It’s probably hard for you to imagine living in a world where it doesn’t matter who you hate and who you desire. A world where a relationship isn’t made up of two people in love, but of two individuals who are “chosen” for one another. Modern-day America teaches us that arranged marriages are just something we see in the movies so it’s easy for us to forget that it actually does take place worldwide. I didn’t put much thought into this idea until I read “The Magic Barrel,” By Bernard Malamud. This story sparked more questions in me than any other text this semester. “The Magic Barrel,” is a short story about a man named Leo Finkle. Leo is young man who struggled immensely when it came to finding love. After hardly finding time in his hectic …show more content…
The first thing I thought about when I read the story was whether or not arranged marriages are morally correct. In my opinion, they are not. I think people should have a choice in everything they do in their life. As Christine Rogers points out, “The preferences in the relationship seemed to be what the man wanted.” (Rogers, ““The Magic Barrel” Response” October 15, 2016) These marriages that Salzman were arranging seemed to be very one-sided. We don’t exactly know the process the women went through, but when Leo chose a girl from a stack of photos, I can’t imagine that she got the same opportunity of choice as he did. This makes the matching all the more immoral because men are getting more rights than women and equality is …show more content…
I decided to compare Leo Finkle’s situation to the one Hulga faced in “Good Country People,” by O’Connor. Hulga was given the choice of finding her own match and she chose Manely. Manely, she later found out, was an extremely crooked man. He took advantage of her, degraded her, and even stole her prosthetic leg. (O 'Conner, Flannery. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, pg 458) Sometimes the opportunity of choice isn’t always what works. Maybe if someone had chosen a fit mate for Hulga, it wouldn’t of been someone who was actually so wrong for her. Leo went through many different women throughout his selection process, but eventually landed one whom he couldn’t get his mind off of. If Leo had taken a traditional route, he may of never met the girl he imagines to be “the one.” If my final decision was based solely between the two stories, I’d say that the arranged marriage actually brought greater
According to the author, Lizette Alvarez, in the article “Arranged Marriages Get a Little Reshuffling”, Arranged marriages are better than modern marriages and parents can choose good mates for young. First, the arranged marriage has changed a lot in modern time. Arranged marriages are more flexible because young people can meet several times in some public venues without family members. Parents and elders have become more lenient. Second, arranged marriages have more advantages than modern marriages. Arranged marriages can preserve religion and identity and help people to find their mates in the same social class. Arranged marriages can outlast modern marriages because couples can avoid social and religions disharmony. Finally, young people prefer arranged marriage to modern marriage. Young people would spend less time to find their mate because their parents, chat rooms and dating websites help find mates for them. Young people can easily find their mates who have the same education level and social status. As a young person, I do not agree with the author because other people migh...
Human beings are not isolated individuals. We do not wander through a landscape of trees and dunes alone, reveling in our own thoughts. Rather, we need relationships with other human beings to give us a sense of support and guidance. We are social beings, who need talk and company almost as much as we need food and sleep. We need others so much, that we have developed a custom that will insure company: marriage. Marriage assures each of us of company and association, even if it is not always positive and helpful. Unfortunately, the great majority of marriages are not paragons of support. Instead, they hold danger and barbs for both members. Only the best marriages improve both partners. So when we look at all three of Janie’s marriages, only her marriage to Teacake shows the support, guidance, and love.
In the end, readers are unsure whether to laugh or cry at the union of Carol and Howard, two people most undoubtedly not in love. Detailed character developments of the confused young adults combined with the brisk, businesslike tone used to describe this disastrous marriage effectively highlight the gap between marrying for love and marrying for ?reason.? As a piece written in the 1950s, when women still belonged to their husbands? households and marriages remained arranged for class and money?s sake, Gallant?s short story excerpt successfully utilizes fictional characters to point out a bigger picture: no human being ought to repress his or her own desires for love in exchange for just an adequate home and a tolerable spouse. May everyone find their own wild passions instead of merely settling for the security and banality of that ?Other Paris.?
It is human nature to look for happiness. Some people find it in material possessions, some find it in money, but most of us find it in love. To find true love is a difficult task especially now in the times of cell phones and Jaguars. Money and power play a big role in today’s society, and some people would rather have those things than a love of another human being. In some rare cases it is not even a person’s decision who she (almost every time it’s a woman who is being given away) will marry. Although it does not happen very often, there are still cases where a woman is being married off to a man by an arrangement made by her parents, to insure stability and security of that woman. The standing in the community means a great deal, just like Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God illustrates.
As our textbook has suggested that literary works what we are examining in this week module were written in the era where genuine love was something unrelated to marriage. According to Gallagher, “Arranged marriages were often concluded not for reasons of the heart but for economic, political, or other utilitarian ends” (6.3). Thus, men and women were often trapped in loveless marriages.
