I'm having an arranged marriage..

And probably so are you.

I gave a presentation today at work on women's issues in America. I offered to do this since I am leaving in 2 weeks, and thought it might be interesting to give them my perspective on my country. I went around the office and asked everyone what they were interested in knowing about the USA, and got a variety of interesting responses. Here were some of the responses:

*Patriarchy - does it exist in America? Can you see the structures?
*sex - is there a double standard for women to be virgins at marriage, where men are allowed to be promiscuous?
*Is there domestic violence in the USA?
*How does one deal with sexual harassment?
*Why hasn't America ratified CEDAW? (Conventions on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination of Against Women)
*Do men actually help out with domestic chores like in the movies?

I gave my hour-long PowerPoint presentation today after lunch to the whole office. Afterwards, one of the bosses challenged me on my claim that arranged marriages are considered foreign and old fashioned in America, and that we only have love (or some sort of choice) marriages. She was completely justified in doing so.

College is like one big arranged marriage pool. Sure, if you meet someone there you are "choosing" your partner, but the cost of the college and caliber of education (and the kind of people who are able to enter that type of institution) are most likely to be like you. Most people at my university were in a similar socio-economic class, and most of them were white Americans. While I feel that I can marry anyone I want, and since I have groovy parents who will accept anyone I want, and since I live in MA I can even marry someone of the same sex... I'm not likely to meet that many people who aren't a lot like me. If I meet someone from another race or religion, their family might not accept me. I know several people of diverse races and religions who would not marry outside of their race/religion (Jews who will only date Jews; blacks who will only date blacks; etc). If I meet someone who is rich, their family might not want them to marry me because I'm not rich (relatively speaking in America). If I meet someone who is poor... well, I probably won't. I don't know a lot of poor people in America. I don't have many friends whose family would likely qualify as lower class. So my chances of meeting, and "choosing" to marry people who are very different than me, isn't that likely. So sure, I may meet someone and choose to marry them.. but there is definitely an 'arranged' aspect to it.