MARRIAGE: LOVE OR ARRANGED?

This piece is inspired by Zack’s post on the same matter, but while his piece was informative, factual and fairly reasonable and the debate that followed pretty sizzling, this one’s going to be downright ridiculous and outrageous. That’s cuz I’m gonna write whatever I’m thinking; uncut and raw. Since the thought process is anything but logical, so expect absurdity galore. But let me clarify beforehand that I don’t take credit for all that’s written here, since much of it has been the outcome of countless hours of ‘grave’ discussion with my Bhai Logs, so they deserve as much appreciation (or loathing) as I. If you’re offended by what I’ve to say, well then, I can’t do much about it, can I?
The West( or let’s just say almost all the non-Muslims) are baffled, even piqued by the arranged marriage custom in Islam(The Indians have it as well, but they are ‘leaning’ more and more towards the West, so cut them out of the picture). Most of us Muslim guys have our own concerns similar to them, so at least I know what the Westerners must think. Leave the compatibility issue aside for now; the very first thing is the sex issue. How do you do it on your wedding night with a complete stranger? Now the times have changed and engagements occur well before the marriage so the couple do get to know each other, and the coupling on the wedding night doesn’t pose that much of a problem. But there was a time when the two people didn’t even get to see each other until the wedding day. This really happened with one of my uncles. And let it be known that Islam does not allow this. Once a companion of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) came to invite him to his marriage. The Prophet (SAWS) inquired whether he had seen the prospective bride to which he replied in the negative. He then ordered him to see her and then decide about marrying her.
Islam exhorts all Muslims to find out as much as they can (remaining within the prescribed limits) about the person they’re going to spend the rest of their life with. So our society tends to be conservative where the religion has allowed relaxation. And this is just one of the many unfavourable things we have adopted from the Hindu culture. A psychiatrist said on PTV( yep, that’s right, PTV!) during an interview that Pakistani families are liberal enough to let their daughters discuss their vital stats with male tailors, sometimes even let them measure them ,but not liberal enough to let the girl at least talk face to face with the prospective candidate with whom she’s going to spend the rest of her life with. She really hit the bull’s eye. I mean, can you get anymore stupider than that? Imagine that, you haven’t talked to a person ever in your life, and suddenly you get to make love to him or her. It must be particularly hard for the girl, since she’s leaving the comfort of her home and going to live in a new and strange place with strangers which she has no idea about. The fear of the unknown coupled with the ‘union’ on the night is surely a daunting thing for a girl. But it’s not an easy task from a guy’s point of view. Remember, he has to make all the moves. And if he’s a novice like most Pakistani guys, then Jason Bigg’s sex fiasco in American Pie 1 would also be at the back of his mind. Just some petting and necking and he may be all done for the night. People assume that even if the couple are not that acquainted with each other, the heat of the moment would create the momentum for them to go ahead with it even if they hardly know each other. That assumption can be very wrong. A couple of year’s back I read a case file published in Dawn by a doctor. This doctor once had a guy come up to him with some serious marital trouble. It so happened that this guy had an arranged marriage. Now the problem was this guy couldn’t muster enough courage to have sex with his wife probably because he didn’t know her. After a few months when they got to know each other, he tried to approach her but this time around, he couldn’t get an erection. I don’t know much about psychology and stuff, but this looked like the case of the mind controlling the body. The fear or shame was etched onto his mind in the period following his marriage so when he did tried to overcome it, the mind simply refused to give in. The months changed to years, the guy didn’t seek medical attention again probably out of shame whereas the wife was suffering on many fronts as well. Apart from being sexually deprived, she was being scorned by the women of the family for being infertile (people here still believe that a man cannot be impotent or infertile). Still she kept mum about her relationship (or lack of it) with her husband. Finally when the matter came to a head and these womenfolk started suggesting that he take another wife, he sought the advice from this doctor. He went through therapy and some drugs and voila, he was back on track and the wife pregnant in just a few months. So it took them some three years of hell after their marriage to finally unite.
