Why I Chose to Have an Arranged Marriage
What matters is how organic your love feels
As of 2023, in India, 44% of marriages are still arranged. Some of you might know this from the show Indian Matchmaking on Netflix but in most cases, it’s not that fancy.
I’d say ‘arranged’ is an overarching term to depict those marriages where parents are involved in the meeting of the two people.
Back in my parents’ time, the bride and the groom would be married without seeing each other. It was like marrying your blind date, except that this person was ‘arranged’ for you by your parents.
And it would usually be someone ‘your parents knew’ who was also of marriageable age, and came from a ‘good family’. Those were the only criteria in most cases.
But, as time went by, the process evolved. From marrying on a blind date, it progressed to marrying someone on the second or third date to now, when you have a courtship period.
I was always opposed to the idea of meeting someone through a formal arrangement. My parents met in journalism school, fell in love, and got married. They were the exception of their times.
And in many ways, I’d like to think that my husband and I are the exceptions of our time when the rate of love marriages has soared.
Our story
Unlike my parents, I met my husband online.
Though I met him on a ‘matrimonial website’ specifically meant for my community, I believe ours is a love story.
Only that it originated in the lap of digital love.
But, let me backtrack.
Both of us were the exceptions on this website.
Don’t get me wrong. I now understand that meeting someone through a matrimonial site isn’t bad. But I’d done a fair bit of soulmate-searching in this space and I found men who had zero to very little dating experience and exposure to the opposite sex, for that matter.
So, I didn’t have very high expectations.
Things took a surprising turn when I met my husband though.
Our first conversation lasted six whole hours and we felt an instant bond. We spoke through the night!
Lockdown love
We started talking right when the pandemic struck. So, it took us four long months to physically meet. I think that worked in our favor because it allowed us to be objective and not rush into anything.
In my previous relationships, I’d always gone from just hanging out to saying, “I love you” too quickly. So, this was a great divine intervention.
Except for the ‘how we met’ bit, everything else between us was 100% organic. We kept our parents in the loop but were never forced by them to give them a decision.
Our first meeting
I think very few people would have had a first meeting like ours!
Everything about our marriage was unconventional. Most guys would describe how beautiful their partners looked the first time they saw them. Ask my husband and he will tell you how unbelievably shocked I was to see him in the flesh for the first time.
That’s because he decided to surprise me by showing up at my doorstep at 4 a.m. on a Friday morning, in the middle of the pandemic.
There I was, in my PJs, shell-shocked and slightly embarrassed.
Today, he says he did it to be sure that he could deal with my ‘I just woke up’ face. ;)
Love comes from the most unexpected places
When we first spoke, we lamented about how fate brought us together through ‘the arranged route’. We both were romantic fools who wanted a fairy-tale romance that culminated in a beautiful marriage.
But when I look back, I realize that we did have all that, but not just in the way we had pictured it. Yes, we did end up being introduced through a digital ‘marriage broker’, everything that followed was meant to be, in some way.
We haven’t been married very long but I can sure as hell say that I made the right choice. We fell in love somewhere in the middle and continue to fall deeper into it every day.
The right person at the right time brings the right love
Most people of our generation tend to think that falling in love is a prerequisite to marriage.
But, I think the bigger prerequisite is finding someone who is in the same place as you. That helps you get past a lot of uncertainty and anxiety.
People want the organicness of being in love and progressing to marriage. But love can happen anywhere, anytime.
Final thoughts
For a marriage to work, one needs to learn how to be open and accepting. It begins with acknowledging the fact there is no one way to fall in love and eventually find a person who is willing to give and take just like you.
