Arranged Marraiges

Last night Marc and I had an interesting dinner conversation: arranged marraiges was the topic. I don't know what led to it... oh yeah, I think I was pretending to want to set his bachelor brother up with some girl in NYC, who I'd never met before. Marc is really not a fan of setting people up. I am. He started the ball rolling by saying, "Why don't we just do arranged marraiges? It'd be easier." I looked at little Madeleine in the high chair next to us and said, "But then little Madeleine wouldn't be here and wouldn't be ours!"

Why not? Because had love not taken it's course, Marc and I would have nary a chance of being arranged together. See, his parents and my parents have different ideas of what our respective spouses should/would be like. Not that we don't all get along merrily now -- of course we do! The in-law situation is great these days, no worries. But we laughed about what qualities our matched mates may have possessed:

Marc's mother would have arranged to have him marry a homely willing womb who was prepared to make good use of her child bearing hips. The chosen girl would have been the epitome of humble righteousness without a propensity to seek the worldly things in life. His father would have muttered and waffled and flip-flopped indecisively over a variety of girls, discrediting each one after silently musing over some personality incongruency.

My mother would have tried to sell a kidney or two to have me marry a bold, dark, brilliant, dashing man with biological and social pedigree all in order. (I didn't get too far from that did I? ;)) He would have been the top of the top for whatever price she could afford. My father... well... I cannot even imagine him taking the initiative in setting up an arranged marraige. Too passive. He might have just hoped for a love-marriage to come my way, and if nothing happened, he would have settled contently, at least happy to have me near his side and with the family always.

We both thought that we would have settled and been set up to be in the exact same social bracket that we were born into and are in today, the massive middle-class (despite my mother's aspiring intentions).

We concluded that we would have survived and even thrived under such love-lacking conditions paired to such partners (why not? it has worked in quite a few cultures and throughoug history without the total demise of society and marriage as an institution), but we are SO grateful to have found each other and let the sparks fly. Here's to a marriage born of attraction!