Persuasive Essay
We are all familiar with the story: boy meets girl, boy falls in with girl, boy and girl gets married. For the majority of the western world, the ideal of a great beginning to a perfect marriage is “first comes love, then comes marriage.” But in many other parts of the world, especially the Muslim/Islamic countries, arranged marriage is often practiced. This may sound odd to the people raised in the west, but to the Islamic communities it is seen as in act of love. Arranged marriage is viewed as following the religious and traditional way of marriage, bringing closer bonds between the bride and groom families, and leading a better marriage life without having divorce as an option.
Religion and tradition plays an important role in the Islamic communities. According to the Quran (the central religious text of Islam) dating is not allowed, so a sort of arranged or agreed marriage is really the only way. Arranged marriages are forbidden if it's against the will of the man or woman, but if they agree to marry each other with their heart and will then it's allowed. Traditionally the parents of these individuals pick the suitor for their child. The parents usually look for certain traits in a marriage partner. Some desirable traits looked for in both male and female are: matching levels of education, matching cultures, close parental cities, matching religions. An arranged marriage should not be confused with a forced marriage. A forced marriage takes away any choice of the individuals that are to be married (usually the girl). Whereas in an arranged marriage the two individuals get introduced by each other’s families for the purpose of arranging their marriage and either one of the individuals are given the option to veto the marriage and back out of the arrangement. But in most arranged cases the family and cultural pressure to get married may be so great that the individuals might not back out for fear of disappointing their parents. In some cases, the young people look forward to their family picking their life partner for them.
"Marriage is treated as an alliance between two families rather than a union between two individuals." (Prakasa 15). For many Muslims their parents are like their god, they worship them and accept anything their parents have in store for them. The people (usually the girls) in the Islamic communities get married at young ages. That is to avoid any bad name brought to the family by the child committing adultery. So the question here is how can a young person make such an important decision on his/her own? The answer is they really can’t and if they do, it will be a bad one. Therefore, they don’t mind giving their parent’s reign over that big decision because they see them as more knowledgeable. It isn’t like their parents are marrying them off to someone for the wrong reasons. There is a lot of time and thought put into it because this is setting them up for their future. And as we all know that parents always seek and do things that will only benefit their child. The person whom the parent choses for their child will be perfect, because parents know their child as well as the child know his/herself and therefore they can decide the write chap for them.
In love marriage the couple is so blinded with love at first that they really don’t know the person they are marrying. The strong emotions that they have sometimes make them blind to the characteristics of their partner. In this marriage there’s a lot of love at first, but then it weakens over time. In arranged marriages, there’s not that much love at first, but it tends to grow over time. It is just like a marathon run, the runners who start out sprinting will lose their energy by the finishing line, but the runners who start out slow will end up sprinting near the finishing line and will have the energy to keep going. Sometimes in marriage people face difficulties in life, and someone must be there to help relieve them and in