This blog was suggested in part by Alex G. Arranged marriage has
been a source of stability in family and child rearing in two societies
that I know, India and Japan. In Japan, a society that I have studied
intensely for thirty years, arranged marriage is still the norm,
despite protestations from teenage girls and many married couples who
claim theirs is a "love marriage." Divorce is insignificant.
Scratch the surface of nearly any Japanese "love marriage" and you
will find that the parents on both sides helped the two "lovers" to
meet each other. Sometimes they were encouraged to join the same ski
club, to go to a specific coffee shop or visit the same resort.
Is America lining itself up for the American version of arranged marriage? First, the traditional form of arranged marriage is based on matching two people who have personality attributes that will generate marital satisfaction and stability both economic and emotional.
Why is arranged marriage coming to America? Because I get more and more reports of people who met their mate on a computer matching service. This strikes me as a rapidly growing trend. The matching services are pathetic at making good matches at this point, but there is nothing standing in the way of improved algorithms to match people. Moreover, as the matching gets better so will the willingness of participants to spend more hours providing information and volunteering more crucial and more vital private information to make the match more successful.
With a few qualifications (see below) I think we are on the way to arranged marriage in America.
(Qualifications: the couple matching algorithms will have to be based on very large samples and incorporate some of my own notions of personality dichotomies).