From Strangers to Someone

Malik Benberry
Jul 10, 2017 · 3 min read

In definition, marriage is a legal bond formed between two people who are partners and are in a personal relationship with each other. It is something that should never be broken, it is very sacred. You get married to the person you truly love and want to spend the rest of your life with them. You can take all the crap from this person because you love all of them, even their faults. You feel like you have got to know them well enough and your ready to spend the rest of with each other, but what if all of this wasn’t the case?

In some countries, there are arranged marriages. This is when the parents pick a wife or husband for their son or daughter. This happened a lot in Africa and India, it was part of their culture. People use to get married to another person that they never even knew and would spend the rest of their life with them. Eventually, over time some generations broke this cycle and started marrying people that THEY chose for themselves. There is a great example of this is in the movie Coming to America.

In this movie, Eddie Murphy plays a rich African prince named Akeem who lives in a fictional plays called Zamunda. He lives a great life and has everything he wants, except the girl of his dreams. In his country it is tradition for the parents to pick a wife or husband for their child. Akeem doesn’t like this tradition and wants to actually get to know the person he is going to marry before hand. In short, Akeem went to New York to find someone who actually fits his standards. This also relates to the short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie called “The Arrangers of Marriage”. In this story a young girl was forced to move from Africa to America to marry a man she never met because her parents thought the man was good for her. In the end, the man tried to change her completely and she hated him. Both of these stories are completely different, but all have the same meaning, you cant love someone you don’t know.

Now I know what you guys are thinking what kind of person would want to actually KNOW the person they are going to marry before hand? Don’t you want a person to just obey everything you say and not talk back? Well, of course not! People want to have someone in their life that will help them grow and have different opinions on things. This helps people see certain things in life in a new way. People want to grow, not be the same person they are, and with the help of the right person, it is possible for anyone. Now i’m not bashing religions that do arranged marriages, all I’m saying is that a person should be able to get to know that person beforehand. After all, were all “strangers” to each other until we become “someone” to another person.

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