Arranged vs. Love marriage?

This article from CSM has forced me to blog about marriage again.

Whisper the words "arranged marriage," and images of women signed over as chattel are likely to rise in the minds of many Westerners. But, say culture watchers and sociologists, there's a rising interest in this age-old practice in the West, as shown by at least two books and three upcoming television series on the topic – as well as a growing number of matchmaking sites devoted solely to arranging unions.

I think it comes down to balance. In the west, people are counting on too much love before marriage, where as, in the ( traditional) east people are counting on too much love after marriage. there is a line somewhere in between.

You cant find everything you want in that one single person before marriage. The consumer society we live in makes us think that there is a person ( product?) out there who meets all our criterion. The problem with trying to fit someone within your great expectations is many-fold. One, is that this may be self delusional. The person who may seem perfect today may only do so because your search for idealism has given you temporary sun glasses from which you like to see someone. However when those sun glasses disappear and reality sets in, things may appear different then they were. Unfortunately, this product ( person?) cant be returned to customer service to get a new and approved product. there are many emotional strings once your in a emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual and cultural relationship with a person. Whats more, if you leave this person today, whats the guarantee that you will find someone better? Customer Service does not have perfect products. Also, this "apparently perfect" person will react and change under different circumstances and scenarios. You cant test all of these before marriage. i.e. at some point the person will fail your ideal standards, what will you do then? You are looking for "this" and "that". Okay! But are you perfect yourself? The love in a love marriage should also include how much love one is likely to have for the spouse's family after marriage. No matter what, one has to deal with spouse's family. You cant expect your spouse to be ignoring his/her family.

On the other hand you have the arranged marriage (for this post, lets assume it was arranged through family). You may not even see the person before you get married. Even if you see the person you may only literally see the person (i.e. you may not talk). the problem with that in the urban environments of today is that it may be too risky. Gone are the days when you could judge a person by how their family was. TV, internet and other societal factors have numbed the influence of a family in raising their child up. A good family could have a child who is bad and vice versa. Another issue is that today's popular culture encourages one to think in black and white terms i.e. either a person is perfect or he/she is evil. So a person could go into a arranged marriage with an ideal picture of what the spouse should be, only to be extremely disappointed later on when he/she realizes that the person cannot meet the "Standard"( this point has parallels with love marriage..). Also there is a difference between getting someone's input and/or letting them decide (probably) the most important step of your life. One needs to have a say in one's own marriage!

So I guess that leaves us searching for a line somewhere in the middle where you don't know everything about a person yet you should know what matters to you--and one should know there is no "perfect ladoo man or ladoo woman" out there. You will have to adjust yourself and so will they--but you just want to find out the best you can about them in the minimum amount of time before marriage and reasonably predict what compromises you may have to be ready for..We of course want do it in a halal way as well and also minimize emotional connections. Also, one should make sure that the families are somewhat comfortable with another ( or maybe you need to push them to get comfortable?) You cant specify the number of meetings you need with the individual and the family. It really depends on how fast everyone can get comfortable with the idea. It may also depend on how fast the person can learn how to make rotee..! Allah hu alam...