Content Notices: discussion of coerced marriages and child marriages; mild fatphobia in paragraph eight
While arranged marriages tend to either be wholly defended or reviled by those outside of cultures that currently engage in it, the way in which it is practiced varies quite bit. Arranged marriages don’t all work one way or follow one script. This ought to be unsurprising for a practice that ranges through many time periods, cultures, religions, sensibilities, and geographic regions.
A variety in terms of what arranged marriages can look like as well as their differing outcomes can be found within a just single person’s perspective and experience: mine. My family has been part of the Subcontinental Diaspora for multiple generations now, so I have relatives on every continent except for South America (and Antarctica, if you count that as a continent). Combine that with how the generation preceding mine consists of large families where the first child was born when the parents are teens and the last was born right before Mom hit menopause, and you get a family where, within just three generations, marriage practices vary greatly. Continue reading “Perspectives on Marriage, Re: The Arranged Kind”