Marriage, as an institution, has evolved in the last few decades. As society progresses, the ideas and attitudes about marriage have shifted. Today, individuals are able to choose their partners and are more likely marry for love than convenience. While individuals are guaranteed the right to marry and the freedom to choose their own partners, it has not always been this way. Starting from colonial times up until the late 1960’s, the law in several states prohibited interracial marriages and unions. Fortunately, in 1967, a landmark case deemed such laws as unconstitutional. Currently, as society progresses, racism and social prejudice have decreased and interracial marriages have become, not only legal, but also widely accepted.
Epstein, Robert, Mayuri Pandit, and Mansi Thakar. "How Love Emerges In Arranged Marriages: Two Cross-Cultural Studies." Journal Of Comparative Family Studies 44.3 (2013): 341-360. Academic Search Complete. Web. 31 Mar. 2014
“Arranging a Marriage in India” by Serena Nanda is a well written, informative article aimed at sharing the view of the Indian culture on arranged marriages and also showing how much effort is put into the process of arranging a marriage. Our own culture has evolved into accepting the fact that we are all independent individuals who could not imagine having someone else make such a significant decision for us. Serena Nanda does an excellent job of using her sources within the society as evidence of the acceptance of the arranged marriage aspect of their culture.
One of the main arguments for arranged marriages is that parents, being older and more experienced, are better able to find a suitable match for their children. This belief relies on the trust the offspring has that their parents understand what would be best choice or most suitable for their children. This trust is often discouraged by the individualist ideal and rebel teen mentality sponsored by American mass-media. However, in India trust between parent and child are common. When Nanda tried helping arrange a marriage, we see that parents in India weigh many considerations when choosing partners for their children including the statuses of the individuals (including their caste and career path), the social dynamics between the members of both households, and what resources the other family and potential partner have. At least in the case given in the reading, this process can be though and produce a good marriage with stable family ties. Another argument made for arranged marriage is that since the parents are handling the marriage, the children are free to enjoy life and not worry about the details. To a lesser degree in our country, people delegate part of the relationship forming process to others by allowing friends, family, and dating sites or shows to play matchmaker. Though in general, in America the person who would be in the relationship is more involved, and has to worry about handling some of the details. In India, culture is more dependent on family structure so marriage is just as much about forming ties between families as the couple itself, which is part of the reason why the family is so involved in these
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen shows examples of how most marriages were not always for love but more as a formal agreement arranged by the two families. Marriage was seen a holy matrimony for two people but living happil...
Throughout the years, societies view on marriage and cohabitation has been changing, especially from the 1950s up until now. Marriage and cohabitation are in relation to social location, education, immigration and social class. In addition, these changes are influenced through socialization and their surrounding environments as people’s beliefs and expectations vary from what a defined family really is. Same-sex couples are now getting married and the divorce rate is on the rise, including non-married couples raising children. Most importantly, each individual determines who they marry or whom they share their love with through conditioning or in the course of shared similarities. People have dissimilar values, beliefs and attitudes and throughout the life course may change again, including the future generations. This paper reviews why marriage is on the decline and cohabitation is now the accepted social norm, including other aspects such as specific rights that couples have over others in the past. Religion is a powerful tool that alters minds of those who are affiliated with it. As a result, their beliefs are conditioned and marriage is valued differently than those who are not married. All in all this paper will further explain the change, continuity and
When it comes to the topic of marriage, different cultures have different customs. Some of these customs have changed over the years and some have stayed the same. One type of marriage that interests me is arranged marriage and why there are arranged marriages still going on today. That is why I have chosen to write about them in this paper and discuss why they were/are an important staple in certain cultures.
In an Arrange Marriage people do not have options what so ever to choose who they want to spend their life with. “Seventeen years later, Im still married to him, still grieving, and still trying to figure out why I stay.” said Debie Thomas in her own article called "I Wanted to Marry My Soul Mate. My Parents Had Other Ideas. Seventeen Years Later, Here’s What Happened”. Debie was twenty-two when she met her husband Alex. Debie’s pa...
My experience of growing up in another country, I have learned the fact that arranged marriage was still powerful. The purpose of arrange marriage is keeping relationship last longer.
Marriage: It’s one of the most desired systems on the planet, yet it is still one of the most misunderstood ideas known to mankind. The definition of being in matrimony has evolved with time, and through the years society has been seemingly reluctant to such changes. From the end of anti-miscegenation laws to the legalization of interracial marriage, society has grown to understand the importance the choice of getting married has on the individual. As of now, the right of matrimony is given to all but one group of Americans.