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I truelly agree with what you have written, especially the fact that rest of the world´s customes, cultures and other civilization habits are being judged through european eyes. I come from South Africa, where women and men have different statuses and marriage all together is seen differently and is valued differently than in the western culture, but for some odd reason we get labelled that our traditions are "babaric" or "uncivilized"... but the question is "according to who are they uncivilized? Because I also look at my great elders and they have been married since they were very young and still are. Unlike the western worlds where people are changing their partners every 5 seconds and divorcing as if it is going out of fashion.
I don´t think it is a problem merely the eastern world is facing, but rather every world that is non-european.
A great experience I have here in many debates is the dowry. Now, in my African culture it is A MUST that the man must give dowry out of respect for the woman´s family and also ties the two families together. However, people on high-horses say "why are the women being bought for cows??" . I see it as, if the man did not respect that woman, he would just marry her with no proper concent, respect and introduction to her family. I know I am going off the topic a little bit, but my point is that people should really stop with judging other cultures, because your judgement will ALWAYS be biast. A women who has gotten dowry and has a different cultural marriage has nothing to do with her social status, her education nor the strength of her mind.
So what if you are in an arrangement marriage? So what if you choose your own partner?
It doesn´t make your marriage more significant than the other. Yes, it is different and yes it is a foreign concept for your european brain, but it does not make it any less loving, faithful, caring, compassionate and most of all superior than any other marriage.
That is all I have to say, I completely agree with Yersu, totally
OK here goes again:
First of all I see some people are viewing this issue through "European" glasses which actually makes them blind, you can not have an objective discussion if you are so dogmatically convinced you have achieved higher moral standards.
There isn´t empirical data that shows arranged marriages are worse than so called love marriages, social and psycologic stuff don´t work like physics. And on the contrary one would see lower divorce rates for arranged marriages anyway. Of course that is a result of social structure however what I am trying to say is please get off your high horses and stop acting like you are the judicator of a universal truth.
Women being suppressed doesn´t have much to do with the marriage being arranged or not. Oppression of women is about education, wealth, social status etc. rather than how those two people got married.
And finally this is why arranged marriages worked beautifully in the past: "Nikahta keramet vardır". Means there is wonders in marriage. People were married off at an early age. They would be virgins, both physically and mentally. Thus they would be very speacial for each other. Add the fact that agricultural lifestyle needs man and woman work side by side they would become friends, coworkers etc. Add the experience of raising children together, rather than dumping them in some daycare center.
When I look at my elderly relatives, I see purity, and a lifelong companionship which people lack nowadays. I don´t want so called European values seep into the minds of my people and poision them, turning them into Dudu seeking empty shells at the age of 40.
Edited (1/22/2010) by Zimmygirl
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), but i really want to mobilise my music