Nell Freudenberger's new novel, The Newlyweds, tells the story of a couple that marries for practical—not romantic—reasons. Is that really such a bad idea?
Nell Freudenberger's new novel, The Newlyweds, takes as its subject what the book jacket describes as "an arranged marriage for the twenty-first century." It's one that the main characters, Amina and George, arrange for themselves, with help from a dating site. After an 11-month email courtship, Amina moves from Bangladesh to Rochester, New York so that she and George can get hitched, for reasons more pragmatic than passionate. Like George, Amina wants to start a family—and she also wants a green card. Their union "is more like the arranged marriage of Amina's grandparents than like her parents' love match," Michiko Kakutani wrote in a recent New York Times review.
Might we Westerners—so intent on finding our soul mates—be able to learn a thing or two from Amina's grandparents? A number of experts think we can—or that, at least, there's plenty of wisdom to take away from cultures where arranged marriage is still common. The number-one attitude adjustment Westerners would do well to make if they'd like to lead more satisfying romantic lives (and who wouldn't?): Taking marriage more seriously as a relationship that's supposed to last until death, rather than till divorce. In arranged marriages, says Reva Seth, author of First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice from the Wisdom of Arranged Marriages, "both people come into the relationship with a sense that this is forever." That kind of mindset stands in stark contrast to the one common in Western culture, says Seth, a Canadian journalist who spoke to more than 300 women over the course of five years while researching her book. In this part of the world, she says, even in committed relationships, we're constantly asking ourselves: Could I do better? Would someone else make me happier? That kind of mentality—coupled with how easy it is, legally and socially, to get divorced—"makes it extremely difficult to duplicate the level of commitment that I found among the women I spoke with," Seth says.
Research psychologist Robert Epstein, the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, agrees. After spending the last ten years studying arranged marriages for a book that he's working on, he similarly contends that deep connection isn't as crucial as deep commitment. Love is more likely to grow over time in arranged marriages, he argues, because those couples have more practical attitudes about what a relationship entails than those of us who believe life will be a piece of cake as long as we find "true love." "In arranged marriages, they do not have this idea that love is brought to you by the fates," says Epstein. Rather, they believe it's something that evolves with the years—and with effort. People in arranged marriages are more serious about sticking by their partners through thick and thin, Espstein argues. They're more psychologically prepared for difficulties, while Westerners think less about what trials the future might bring. In fact, Epstein contends, we often assume that our significant others will always stay as attractive, youthful-looking, or thin as they were when we first fell for them.
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Perhaps even more commonly, people in the West have impractical notions about how much effort a relationship will take, Epstein argues. We think that as long as we feel so strongly about our mates when we first get married, life together will be a breeze—and when it's not, we're quick to jump to the conclusion that whatever's not working can't be fixed. (The fact that 45 percent of all U.S. marriages end in divorce seems to indicate he might be on to something.) As a result, he thinks bliss in so-called "marriages of choice" often reaches an apex on or around the wedding day, while it steadily grows for those in arranged marriages. (It may grow from nothing, of course--but perhaps that makes it all the more remarkable.)