Early on in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, a play by William Shakespeare, the main characters, Romeo, a Montague, and Juliet, a Capulet, get married in secret. The Capulets, not knowing that Romeo and Juliet already had their own little covert wedding, promise her to a man named Count Paris. At first, Juliet objects, but she eventually consents to the arranged marriage, although it’s only so that she can carry out her plan of meeting Romeo and living ‘happily ever after’ with him. This, however, is not how the story is destined to end. According to many who have read the book, Juliet’s and Romeo’s fates would have been quite different if the arranged marriage was never to take place. So, the question is, how different? To answer that,
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Is it really that bad? Debie Thomas, the child of first generation Indian immigrants and also the wife in a modern arranged marriage, knows firsthand what it’s like to marry for compatibility. In Indian culture, it is common for a woman to be married off to a man by her parents. As well as being a mother of two, Debie is the author of the article “My Parents Chose My Husband” (Slate; ‘Snapshots of Life at Home’). When reading her article on her life as a wife in an arranged marriage, you’ll come across more than a few ‘windows’, so to speak, into what it’s really like to be in an arranged marriage. Debie says, “To arrange a life, after all, is to control it. To write its script so exhaustively that there’s little room left for improvisation. And a lot of good stuff happens when you are improvising.” In other words, by arranging her marriage, Debie felt that her parents had arranged her whole life when they chose her husband, not just her marriage. She felt that her life was arranged so completely that there wasn’t any way she could make it any better for herself. Debie’s right to choose was taken away from her, and, as a result, she wasn’t as happy as she could have been. In her article, Debie also said, “To arrange a life is also to love and protect it, to put every bit of scaffolding in place to prevent collapse and chaos. It 's an ongoing tension, messier than the words ‘arranged marriage’ would suggest.” This tells us that it was out of love for her that her parents arranged her marriage. However, by trying to prevent chaos and collapse, they actually planted the seed, and, albeit unintentionally, helped it to
Is it really that bad? Debie Thomas, the child of first generation Indian immigrants and also the wife in a modern arranged marriage, knows firsthand what it’s like to marry for compatibility. In Indian culture, it is common for a woman to be married off to a man by her parents. As well as being a mother of two, Debie is the author of the article “My Parents Chose My Husband” (Slate; ‘Snapshots of Life at Home’). When reading her article on her life as a wife in an arranged marriage, you’ll come across more than a few ‘windows’, so to speak, into what it’s really like to be in an arranged marriage. Debie says, “To arrange a life, after all, is to control it. To write its script so exhaustively that there’s little room left for improvisation. And a lot of good stuff happens when you are improvising.” In other words, by arranging her marriage, Debie felt that her parents had arranged her whole life when they chose her husband, not just her marriage. She felt that her life was arranged so completely that there wasn’t any way she could make it any better for herself. Debie’s right to choose was taken away from her, and, as a result, she wasn’t as happy as she could have been. In her article, Debie also said, “To arrange a life is also to love and protect it, to put every bit of scaffolding in place to prevent collapse and chaos. It 's an ongoing tension, messier than the words ‘arranged marriage’ would suggest.” This tells us that it was out of love for her that her parents arranged her marriage. However, by trying to prevent chaos and collapse, they actually planted the seed, and, albeit unintentionally, helped it to