More seriously, I also agree that south asian males, especially those from more traditional backgrounds, have no idea how to relate to women. (The stereotype of the socially guache, dorky Indian tech worker is probably based partly in that.)

one example that happened recently: my slutty friend’s brother (the one who had sex with the tamil guy but thought he was black before seeing his hair and other tiny parts) is a chubby dude that went back to bangladesh and got himself a hottie. now the thing with this dude is-HE CAN’T SPEAK BENGALI!. our families are really close (obviously, her fam doesn’t know my friend is a slut who digs large-penised black men and has a tendency to cheat on her b/fs with said men)-and so i met his new bride. i can speak bengali and talked to her a fair amount, and i realized that this pregnant woman didn’t really know many of the details of her husband’s life because his bengali was so crappy.

anyway, i think it’s messed up that a family stops speaking bengali amongst themselves, and then goes and gets a FOB bride that doesn’t know too much english.

nothing is perfect, but that to me is a bizarro nightmare scenario.

Alone Again: I think there is a simple explanation for the apparent success of arranged marriages. People who value tradition for marriage apparently have a traditional view of the role of the spouses (not necessarily in terms of work division, but intimacy, friendship, sex, romance etc.) Also, if someone was chicken enough to marry a stranger because of parental pressure, he/she is definitely frightened by the stigma attached to divorce.

Think about arranged marriage this way: Would you like your parents to pick out your clothes? Probably not. Then how can they pick out who you are going to spend your life with? Crazy or not, you decide.

They’re still married, apparently happy, and living here in the US; she’s learned English and adapted to the US, their kids are beautiful, and my friend still insists that the tradition of arranged marriage ended with his own.

Who knows? When I compare him to myself — I’d just gotten married for the third time, back when I met this friend, and I’m now recently divorced — it’s hard to argue. He’s definitely still married, and seems happy and content with it. I’ve decided that I suck at choosing marriage partners, and won’t try again. Fortunately, I’m old enough it probably won’t make much of a difference… but I have good reason to doubt that romance is enough to base a marriage on.

Also cool is good sex. I pity those brown women and men doomed to crappy sex becuase their parents picked them a sexually incompatible partner.

And yes, sex matters. It’s one of the top sources of pleasure in life. Getting it right is important. Parent’s picking your partner? — grow up man.

In any case, w.r.t. Arranged marriages, the 2 underlying axiomatic beliefs I’ve always used to describe it are:

1) do you believe marriages succeed because of exogenous or internal reasons? The Arranged Marriage (AM) proponets see mostly exogenous factors — extended family support structures, income, eliminating lifestyle questions around religion, etc. Parents, of course, very clearly see the exogenous factors. Opponents tend to see marriage as more of a private affair between the couple.

2) expectations from marriage. In the Olde country, the Bohemian Bourgeois isn’t quite a part of the scene, and self-actualization (“but what about *my* needs”) isn’t part of the deal. Expectations are much more classically bourgeois and are about building long term stable platforms for raising kids…. The various Andrew Sullivan quoters re-inforce this one…. And, if actualization isn’t part of the deal, it makes factor #1 even more important.

Personally, I’m a split-the-middle on this one… Brownness is bonus points (the value of which varies from day to day) but not a veto. And I can pretty much gaurantee that a gal from the parent’s village ain’t gonna work out for a Ludicris-loving, fine-dining guy like me.

On the flip side, I think a lot of non-brown folk don’t fully recognize the degree to which they implicitly integrate exogenous factors into mate selection (for ex., meeting mates in Grad school implicitly selects education and some cultural traits; a few of my friends back in TX meet mates from church).

For a lot of brown folks in the US, a bit of the AM can be justified on grounds of exercising those factors explicitly because they’re a minority rather than relying on chance….

Anyway the whole idea of someone coming all the way from country X to Y to particularly marry someone who traces descent to X strikes me as a little creepy

That is pretty weird that we both cited Sullivan at the same time. But it really is a solid piece of writing.

As for skin tone, maybe it’s cause I’m already fairly light skinned, but I generally am attracted to Indian girls that have a darker complexion than me. If an Indian girls is too light, she looks sickly. Back in college, I knew a Goanese girl who was simply stunning, with the complexion of chocolate, and the body of an aerobics instructor. Needless to say, she was way out of my league, and it seemed she exclusively dated white guys anyway. In India, many Indian families would have found her too dark, but in the states, she satisfied the market demand for in-shaped, bronze colored women.

As for arranged marriage, it is true that parents can be even more superficial than young people. My mother rejected a potential bride for my brother because her mom was a nurse. If you can guess that your parents have bad judgment, then you probably have a stronger objection to arranged marriage.

No system of finding a spouse is perfect. However, the biggest advantage of the western system is that you make the decision yourself. In arranged marriages, even though the final veto might be yours, parents have a lot of control over the process. And in many cases, even though there is no force, there is emotional blackmail from the parents. The Post article points to that in the case of Vibha’s parents trying to get her to go to India.

I believe that an adult is responsible for his own life. Therefore, he/she should be able to choose, without any restraint from parents or others, who to spend that life with.

A direct comparison of arranged marriage and what is known as love marriage in South Asia is not possible because the culture of marriage and divorce is very different. Also the standards of successful marriage are different.

Another factor in arranged marriages is race/ethnicity. A friend of mine who is Pashtun by ancestry, though his ancestors migrated in northern India 500 years ago, had to marry a Pashtun because of his parents.

I don’t have a problem with people criticizing an ‘arranged’ marriage system as long as they are fair about it and are able to see the negatives of the Western way as well.

“Arranged marriage” is an all-encompassing term encompassing almost-forced marriages on the one end to parents-fix-up-their-kids on the other.”

True enough. People in the West have too many negative connotations when they hear ‘arranged’.

“Regarding elders seeing character better than someone who’s getting married, that’s just BS. What they see is not character, it is racial, ethnic and religious background. Financial and educational status and physical beauty are also something they want in the bride & family.”

It depends on what you value. Is an elder valuing a potential groom’s financial status ‘better’ than a girl in the West going just for the guy who’s got the baddest ass car? Again, there are possible problems with both models.

“I don’t think physical attractiveness is valued less among parents than people getting married. IMO, it is valued more when looking for a bride for their son.”

I don’t know. I know physical attractiveness is always valued. Is it any more or less valued in ‘arranged’ cultures than the West?

“Arranged marriage” is an all-encompassing term encompassing almost-forced marriages on the one end to parents-fix-up-their-kids on the other.

Regarding elders seeing character better than someone who’s getting married, that’s just BS. What they see is not character, it is racial, ethnic and religious background. Financial and educational status and physical beauty are also something they want in the bride & family.

I don’t think physical attractiveness is valued less among parents than people getting married. IMO, it is valued more when looking for a bride for their son.