Singles of FYM...Look no further!

[Angela Harlem]

http://www.falgunimehta.com/grooms.html





This is for real, right?

 

[Angela Harlem]

As expected, the search for brides is even better.

Kenya - Nairobibased, cultured affluent Gujarati Jain business oriented family (small family) invites proposals for their son, visiting India for matrimonials. He is smart, good looking, good natured, July 1963 born, 5' 6", educated, intelligent well - established businessman. He is innocent issueless divorcee. Alliance sought from fair, smart, slim, active, English speaking, family loving girls. He is looking for a single or an issueless divorcee. Divorcee with an infant child (male) is also welcome. Girls hailing from decent Jain / Lohana / Vaishnav / Gujarati / Punjabi or any good families are invited. Direct Email address for this particular boy : bakul@traveloursafaris.com or bakul2@rediffmail.com

these guys are all doctors, engineers, computer science graduates and scientists.

 

[verte76]

For goodness sakes.......this isn't for me.

 

[Mullen-Girl]

Yikes I wouldn't do this...although I know a person that his parents put an ad in an Indian newspaper and that's how he found his wife now

 

[Liesje]

I'm not sure how I feel about the advertising, but I've always been intrigued by arranged marriages. As weird as they seem to us, I think there's some appeal to the selflessness and being able to grow/learn to love someone.

 

[Mr. BAW]

Interesting ...

 

[Salome]

 

[Angela Harlem]

I'm not sure how I feel about the advertising, but I've always been intrigued by arranged marriages. As weird as they seem to us, I think there's some appeal to the selflessness and being able to grow/learn to love someone.

I agree. They are intriguing probably because they are a totally foreign concept to me and probably most of us here.
I cant help feel its all so clinical and kinda like cattle classification before they go to auction. It looks like the site uses some kind of form when they're placing the ads as a lot of them are similar in wording etc...But I dunno. It just feels wrong I spose.

 

[Liesje]

It just feels wrong I spose.

Like the ads are wrong or arranged marriage?

 

[Laura M]

my sister goes to one of the very few schools here that has mixed religions, there are a lot of people who send their children to that school from other countries because there is a boarding dept. anyway, my sister has a friend and she has to have an arranged marriage, she was telling us one day that she has to marry one of her cousins, her family wont force her but they would disown her if she didnt, she also has to do well in school and this girl is always doing schoolwork, her parents who are both doctors expect her to do medicine at the university here and become a doctor, apparently if she does not get good grades and do well they would tell her she is not wanted as a member of the family, when she has become a doctor she will go back to egypt and marry her cousin. she has never said she is against the idea but she said she dislikes her cousin that she is expected to marry and they dont get along, i dont think she really wants her life to be like this but it is expected of her and will go along with it even though she is miserable now and will probably be even more miserable in the future and after listening to her story and some of the other girls in my sisters year talking about their arranged marriages (they have had their husbands picked for them since they were born ) i cant say i really like the idea of an arranged marriage but it is part of their culture and it is normal for them its just hard not to have an ethnocentric attitude and see this is an acceptable practice.

 

[melon]

I tend to look very disdainfully at tradition, and this is one I'd love to smack across its head.

Melon

 

[anitram]

I have a close friend whose parents have decided it is time to arrange a marriage for her. She is 23.

 

[Angela Harlem]

Like the ads are wrong or arranged marriage?

The ads definitely as they are pretty dehumanising. As well as entirely superficial. Fair and slim. Pfft. Most of us in some way seek a partner which is asthetically pleasing, but to list it as a requirement is another matter all together. I would guess it is about lineage and carrying on good genes through the family tree, but it doesn't make it any better in my mind.
I'm going to bite the bullet and say yes I do think these arranged marriages are wrong. I would prefer to respect it is their culture and all that, but my reasons for being against it are not a slam on the culture itself, but the supporting of 'forcing' people, loved ones and children, into a lifetime of potential misery like with Lara's sister's friend. Of course not all of them end in tears and I'm sure there's probably quite a few successful marriages from this. Its the ones which dont have a happy ending I cant appreciate. And like I said, it really isn't about the culture itself. Any marriage which is unhappy or unwilling on either party involved is not a good thing. If someone was stuck in an unhappy marriage but was a WASP Canadian for example, it would still be the same thing. Why push it and ignore the absolute misery of someone who is a loved one of yours and one who you would naturally wish nothing but happiness and the best for? I dont understand what could make this worth it.

