Arranged Marriages in SF/F.

[Lillith1991]

Two arranged marriage plots I don't want to read again:

1. A girl living in a society where arranged marriages are the norm is told by her parents that they've found a husband for her. Stunned and outraged, she declares she will only marry for love, then runs away. Bonus points if, by doing so, she puts herself in a dangerous situation and has to be rescued.

2. A man knows he has to go through with an arranged marriage, but he decides to have one last fling before he reluctantly does his duty. So he goes off someplace and meets an exciting stranger who turns him on. They spend a few days having hot sex in various positions and locales before parting sadly, and with a lump in his throat if not his pants, he goes off to meet his future spouse for the first time.

But what an amazing coincidence, his spouse turns out to be the exciting stranger! Cue happy ending. For everyone except me.

Add me to the list of people who despise those versions of arranged marriage plots. They raise so many questions that have no logical answer for someone who was raised with those expectations and doesn't wish to leave their society for another one which doesn't practice the customs, suddenly going along with it grudgingly or not. Why is the person outraged if they knew it would happen on day? Why would either party if straight and without any objections to the practice itself, "be resigned?" Why [insert a million logical inconsistencies here]?

Also, why the heck do they never object on the grounds that so and so's arranged marriage turned out badly and so have other peoples as well? If you expect all your life this will happen, know both the good and bad possibilities; wouldn't you try to get out of it is that, if that is your desire, by citing that it doesn't always work? Point out the flaws and such in the plan?

 

[Shirokirie]

OHO HOHOHOHOHOH! I KNOW THIS ONE!

1. A girl living in a society where arranged marriages are the norm is told by her parents that they've found a husband for her. Stunned and outraged, she declares she will only marry for love, then runs away. Bonus points if, by doing so, she puts herself in a dangerous situation and has to be rescued.

BRAVE!

Totes called it!
Redheads, tapestries and bears, O-mai~

Come to think of it, that's a lot of movies...

Well at this point I don't have anything to add except that this is a lot more thought-provoking than I had anticipated. Which is great. I'mma go sit down and ponder over what I'm plotting to do with all this.

Danke~

 

[LOTLOF]

Something that always needs to be kept in mind when you're writing fantasy or a historical is the social norms of that specific society. It is a huge mistake to try and impose our modern sensibilities on other cultures.

The view on slavery is a good example of this. To our eyes only someone who was evil would ever try and enslave another human being. But the fact is that for most of human history slavery was just a fact of life. It wasn't only evil overlords and criminals who owned slaves. Ordinary housewives with moderate means would normally have at least one. In ancient Rome most wealthy children had well educated Greek slaves as private tutors. Slaves were a common part of life and the ordinary people of the day would not have seen anything wrong or even particularly unusual about them.

Writing a story where slavery is a common practice, but every person who owns a slave is evil, and every decent person sees slavery as evil would ring hollow.

In a society where arranged marriage is the norm, where a girl's parents and grandparents and etc. had been married that way, where she had only attended weddings that were arranged, and where she'd seen friends, cousins, and maybe older siblings married this way, why would a girl rebel at the thought? She would certainly have been brought up to see arranged marriage as right and proper for someone of her station. Marrying for love would be viewed as a childish fantasy, or something folk of the lower classes did.

Now could it happen? Sure. But the odds are pretty low. It would be the same as a modern day young girl of a wealthy white collar family, with loving parents, deciding to run away and go live in the wild. If you are writing a story where a young woman from a society where arranged marriage is normal rejects it, her reasons need to be more than just she wants to find love.

Is her prospective match abusive? Is he a foreigner and she will be forced to leave her homeland permanently? Is he a grandfather and she faces the certainty of widowhood without even having any children? In her situation rejecting her parents' match would be an extreme act of rebellion against societal norms. It demands an extreme justification.

 

[Maxx]

Regency romances often follow the pattern of love coming after marriage - any authors from that genre care to weigh in?

I wrote a novel that briefly dipped into the world of pre-regency romance (ie the 1790s). Unbeknownst to the newly-weds, each was an undead being with a cosmic assignment to kill the other.
Each thought they succeeded, but naturally (or unnaturally) both survived as undead brains in nutrient baths in abandoned underworlds. Later they got back together (each reassembled their lost bits), but they never saw each other again. Which was all kind of sad. They never did fall in love, but they did rip each other apart.

