Marriage - Romantic marriage and pragmatic marriage - Encyclopedia II

A Pragmatic (or 'Arranged') marriage that is facilitated by formal procedures of family or group politics. A responsible authority sets up or encourages the marriage. The authority could be parents, family, a religious figure or a consensus. The former two often start the process with informal pressure, social pressure, whilst the latter two often start the process with a formal system or statement. In both cases, the authority has a compelling veto over the marriage, and this system is socially supported by the rest of community so that to deny it is extreme and drastic. Once declared, an engagement is implicit, which follows through with a formal marriage ceremony.

Cultures that aspire to create relationships after couples marry are those with institutionalized practices of pragmatic marriage. Cultures that come to think that marriages should only be tried once a short-term compatibility already exists adopt romantic marriages.

Those who believe in romantic marriage will often criticize pragmatic marriage, considering it is oppressive, inhuman, or immoral. Defenders of pragmatic marriage disagree, often pointing to cultures where the success rate of pragmatic marriages is seen to be high, and holding that nearly all couples learn to love and care for each other very deeply.

Those who uphold pragmatic marriage frequently state that it is traditional, that it upholds social morals, that it is good for the families involved. They also have some traditional criticisms of romantic marriage, saying that it is short-term, overly based on sexual lust, or immoral. Defenders of romantic marriage would hold that it is preferable to achieve an emotional bond before entering into a lifelong commitment.

It is debatable whether either understanding of marriage is more correct - the underlying assumptions are different. Much criticism of the "other" form of marriage (from one point of view or the other) is based on misunderstanding assumptions about the nature of marriage made from different cultural starting-points.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Romantic marriage and pragmatic marriage", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page