The story, though not a representative of our society, does cast a probing look on our society. For one, women in this part of the world holler all year round that they are living in a female-oppressed society. What they conveniently overlook is that most of the time they play a leading role in making the life of their own kind miserable. In this case, why the hell are they worried about this couple’s off spring? Cases are reported in sections of the press about the husband burning the wife alive for lack of or insufficient dowry. What they don’t mention is that the mother-in-law plays a pivotal role in bringing about the murder. We all heard about the horrendous story of a mother getting her daughter killed in front of her own eyes which was a case of ‘Honour Killing’. I don’t remember the girl’s name, but this gruesome killing took place in Asma Jehangir’s (the human rights activist) office in front of her in broad daylight! So much for women power.
But the main point of the story is that Pakistani man can be disconcerted enough in marriage for these sort of problems to arise, and women can’t do much but wait for him to get his bearing right. This was an extreme case but it doesn’t mean that it may not be common. Since sex is so taboo in our society, most of the problems associated with it are swept under the carpet. I use the word society and not religion because Islam does not forbid discussing sex itself but the profanities springing from it, whereas the reverse is true of our society. People here are screwing around like there’s no tomorrow but no one dare say the word which is almost considered blasphemous.
I was reminded of this whole arranged marriage business because a cousin of mine is been coerced by his mother to marry her niece, that is, his cousin.
Now I know in the West marrying your cousin is considered almost incestuous. Not that incest is considered as evil as it was nearly a decade ago. Incest clubs are springing up as much as the nudist clubs, and accepting them is considered ‘breaking out of the conservative shackles of our ancestors’. Yeah sure, some modernization.
In Islam, cousins are allowed to marry. But sometimes things don’t work out; like in this case my cousin has always viewed this girl as a sister, and it’s hard for him to suddenly start thinking about her as a romantic interest. Her mother’s logic, pretty reasonable to a Pakistani mother, may sound twisted to someone else. Her perception is that since she is her niece, she’s going to take good care of his parents, that is, her and her hubby. But if he marries someone else, that someone will not give a shit about her in-laws. It’s a selfish plan, but I have got to admit she’s also right. The prosperity of an extended family depends very much on the relationship between the daughter and mother-in-law. Scuffles between these two are some of the major house-breakers in this region, not to mention driving the males insane. It’s true really. There are men in our family who have gone literally bonkers solely because their significant others used to incessantly bicker. There’s only so much yapping you can take in one lifetime without crossing the threshold of sanity.
Coming back to the cousin trouble, my concern in this whole mess is that my cousin may end up like that guy who couldn’t make love to his wife. But what can I do? I can’t just walk up to my aunt and voice my fears. Imagine how that would sound, “Hey auntie, could please drop this idea of Sohail getting married to his cousin because he may not be able to have sex with her out of respect and brotherly love for her!” It’s a difficult conversation to have in any culture, and we are talking about the Pakistanis. Only a Pakistani can gauge how that would sound to another Pakistani. To put it mildly, I would be labelled a sex maniac. And I don’t think I have any advice to give to Sohail as well. What can I say? (Actually a lot). It’s not that I can’t discuss such stuff with him even when we haven’t seen each other much in recent years and that I’m a reserved guy. The thing is, if he decides not to marry and word gets out that I had been talking to him, I’d be dead meat. All the same, it would be really frustrating for me to see his mother lead him into a failed marriage. The good news is that he won’t be getting married till his career stabilizes, so hopefully good sense will prevail by then.
Coming back to the question whether arranged or love marriage has a better chance of survival, I don’t think it makes much of a difference in the long run. Yep, in spite of all the apprehensions I’ve laid down concerning an arranged marriage, there’s nothing to suggest that it cannot be a long lasting and happy relationship. Most people today marry of their own choice and yet if you compare the divorce rates between these two categories, there’s not much to it. The only decisive factor in the success of a marriage is the ability of the partners to cope with each other; no matter how much head over heels they may be over each other before the nuptial.