Now, the title of this entry may send your mind to far away countries and cultures like India where it is known that parents arrange the marriages of their children. While that is an interesting concept, one which I may explore for a future entry, that’s not what I’m referring to today. No, the kind of arranged marriage that I’m talking about is one in which the two participants willing enter into it without parental/familial arrangement and that typically begins with dating/courting and love. The word “typically” is included, because a portion of the relationships that I’m talking about are arrangements of the two involved to be seen as normal in order to hide something.
One of the types of arrangements to which I refer deals with one or more participants who are of the LGBT community. They chose and marry a partner who is aware of their true orientation, and live a double life of sorts with the full knowledge of their partner. Now, while there may be love between the individuals who are married, it is not the sort of covenant relationship that marriage was intended to be. It is nothing more than a front for one or more people to live authentically under the cover of “normal.” They have the freedom to do and be with who they desire while maintaining the normative appearance of marriage with 2.5 kids and the house in the suburbs. This, of course, is a more ‘ideal’ situation than someone unknowingly being married to someone whose sexual orientation is actually not that of their marriage partner, but it is still a tragic situation that should not have to happen.
The fact that people feel the need to hide who they really are because of societal pressures (esp. if they have positions of prominence in politics, churches, etc) speaks to a lack of love inherent in our society. It has been made clear that difference is not accepted, and so everyone is expected to conform to what has been deemed normal – white, male, heterosexual, Eurocentric, Christian thought and ideology. When people are different from that norm, there is a tendency to either make them fit or demonize them… I’m not even gonna get into the things that assimilation has done to black people in America, because that would digress too far from the topic at hand, but the point is that we need to learn to love – i.e. respect, affirm, and support – people who are different.
Now, there is another set of arranged marriages that I also find disturbing. These marriages begin with less deceptive intent, but they tend to turn out with similar results. There is dating and love and excitement about the life to be built together… but somewhere along the way, it becomes clear that there are some irreconcilable differences in their personalities and desires. Yet, for reasons of public face, many of these marriages become arrangements to remain together to avoid questions and issues, but they live separate lives, finding what they need in other people and substances or suffering from depression or other life-altering maladies. Once again, love becomes all but absent in the form of the covenant that marriage is supposed to represent, and the union is merely a shell for two people to live separate unhappy, deceptive lives.
I will end today’s entry here, but tomorrow’s entry will talk more about marriage and having the proper foundation and definition. I want to conclude by saying that authenticity is key. Granted, it is difficult in a closed-minded society such as the one we find ourselves in (no matter how liberal some people and media may seem), but it is ultimately much healthier for you, the person who has to live with yourself. And marriage is not something to be taken lightly… but that we will see more of tomorrow.
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