So what’s the difference between arrange marriage and forced marriage. Some people tend to take both the terms synonymous, however, truth is that they both are different.
Arrange marriage is the term used when the girl and boy’s first meeting is arranged by a third party. Often this third party is one of the family or extended family members. In contrast, in forced marriages, you are not given a choice. You have no right to ask question. You have no say in it. Therefore, an arrange marriage is not a forced marriage. Today’s youth prefer this arrangement of ‘Selection by parents’.
Trends in today’s youth
This century which has seen a boom of social media, the times when we have Maangu, Facebook, twitter, Snapchat and many more channels to communicate. Older generation thinks that today’s youth is too corrupted by this social evil and now, they no longer are interested in age-old customs. In fact, today’s youth is trying to make an ecstatic amalgamation of traditional customs with a modern twist. They do go to clubs at night and they also go to temples on Mondays and Fridays. Even when it comes to marriage, today’s generation loves to get settled through arrange marriage system, obviously with their consent. These days they want to be an active participant in the search process, often leading the search themselves and seek the consent to parents once they think that they need to more forward.
Youngsters in love with arrange marriage: A survey conducted by IPSOS in ten cities, around 1000 young people aged in the group of 18-35 still prefer an arrange marriage over any other system. 75 % of youth prefer the system of arrange marriage. Around 96% people residing in Northern and 77% people residing in Southern states want to choose life partners through the traditional way where parent’s involvement is crucial for them. Even when they are free to find their partners themselves, still their preference about the right partner includes a major ‘yes’ from their parents.
Reasons for inclination towards arrange set-up
Competition has taken a toll on everyone and this generation understands the importance of career much better than their predecessors. Several people spend more time on career. By the time these youths are convinced that they need to get married in life, very few singles are around. Secondly, this generation has seen their parents and relatives happily married in arrange marriage set up so they also prefer to settle by this process. The concept of nuclear families has own issues and this generation wants to have best of both world, so arrange marriage gets the best of parental support and advice with ‘guarantee’ for life.
Marriage is also an important phase of life like career and individual’s desire. An alliance should be sealed by considering the understanding level between two people – their ideologies on important aspects of life like education, finances etc. Nothing should be blindly followed and there is no shortcut for happiness. One has to work hard to maintain a beautiful relationship. Whether it is love or arrange, don’t forget to communicate your thoughts freely without glitches and hidden meaning.