 

[zoney!]

I have a close friend whose parents have decided it is time to arrange a marriage for her. She is 23.

How does she feel about it?

 

[Liesje]

I would say that as long as all parties are consenting adults, I have nothing against arranged marriage. If someone wants, feel free to try to convince me otherwise (I'm really open to arguements here).

 

[BVS]

I would say that as long as all parties are consenting adults, I have nothing against arranged marriage. If someone wants, feel free to try to convince me otherwise (I'm really open to arguements here).

How do you measure if it's 100% consentual? This is something that's ingrained into their heads and their culture.

 

[zoney!]

I was actually asking Anitram how her friend felt.

 

[Liesje]

If the man agrees to let his parents find him a wife and if the woman agrees to let her parents find her a husband.

 

[anitram]

How does she feel about it?

She is considering moving out of the house and is dating a white guy secretly.

 

[BVS]

If the man agrees to let his parents find him a wife and if the woman agrees to let her parents find her a husband.

But that's like saying cultures that require women to be submissive, that the women are consenting to this notion. This is how the men and women in these cultures have been raised and most women aren't educated enough to realize this isn't how it needs to be.

How do you know if it's consentual when your culture tells you this is the only way it's done? Is it truly consentual?

 

[Angela Harlem]

Its not just that (that I have a problem with) though I agree as well, but its the parents being so involved in who you spend the rest of your life with. This concept is so foreign to me. Parental approval of who you choose is/should be very important, but not their decision. It isn't their marriage. Fine for them to pick you some arsehole bastard (or the female equivilant) who wont love and respect you etc. It's also the marriages which are not happy and successful. What of them? Do the parents then give permission for the divorce? Or are these young people forced/coerced into suffering silently for the rest of their lives simply to 'please the parents'?

Also, I know this covers a few different cultures, but these women on the link at the top aren't uneducated. Quite the opposite really, though an academic education doesn't always make one wise I spose.

 

[Liesje]

How do you know if it's consentual when your culture tells you this is the only way it's done? Is it truly consentual?

If you want to then it's consentual. I consent to drink a can of mountain dew everyday b/c I want it, not b/c pop culture (no pun intended) says Dew is the "cool" pop and I should drink it.

 

[Liesje]

Its not just that (that I have a problem with) though I agree as well, but its the parents being so involved in who you spend the rest of your life with. This concept is so foreign to me. Parental approval of who you choose is/should be very important, but not their decision. It isn't their marriage. Fine for them to pick you some arsehole bastard (or the female equivilant) who wont love and respect you etc.

When I think of arranged marriages that I'm OK with, I'm thinking of like when the parents pick a few girls and the boy gets to meet them each and they all decide together as a family. Of course, I'd never do this, but I like it b/c marriage is about family and should include family to some extent. In our culture, we don't really include family beyond the guy asking the girl's dad if she can marry him. But just because our marrital arrangement lack family involvement doesn't mean any other way is wrong.

 

[BVS]

If you want to then it's consentual. I consent to drink a can of mountain dew everyday b/c I want it, not b/c pop culture (no pun intended) says Dew is the "cool" pop and I should drink it.

My point is that do these cultures or parents allow for anything else other than arranged marriages?

 

[Liesje]

My point is that do these cultures or parents allow for anything else other than arranged marriages?

I'm not really sure. All I'm saying is that consentual arranged marriages I have no problem with. And these happen everywhere in the world, including the US. I'm not trying to justify someone's "culture" or anything like that. If the parents don't allow for anything else, then I'd say that's the problem, not the acutal arranged marriage.

I'm thinking of a show I saw on TLC or something where a normal guy living in the US called his family back in India and asked them to help arrange a marriage. They chose a few girls who were interested, he went to India, the entire family visited each girl and her family, and then they made a decision together. The guy and chosen girl got married and were still happy together when the show aired. I don't see what's wrong about their marriage. Of course, there are other factors like if the girl was only 14, or forced by her parents, etc that are awful, but THOSE things are what would've made the marriage wrong, not just the fact that it was arranged.

 

[Salome]

how romantic


seriously though
(completely of subject, but anyways)
expecting to just run into the love of your life might be a bit on the naive side
but picking from a number of males/females who have decided that they are also tired of being alone sounds a bit too much like a job interview to me