I know how difficult it is. I also joked that hopefully she would be untouched by the bad luck that I and others I know have had with regards to arranged marriage.
That’s when I realised that I don’t know one girl who went to university and is in a happy arranged marriage. Granted, I don’t know a great many that had an arranged marriage (most of them either had a love marriage or are going through the hunting process right now) but those who have are either unhappy, dissatisfied or (and) regretful. How this didn’t register with me before, I don’t know.
I am not a fan of arranged marriage per se but I have always respected it as one of our cultural traditions and believe that, done in the right way, it can be helpful to those who didn’t pair up at college/university. Despite my personal bad experience, I still believe that arranged marriage can work but why is it failing for so many of us?
There has been a long-held belief by the “elders” that sending your daughters to university turns them into heathens. Is this true? Is it our fault that we’re not satisfied? Is gaining an education propelling our expectations to unreachable heights, so far beyond anything realistic that we simply cannot find someone we’re happy with? Would cutting off our education at 16 or 18 been sufficient enough to match us up and facilitate happily-ever-after? Have I polluted my mind simply by expanding it?
Yes, a lot of elders assume that if a girl goes to uni she will run away from home. These kind of attitudes will not get our community anywhere. The ones that run away re the ones that are opressed, but many elders dont understan this. If they let her go to uni they’re like “i let you go uni, what more do you want?”