Arranged Marriages

Teaching involves learning... And students aren't the only ones doing the learning!

We were reading an article on arranged marriages in my English class for immigrants and, to see how many were familiar with the concept, I asked a question I had never asked before: How many of you had arranged marriages?

I expected to see a few raised hands - the five or six women wearing hijab head coverings, perhaps, but instead... to my utter amazement... almost all the 35 women in the group raised their hands. I looked around, astounded to see that even the wealthy world traveler from Korea who wore designer labels and the carefully coiffed Lebanese teacher dressed in a suit and heels had also raised their hands... The only ones whose hands remained on their desks were from Bosnia and Poland...

You could - as the saying goes - have knocked me over with a feather, I was so surprised...

I knew arranged marriages still existed in countries like India and Pakistan. Occasionally young women students would confess that they had never planned to move to Canada, but their parents had brought them here to visit relatives... and only after their arrival had they been told that a wedding was in the works. These were rare occurrences, so I had naively believed that apart from these rare cases, arranged marriages were a thing of the past...

I was apparently wrong...

Sensing my shock, several women offered comments...

My marriage was an arranged marriage, the Lebanese teacher announced to the class. I have been happily married for thirty years. My daughter chose her own husband, and after five years of marriage, she is divorced... Sometimes arranged marriages are stronger than love marriages.

Many of the women nodded.

Yes, a young woman from Bangladesh added: My father always says arranged marriages are better, because in a love marriage, when the love goes, the marriage goes...

Again many nodded their agreement.

For me, the experience was a complete paradigm shift: No longer would I view arranged marriages as rare or antiquated, but rather as yet another social concept many immigrants have to come to grips with - for themselves and their children - as they adapt to new life in Canada, where all are free to marry whomever they choose.