 

[mephet]

One of the stories I'm developing atm has a semi-arranged marriage (the MC reluctantly decides to enter it for political purposes even though he is in love with someone else) playing an important part in the plot. The MC's new wife actually has some hopes for the marriage at first, but the MC acts quite indifferently to her, which ends up causing some pretty massive problems (an attempted coup, among other things ). Anyway, the MC ends up realising that he's been a massive jerk, and things start to veeeery slowly get better from there. Their marriage isn't ideal, but I do think they ultimately grow to love (or at least respect) each other. They both know that they're committed to the marriage, and realise that they must work at their relationship if they want to be happy.
I think the topic of arranged marriage is a very interesting one. So much potential for things to be awful, or awesome, or both. It's been pointed out in this thread that it's important to try to stay realistic with your character portrayals and understand that you can't always import modern thinking into any setting. To me that's exactly what makes stories set in different times/places so interesting: seeing through a character's eyes who has a different world view and set of expectations for life than mine, and seeing him try his best to be a good person.

 

[LOTLOF]

They never did fall in love, but they did rip each other apart.

Yep, that sounds like marriage all right.

 

[Maxx]

Yep, that sounds like marriage all right.

Yeah. After all, marriages for love don't always go all that well. Actually, another angle I've worked with is -- what if one of the to-be-weds arranges the arranged marriage in some round-about way? Blackmail? International Banking contracts? Extortion? Feudal obligations?

On the other hand -- falling in love scenes are such fun to write. Especially when both parties are a bit wary and highly verbal.

 

[Jacob_Wallace]

But is that expected in your hypothetical society? It historically often wasn't, as I understand it. "Marrying for love" is a rather recent thing.

Wouldn't poor people have married for love? I understand rich people married rich people. But what notice did the poor have for arranged marriages?

I don't much about history.

 

[Maxx]

Wouldn't poor people have married for love? I understand rich people married rich people. But what notice did the poor have for arranged marriages?

I don't much about history.

The poor (which is usually I guess almost everyone) could have just as much interest in arranging marriages -- depending on rules of inheritance and household formation, but nearly anything could happen -- for example the mystery of Shakespeare's marriage and the will where will left Ann his "second-best bed" and the marriage license where she is Ann Whatley (not Hathaway?) and at any rate she was 26 and he was 18.

So poverty didn't reduce matrimonial ingenuity. they might have even been in love at some point.

 

[frimble3]

And, let's not forget the 'default arranged marriage'. If you live in a small community, there's perhaps only a couple of potential partners, so... pick one. You can have an arranged marriage, or arrange to fall in love, but it's going to be the same guys.

 

[Marian Perera]

Wouldn't poor people have married for love? I understand rich people married rich people. But what notice did the poor have for arranged marriages?

My extended family in Sri Lanka certainly wasn't rich, but they had some arranged marriages anyway. In one case, my uncle said he wasn't interested in all the ups and downs of dating and trying to find the right woman, so he was going to let his parents do that work for him.

His (eventual) wife was concerned that I wasn't married, though, so she mailed me an advertisement from a newspaper. It went something like, "Good Christian man from respected family seeks God-fearing woman for purposes of marriage". I wrote back saying, "You know I'm an atheist, right?" and I never heard from her again.

 

[L M Ashton]

Huh. Sri Lanka, eh? That's what I was going to talk about...

My husband is Sri Lankan. Pretty much everyone (or almost) in his family from siblings to parents to cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and so on, had an arranged marriage. Some were rich, others were very very poor, others somewhere in between. I'm under the impression that, in Sri Lanka, arranged marriages are the norm, although love marriages have been increasing over the years. Divorce rates for arranged marriages are no higher than for love marriages.

In his family, the arranged marriages have run the gamut from the couple meets at the wedding itself to they meet during the inspection phase and start dating after the marriage is arranged. Generally speaking, while some of the marriages turn out to be duds, most end up being successful with the couple falling in love.

The ones that end up being duds tend to be because one party or the other misrepresented him/herself. Claimed to have an education/employment history that s/he didn't have, claimed to have a job that paid well while in reality they had a job flipping burgers at McDonalds. Claimed all sorts of things that weren't true.

In the arranged marriage process I've seen, generally, the parents will exchange resumes of the couple so they can see if the person meets their expectations on paper. Then the parents will meet with or without the prospective couple there, and the prospective couple may or may not meet each other. If they do meet each other (which is typical), they may or may not have any further contact between then and the marriage. The prospective couple may have a huge say in what they want for a prospective spouse or not. (My husband gave his parents a list of his requirements - that was before he and I met. Interestingly, I fit all his requirements.) His parents had their own list of requirements. And his parents had no problem with his list or with his brother's list when he was looking for a wife.

