Misty wrote:Okay, am I wrong to say that you are assuming that you are the only one to have fallen in love?
Yes totally!
Misty wrote:Secondly, thank you for the suggestion, but I have seen people who have actually married through arranged marriages, and in fact they truly fall in love.
...and then there are the SES arranged marriages that went very wrong indeed....or maybe you don't know about them!
Misty wrote:You are wrong to assume that as far as one can go with those guidance is just affection. People have proved that to fall love is possible after marriage.
I maintain that you cannot manufacture love....however this raises the 10 million dollar question..."What is Love". And as there is not a person in the world who can claim to be able to scientifically identify love then it all boils down to personal opinion...in which case it is your opinion that I am wrong and my opinion that I am right. I am basing my opinion on a number of experiences in which I thought I was in love, and then my current situation which I am prepared to say is unequivocally love (not that I am infallible it is true)....On what experience do you base your opinion?
Misty wrote:Again they are not rules. Did you read what I had quoted? Let me repeat:
...you going to argue on semantics....ok, you say they are not rules, and yet you call them "The laws set out by the wise". Rules can be broken just as laws - both are "guidance" to how we should behave.
Misty wrote:Happiness in a marriage is dependant upon the decision to force all things together.
"Force"....this is the sort of language I take issue with....why should force be necessary?
Misty wrote:However I have learnt not to make an opinion if I don't know the full story.
You must know an awful lot about love and life in general then, because there seems to be a large number of your opinions all over this board!
antises wrote:It IS believed that love grows naturally if both members of the union seek the same things from their marriage and are committed.
I don't have a problem with love "growing", I just maintain that it must be there to start with.
As for statistics - see my response to Misty regarding our inability to identify love. This would then render statistics useless, as one couple's definition of love may be another's definition of affection, and another's of lust. It is my belief that more people who get married are not in love than those who marry and who are - but again this cannot be backed up with figures for the same reason. It would be an interesting exercise however to ask a large number of divorcees whether, looking back, they still believed they were in love when they got married - even more interesting if they had subsequently re-married. Note I said interesting, not statistically decisive.
antises wrote:Again, you missed the point: they are suggestions, not rules.
See my response to Misty!
antises wrote:So basically, Alban, you can't actually criticize any of the 5 suggestions, but you just think they're wrong because they don't mention love.
Exactly, love is the overriding, Number 1 requirement. As long as you have that, then the 5 are nice-to-haves...actually, they are only nice-to-haves for certain people. There are many people who rejoice in other cultures, or being classless, or for whom education means nothing even though they are educated themselves.
antises wrote: love generally comes after marriage in the philosophy which puts forward the suggestions.
Which is why I'm casting aspersions on that particular philosophy in the context of this society in the western world.
antises wrote:And you can't seriously say that the (approximate) 50% success rate for marriages in the 'civilized' world today shows that most people 'know when they are in love'.
Agreed....but is forcing them into an arranged marriage a viable alternative?
antises wrote:Also, the message that divorce in general does more harm than good is prevalent among researchers:
No argument there either. Divorce is hard on all parties, not least because it is admission of failure....I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
antises wrote:You seem to think that arranged marriages either rely on luck or are a mistake from the beginning because they do not consider 'love'
When arranged marriages were more commonplace in western society, infidelity was quite the norm.....as was beating your wife....neither of which I condone.
I think there is one thing here that needs to be said. I am not saying that if you are not in love then you will be unhappy. I am sure there are many millions of arranged marriages where each partner has accepted their lot and has made the best of it, and been very happy. Remember too, that it all depends on your expectations. If you are brought up to believe that to end up with a good man or a good woman will bring you happiness, and your parents pick out a "good" partner who doesn't beat you or who dutifully brings up your family then the chances are you'll be happy.
There is quite evidently a different idea and expectation of love in other cultures. It [love] does certainly seem to play a lesser part in marriage in certain cultures, but in those cultures I would suggest that marriage is more of an enjoyable duty than the celebration of love that it is supposed to be in western civilisation (as espoused by most western religions).
So this does beg the question of both of you (Misty and antises) of how you view marriage. What is it to you? It is obviously not a celebration of love if you are promoting the theory that love will come later!
On a completely separate point, I have spent a long time typing this response and expressing my views and experience in a cogent form. We are veering off the original thread into a general philosophical discussion, which I cannot continue devoting this amount of time to. We all have different experiences and we all change our opinions as we grow older and gain more experiences. I feel I have pretty much covered my views and opinions on this and other threads and so will be taking a back-seat from now on to avoid repeating myself....that's not to say I will stop reading it.....I may even comment too, but you get the general idea!
Alban