Arranged Marriages and Mental Health

Arranged Marriages and Mental Health

            Arranged marriages have been part of the culture of most traditional societies for a long time. The role of the parents in selecting the potential suitors of their children has reduced over time with the consensus among liberal communities being that the individual should have the final say on who it is they want to spend the rest of their lives with. One of the criticisms against arranged marriages is the premise that they end up harming the partners involved. While there exists a significant number of studies that seem to prove this point, I believe that the effects of an arranged marriage on the partners are mostly positive. This paper will make a case for this premise and attempt to convince the reader of the rightfulness of the arranged marriage in its native communities.

For a complete understanding of the point of view of the members of communities who practice arranged marriages, one needs to understand the role that marriage plays in these societies. The Indian community, for example, is well known to be reliant on the arranged marriage as their primary means of handling the union of two families through a wedding (Sharma et al.). In the Indian community, as well as most of the other communities that advocate arranged marriages, marriage is a very important aspect of life. The view that marriage completes one’s life by allowing for procreation and security for life is a very strong premise of these communities.

Additionally, these communities also place a lot of emphasis on the family unit. Most of western culture has devolved the family into a small nuclear unit. However, for most African and Eastern communities, there is still a strong sense of family within the extended unit and the clan (Kim and McKenry 322). With a strong sense of respect for both the institution of marriage and the family, these communities place a lot of importance on the choice of a spouse for their young members as this influences the next generation of the family as well as which families the family as a whole forms unions with. As a result of the deep implications that a wedding union potentially has on the family, these communities attempt to control these unions as much as possible.

With the above perspective in mind, one starts to look at the arranged marriage in a different light. First, the social pressure in these communities regarding marriage makes it a relief to be married (Rathor, 17). The incidence of depression and a sense of worthlessness is higher among women who are unmarried (Durvasula and Gaithri 99). This is due to the idea in such communities that marriage is a critical step in life. When a woman does not complete this step, she is seen as undesirable and is even shunned by other women. The peace that comes with having a husband and starting a family in these communities can help reduce the incidence of depression and increase the motivation to do well for oneself to make the family proud. In doing this, the arranged marriage helps improve the mental health of the individual. While the above benefits may also be true of marriages that are not arranged by the senior family members, the incidence of women staying to an older age before being married is lowered considerably where there is a culture of arranged marriages. This is because arranged marriages are generally performed when the woman is young.

Similarly, a study by Srivastava (26) found that men in marriage have a statistically significant lower rate of alcohol consumption compared to unmarried men. This reduced depression statistics could be attributed to several factors. First, the sense of responsibility that having a family has pushes married men to strive past challenges much more fiercely than they would if they had no responsibility to anyone other than themselves. This added responsibility is also present in marriages that are based on choice rather than a prior arrangement by senior family members. However, in a case where the marriage was an arranged one, it stands to reason that marital strains are much less likely to result in either party giving up on the relationship. In mutually agreed upon marriages, the incidence of divorce over marital strains is higher. This is because the marriage is seen as a union between just two individuals as opposed to the arranged marriage, which includes more people than just the two married persons. By giving one a reason to remain and fix things rather than jump ship, the arranged marriage prevents the development of mental health issues such as major depressive disorder.

The arranged marriage is mostly an early one. This is advantageous as it allows for the family to keep tabs on their child through having someone else close to him or her at all times. For someone who is mentally unstable or suffers from some form of mental disorder, having a partner from an early age improves the rehabilitation process and even tempers future breakdowns (Thoits 149). Additionally, the support of a lifelong partner goes a long way in preventing the onset of most mental disorders. The unconditional support from a partner, especially in young adulthood, when the realities of life are dawning on an individual improves general mental health.

The consensus that the arranged marriage inflates the numbers of partners suffering from mental disorders is not entirely baseless. In a community where the media sells ideas about love and romance at every turn, being married to a person through someone else’s decision must seem very harsh (Segrin and Nabi 261). There is a proportion of people for whom early arranged marriage leads to the development of or exacerbation of mental disorders. Increased drinking to escape reality, increased depression due to violence or constant fighting, or just simply feeling neglected or unwanted can be some of the initial triggers that blow up to some form or the other of mental disorder diagnosis (Madathil and Benshoff 226). While this paper does not seek to defy these truths, the idea that the early arranged marriage is the cause for increased mental anguish is a biased view established by those who already feel that the practice is wrong. This is to say that the majority of the studies that result in these findings are run to verify hypotheses formulated from a westernized perspective and end up confirming said suspicions.

In the native communities where arranged marriages are the predominant form of marriage, there is a much lower divorce rate, increased gross happiness, and even lower mental health cases among the married partners. This suggests that the citing of arranged marriage as the cause for mental health disorders and other stressors on mental health is not correct. The high numbers of mental health stressors in the westernized world may be indicative of a lack of appreciation of the value of marriage, as is present in most eastern and African communities. Naturally, unhappy people will cite reasons for their unhappiness, and the self-reported data is not and cannot be expected to be an accurate representation of the truth.

The evidence strongly suggests positive effects of arranged marriages on the mental health of the concerned individuals. Even though there is also a strong body of evidence to suggest negative impacts, this research is restricted to Westernized communities or those of diverse nature, and very few studies have considered the effects of arranged marriages on the minds of participants in a native community setting. I believe this oversight greatly skews the available data in favor of a conclusion that furthers the views seen to be right by the liberal Westernized mindset. The continued success of the arranged marriage in native communities in terms of lasting marriages, happy families, and general mental well-being suggests that the arrangement itself is not the problem. Rather, a systemic problem exists in the way the Western world perceives and practices marriage. Even among partners who chose each other, divorce rates are extremely high, and single-parent homes are on the rise. In such a world, the arranged marriage will be unfairly targeted as a cause when the details are indicative of a much larger problem, one that cannot be solved by simple regulation but one that requires a shift in the paradigm regarding family and marriage as cornerstones of society.

Works Cited

Durvasula, Ramani Suryakantham, and Gaithri A. Mylvaganam. “Mental health of Asian Indians: Relevant issues and community implications.” Journal of Community Psychology 22.2 (1994): 97-108.

Kim, Hyoun K., and Patrick C. McKenry. “Social networks and support: a comparison of African Americans, Asian Americans, Caucasians, and Hispanics.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 29.2 (1998): 313-334.

Madathil, Jayamala, and James M. Benshoff. “Importance of marital characteristics and marital satisfaction: A comparison of Asian Indians in arranged marriages and Americans in marriages of choice.” The Family Journal 16.3 (2008): 222-230.

Prabhu, Sudhir, and Delma D’Cunha. “A study on social factors and the magnitude of mental health problems among women with marital disharmony.” Int J Community Med Public Health 3 (2016): 1298-1302.

Rathor, Snigdha Ramesh. Importance of marriage for Asian Indian women in the US: an exploratory study. Diss. Rutgers University-Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, 2011.

Segrin, Chris, and Robin L. Nabi. “Does television viewing cultivate unrealistic expectations about marriage?.” Journal of Communication 52.2 (2002): 247-263.

Sharma, Indira, et al. “Hinduism, marriage and mental illness.” Indian journal of psychiatry 55.Suppl 2 (2013): S243.

Srivastava, Ashish. “Marriage as a perceived panacea to mental illness in India: a Reality check.” Indian journal of psychiatry 55.Suppl 2 (2013): S239.

Thoits, Peggy A. “Mechanisms linking social ties and support to physical and mental health.” Journal of health and social behavior 52.2 (2011): 145-161.