Like others have said, how arranged marriages work depends on the culture involved as well as the parents doing the arranging. There's no one way that arranged marriages will happen.

 

[L M Ashton]

And, let's not forget the 'default arranged marriage'. If you live in a small community, there's perhaps only a couple of potential partners, so... pick one. You can have an arranged marriage, or arrange to fall in love, but it's going to be the same guys.

The arranged marriages I'm familiar with, and the usual way of doing things, is that, in the situation of a small village, you always go out of the village to another village where you're not related to anyone. Because in the ancestral village, usually everyone is related to everyone else in some way or another anyway, and they all recognize the need for new blood.

 

[WriteMinded]

I've known three young women from societies where arranged marriages are the norm. One was already married and wildly happy. The other two were about to be married, and they were both thrilled and grateful to their father who had chosen their husbands. None of the three could comprehend why anyone would want to do it any differently. They looked upon me with pity.

And, well, I've been married three times, like my mother before me. I'd bet those lovely, happy young women are now older, happy women with daughters whose marriages will be arranged. Their expectations of life and marriage were very different than mine. I had to adjust my attitude. I'll bet they didn't.

I'm pretty sure that arranged marriages work out just as well, maybe better, than these "love" matches we choose for ourselves.

Just sayin'.

 

[Debbie V]

There's a song in Fiddler on the Roof: "Do You Love Me?"

The answer is for 25 years, I've been here. If that's not love, what is?

Perhaps the full lyrics will help.

 

[snafu1056]

Wouldn't poor people have married for love? I understand rich people married rich people. But what notice did the poor have for arranged marriages?

I don't much about history.

For most of history marriage was more of an arrangement between families than between individuals. And no family wanted to end up with a lemon of a son/daughter-in-law. Nowadays that would just be an annoyance. But in the past that could potentially hurt the family. The whole point was to either marry up, or at least on your level. A good match was one where both families benefited. In the case of regular people, there was usually a matchmaker involved. Pairing people up was a booming business in many cultures. And no one was forced to take whoever the matchmaker gave them. People were free to say no (in the short term. In the long term you eventually had to marry someone. Staying single for life wasn't practical or socially acceptable). The kind of forced marriages you see in many stories only happened in powerful families where there were political factors to consider.

 

[Mr Flibble]

Poor people certainly had, if not exactly arranged then marriages of convenience (helped along no doubt by families making suggestions etc)

As noted above, my grandparents were such (to an extent). When my grandad came home from WWI, he came home to his wife and two daughters dead, and two young sons to look after. Which he could not do and work. My gran on the otehr hand had just inherited a pub. Which she could not run on her own as a woman (scandalous!)

However she could run a pub if her husband was the licensee, even if he was never behind the bar (because he was working the fields -- pubs didn't earn much tbh). And she could look after two young children and run a rural pub at the same time. Sooo....


If you've a farm and no one to help you run it/make the cheese etc...if you have any kind of enterprise that takes two or more to run....if she is countywide famous for her sausages and you happen to raise pigs....

I recall someone (can't recall who, but about my Dad's age, so young in the thirties) saying that when a wife or husband died, you woudl give condolences, and the grieved one would often say , 'Aye s/he was a good worker...'

Rural lives of the poor were hard, and were made less hard by a family attacking the business together. So you made your family and you got on with it. As such, the ability to cast a cow/make good cheese/help with the lambing were more prized assets than looks. Both of you had to be useful to each other -- one might bring the land/animals, the other would bring graft and knowledge

 

[ClareGreen]

'Cause I've got twenty acres
And you've got forty-three
But I've got a brand-new combine harvester
And I'll give you the key

 

[CrastersBabies]

One of the stories I'm developing atm has a semi-arranged marriage (the MC reluctantly decides to enter it for political purposes even though he is in love with someone else) playing an important part in the plot. The MC's new wife actually has some hopes for the marriage at first, but the MC acts quite indifferently to her, which ends up causing some pretty massive problems (an attempted coup, among other things ). Anyway, the MC ends up realising that he's been a massive jerk, and things start to veeeery slowly get better from there. Their marriage isn't ideal, but I do think they ultimately grow to love (or at least respect) each other. They both know that they're committed to the marriage, and realise that they must work at their relationship if they want to be happy.
I think the topic of arranged marriage is a very interesting one. So much potential for things to be awful, or awesome, or both. It's been pointed out in this thread that it's important to try to stay realistic with your character portrayals and understand that you can't always import modern thinking into any setting. To me that's exactly what makes stories set in different times/places so interesting: seeing through a character's eyes who has a different world view and set of expectations for life than mine, and seeing him try his best to be a good person.

