Reva Seth knows that the story of her marriage sounds horribly calculating,
but it wasn't at all, she insists. What? Even though she identified the
characteristics of her prospective husband, meticulously attended every one
of a colleague's parties until she found someone who matched, and got
engaged at their seventh meeting?
“I wanted someone who had a similar education background to me and who was
interested in politics,” she explains. “It was more a recognition that this
girl I knew tended to have a large network of friends that would fit.”
And one night, there the husband was, although Seth insists there were no
thunderbolts. “I was genuinely attracted to him. As we started talking I
could tell he was involved in lots of things that interested me, and I got a
sense that he could be a person I could fall in love with.”
Was she in love with him when they got engaged? “You know what, no, I wasn't,”
she says brightly. “I don't think we'd spent enough time together to fall in
love. But I knew I would. I had a strong sense that this was what I was
looking for.”
Five years later, Seth, now 32, is happily married with a two-year-old son,
and has become an advocate of the principles of arranged marriage, which she
suggests her own experience reflects. This does not mean that she supports
the kind of marriage in which the parties are left without choice about whom
they marry. Rather she believes that common backgrounds and shared values -
which underpin the Asian tradition of arranged marriage - are more likely to
lead to an enduring relationship than the chance meeting promoted so
enticingly by Hollywood and a culture that clings to the notion of
spontaneous romantic love.
Certainly the notion of marriage as a celebration of romantic love is a
relatively new phenomenon that has been around for only 500 years. But why
should we ditch it? What Seth argues in her book, First Comes Marriage, is
that if you build the components of a marriage with care, love will grow.
She cites her own parents, whose marriage was arranged in India and who have
been together for 33 years, and she has developed her case by talking to
more than 300 women whose marriages were arranged. According to Seth, the
divorce rate for such unions is between 5 and 7 per cent (compared with a 40
per cent failure rate in the UK) and a 2005 study showed that over time
couples in arranged marriages report high levels of happiness and
satisfaction.
Her starting point is that there is plenty of evidence that young Western
women need help, largely in their catalogues of broken relationships. In
seeking instant gratification they are inclined to mistake lust for love
and, in spite of decades of feminism, they read a lot of chick-lit and still
believe that their knight in shining armour is around the corner. At the
same time, because of those decades of feminism, they are a demanding lot,
accustomed to achieving their goals and don't take easily to compromise.
“Their expectations are high and that makes it hard to feel happy,” Seth says.
“We just fall into relationships without stopping to think about what we're
looking for or why we want it. Even when we find one that seems right, our
expectations are unrealistic.
“The myth of rescue is still out there - he can take us away from whatever
frustrates us and we cling to the idea that a relationship should just
happen, that we shouldn't have to work at it. And as modern women, we're
used to having what we want and we regard this incredible relationship as
our right.”
Seth admits that she had made mistakes before she decided to take the
strategic and proactive approach that she recommends. “Arranged marriages
are primarily about fostering commitment and building a marriage out of
that,” she says. “Not about fun or excitement or sexual chemistry. It's
about finding people who have similar backgrounds on the basis that they
should have common goals for the future and an understanding of where the
other person is coming from.”
To this end Seth suggests that women seeking a partner consider what she calls
their “marriage musts”, by which she means a set of criteria that define the
generic prospective partner. She is not talking about a husband's height or
sex appeal, but his values, his lifestyle choices, his qualities. Having
moved across continents while she was growing up, she understood that this
had shaped her life and wanted to marry someone who had also lived outside
Toronto, where she is based, but who shared her interest in the Canadian
political process. Once she had identified her musts it became easier to
recognise someone who might be husband material, and she stresses that she
regards the notion that there is one perfect mate out there for each of us
as misguided.
“What's important is pausing to think about what you want from a relationship.
Before, I thought I would know it when I found it, and I wasn't even sure
what I was looking for. Once I made the list it wasn't at the forefront of
my mind, but I was aware of it, and I was tired of relationships that hadn't
gone anywhere. I don't think there is a ‘One', that idea is very dangerous -
what if you've missed him, or it doesn't work out? I think Rana and I are
very good together and we're very much in love, but I do believe that there
are other people who could also be right.”
Her other key point is that marriages that work are those where there is no
assumption that your partner will satisfy every need and desire. Don't
expect your husband to fulfil all your emotional needs and to be your best
friend - that isn't necessary, she says.
One group of women she spoke to, who had had arranged marriages, were
alpha-type New Yorkers in their late thirties and she noticed too that they
didn't look to their partners so much for their happiness. “In Western
culture there's an obligation for your partner to provide all your social
and emotional needs,” she says. “In the landscape of arranged marriage there
is an extended group that takes the pressure off this one man being able to
provide everything.”
The women she spoke to were calm and positive about their relationships, she
reports; they didn't complain. “They were able to have this sense of
contentment because they weren't looking for something better and that's a
tough thing to cultivate.”
This is the flaw in her thesis: that arranged marriages rely on a cultural
acceptance of long-term commitment; even if you're only adopting their
principles, that takes a hefty dose of maturity. Are women in their twenties
and thirties ready to accept, for example, that sex will be part of their
relationship, rather than its focus and the measure of its success? And
doesn't a culture that constantly strives for something better mitigate
against notions of compromise and counting your blessings? Seth counters
that her advice is for people who are ready for marriage: timing is
critical.
“One of the strengths of arranged marriages is that both parties are ready.
How much easier that must be. Rana and myself were both ready to make a
relationship work,” she says.
It's a pragmatic approach that Marian Salzman, the New York trendspotter, has
already identified as appropriate in a period of economic turbulence. “I
think there's a feeling that arrangements that began in lust ended in
dismay,” she says. “People are looking for partnerships that will age like
wine and they need to begin with some smart thinking. I think it's going to
be a new fad to say, ‘I don't want to be so emotionally driven by my love
needs of the minute, I want to find a partner for life'.
“The cost of divorce is so great practically, emotionally and financially and
that's another factor that is making people want more structure. Forty years
ago it was rare for people to marry outside their communities and the
community was good at reinforcing values and ties. We've become a society
that is transactional, but what's good for me tonight probably isn't good
for me in six months or six years. There's a yearning for something more
permanent now, people want stability and ritual.”
Research by Penny Mansfield, director of One Plus One, a relationship
organisation, also suggests that people are now seeking long-lasting
companionships rather than great passion.
“Thinking about the kind of relationship you want is not what leads you to Mr
Right, but you can filter out Mr Wrong,” she says. “Do I want someone I feel
a great passion for, or do I want someone I'm attracted to and whom I will
want to build a life with once the initial heightened sexual attraction has
gone? My experience of interviewing people is that people are thinking more
about what the long-term might be like.
“It matters to think about the qualities of that person - and indeed to know
yourself. There is an aspect to arranged marriage that is about thinking
ahead, about what relationships are for, about consequences, and we're
beginning to get a shift towards people thinking like that.”
A poll in August indicated that 48 per cent of men and women between the ages
of 25 and 34 said that they would like to improve or work on their marriage.
“They are saying ‘I want my relationship to stay good', not ‘I can always
get another one'. They want something that will last and have meaning.
Possibly because of the credit crunch, once you become more selective, you
make different judgments; if you are thinking about limited resources, you
put a higher value on them. The way in which we conduct relationships has
been consumer based, about expendability and novelty. If people are more
consciously thinking about what relationships are for, that's a good thing.”
First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice from the Wisdom of
Arranged Marriages, by Reva Seth, published by Simon & Schuster, £8.99 thecoupleconnection.net
