1) It would definitely be risky to choose a marriage partner based on romantic love if you are in a situation where you are going to have to rely mainly on that other person/union to survive. Love marriages come about with choice, but in order to have choice or freedom, one’s basic needs need to be met first. Example, people living in Africa dying from starvation are too busy with trying to get their basic needs met, food, shelter etc, that they don’t suffering from all the “illnesses” that Americans do: insomnia, depression, anorexia. Anorexia is a choice (technically it’s a disease, but for arguments sake). One needs to have food in order to turn it down. If food isn’t available then one cannot be anorexic because one does not have the choice of whether to eat the food or not. It is only when resources are available and basic needs are met that freedom of choice becomes an option. Same thing with marriage. If the basic needs of survival have to be met through marriage, then marriage is used to survive. If resource such as food and shelter can be provided or met outside of marriage, then the option of a “love” marriage is now available. In traditional communities, women have to rely on men to support them. It doesn’t matter if they love someone else if that man cannot support them. They will marry someone that can help them survive. In India, parents use arranged marriages to ensure the survival of their daughter by marrying her to whichever man can best support her. In China, the elderly are dependent on their daughter-in-laws to care for them when they get old. Therefore, they are very concerned and involved when their son is picking a bride because she will affect their lives too.
2) Back in the day (America), marriage used to function as a system of survival. A woman needed a man to provide for her. Now a day, a woman can have a career and provide for herself; she can be independent from a man. This is one of the reasons marriages are so easily terminated in America. People can survive without getting or staying married. I think it’s true that there is relationship between the type of society and the traditions of marriage. A woman in an American society is more free to remain unmarried, since she can support herself, than an Indian woman in India where it is less culturally accepted because of career issues and cultural norms.
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i was scanning the comments and i saw your "for arguments sake" point of view on anorexia, insomnia...(i'm adding restless leg syndrome and ADD to that list). i think about that all the time, and i completely agree with you. to me, anorexia is the consequence of the unconfident for obsessising over(or being told to obsess over and complying with...)fashion magazines and E! News. Their minds have been completely poisoned by the unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of women. yet, who is really to blame? the fashion world? economics? the consumers? well, no matter, there will always be a choice (i.e. choose NOT to buy the magazines. choose to turn of the television). Those with eating disorders have become so focused on what they're "supposed to be" that they've turned their backs on what they have. here in america, we have almost all the food on the entire planet at our fingertips. eating disorders seem like a lovely euphemism for: ungrateful. the cure? visit Africa.
futhermore, i must discuss the ludacris "restless leg syndrome." Do you know what one of the side-effects is for the medicine you MUST TAKE in order to cure this oh-so-life threatening disorder? an increased urge to gamble. since when is mindless greed a side-effect for anything other than thoughtful greed? ADD/ADHD is also ridiculous. suddenly, in the past six or seven years, theres been a boom in this "disorder." i was diagnosed with ADHD in highschool. my grades werent good enough, so there must have been something wrong with my brain. the reality is: i don't like school. i don't like homework. i think theres more to learn in the world than dates and perspectives(usually from the view of rich, white men). that's all it was. apparently, that wasnt "right." so they gave me medicine to make me think in the way that we, americans, are expected to think. i stopped poppin the pills.
anywho, i really wanted to let you know how refreshing it is to find someone who's pulled the wool from over their eyes. word.
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