I like this premise. I'd read that.

 

[jjdebenedictis]

Because in the ancestral village, usually everyone is related to everyone else in some way or another anyway, and they all recognize the need for new blood.

Reminds me of something I read in National Geographic. You know those old stories about white sailors showing up on Polynesian islands and being treated like gods and offered the chief's daughters as wives? And the sailors assumed it was because the natives were so awed by them.

Yeah, no. These were island-dwellers who were well-aware of the dangers of inbreeding. The feasts and the flirty girls were a sales pitch to encourage the new DNA to stick around.

 

[Reziac]

Do you know what I like to read? Stories where a culture different to ours does things that we don't do. They do these things because that's what they do. I then have to adjust to their way of thinking.

Do you know what I don't like to read? Stories where a culture does things differently to us, until they learn the error of their ways and start doing things the way we do, damnit! This culture then has to change to our way of thinking.

This!!!!!!!!!!!!! Both of these this and this and this!!!

Show me something new. Don't rehash or convert.

That's why I feel uneasy about Kirk trying to persuade Spock that he has to become more human. Because human has to be right, aye captain?

To be fair, part of the concept of Spock was a man out of place in both worlds.

 

[Once!]

To be fair, part of the concept of Spock was a man out of place in both worlds.

True. But I was genuinely shocked when I looked at the first TV episodes again. The Kirk-Spock and Bones-Spock relationships were very different to the relationships in the movies. Almost cringe-worthy at times ... and that is coming from a fan. Okay, a semi fan.

 

[Dave Williams]

> Do you love me?

"Your backstage pass and white sunglasses
make you look just like a queen.
Even all the fans, they know your face
from the front of the magazines..."

Whoops, I think that's a different song...

Anyway, back to the OP:
What is "marriage" to your story?

No, seriously. Is it for love? A religious requirement? A government requirement? For reproduction? For political influence? For control of property? Is inheritance a factor? What rights and obligations are involved, and are they different for each spouse? How about dowries, divorce, adultery, group marriage? Endogamy and exogamy? Fostering? How about clan relationships? Is sexual fidelity part of the contract, and if not, how are outside relationships handled, and what rights do those partners have, it any?

 

[Shirokirie]

> Do you love me?

I do. Now who are me again?

 

[LOTLOF]

True. But I was genuinely shocked when I looked at the first TV episodes again. The Kirk-Spock and Bones-Spock relationships were very different to the relationships in the movies. Almost cringe-worthy at times ... and that is coming from a fan. Okay, a semi fan.

The original series was very much a product of its time. In some ways it was extremely liberal. They had a black woman as a bridge officer, and made a point of showing the Federation to be based on social equality. The episode about two aliens who were half black and half white was, for it's time, a very powerful message about race relations in America.

But.

The show also had the underlying assumption that our way was the right way, and everyone would eventually thank us for enlightening them. Whether they asked us to or not.

***

"No! Please do not kill our god! All good comes from him!"

"Trust me, you'll thank me for this. You'll be much happier once we get rid of this artificial god who provides you food, shelter, eternal youth, health, and the structure for your entire society. You'll be better off once you're able to get sick, grow old, and die."

"Will you teach us how to care for ourselves?"

"No, but I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out."

***

"No! Please don't destroy the carefully negotiated and maintained conflict we have with our enemy. Yes, people do die, but our people consider it a duty. No one here is trying to stop this war, so why should you?"

"Trust me, you'll thank me for this. War shouldn't be this neat and clean. It's supposed to be terrible, that's what makes it something to be avoided. But don't worry, we have an ambassador with us. I'm sure he'll be able to solve all the issues in this hundreds years long conflict in no time."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Then you'll have a real war to deal with. One that may cause millions or even billions of deaths on both worlds, and potentially even lead to the extinction of your race."

"How is that better than the situation we have now?"

"Think of it as motivation. Good luck making peace."

***

So, yeah, the show was ground breaking in a lot of ways, but still a product of its time.