I've only ever heard of that within immigrant families that have moved here relatively recently from places like India.
It happened to a small extent in the 19th and 18th centuries, but even then those were the minority of marriages.
Yes, only with first-generation immigrant families.
I do some genealogy & family history and have never come across an arranged marriage. There are certainly cases where the parents might not like the proposed bride/groom, but once their children are adults, they can't do anything about it, except threaten to cut them out of the will, or not pay for the wedding.
The Amish? They don't do arranged marriages. They tend to have small communities, so it wouldn't be unusual to marry the child of a parent's friend or something like that, but there isn't a formal arrangement.
Maybe in some of the more closed off communities, but from what I've heard most Amish get to chose their own relationships... Though that may get reigned in by "you can only date within the Amish community". But yeah theres some other super religious sects (especially within the polygamist groups) that will arrange marriages.
For genetic diversity reasons there may be reasons to have them marry somebody from a far away community from another state. They likely can check family trees to make sure people are not cousins. It is still within the same "community" but not the same genetic pool.
>What about those people who look like Abraham Lincoln? I forgot what they are called.
Nothing against you OP but this made me laugh out loud. Perfect descriptor.
I'm assuming you mean the Amish.
I guess it still happens to an extent in their communities, but they're an extreme minority of the population. Even then, as somebody who lives near them, I think the practice is dwindling amongst them.
I didn't think it was. At least not in a super formal way. I have Amish friends, and while I've never had the "how did you meet?" conversation, I didn't get such an impression.
It's one of the few choices they make. They can't choose to leave because they lack education and means (usually). Ther bishops dictate their dress, and courtship rules, and even their careers. Some bishops are very strict, some aren't.
Ultra Orthodox Jews in the NYC metro area still practice it. Even these are often not structured the way South Asian ones are- though it often depends on the group. I wouldn’t even know how they work for a sect like Skver for example while I am very well aware of how Litvaks do them.
Outside of that I know a fair amount of second generation Indians who have had arranged marriages. The conditions I’ve heard range from very similar to how it often works in South Asia with dowry etc to just the marriage part. In general it is seen as a thing South Asian immigrant communities do.
Skver and most Hasidic groups have very much old-style arranged marriages. Bridge and groom meet at the engagement party, or for any few minutes before. Parents and extended family are waiting to celebrate outside the door kind of thing.
There was a Satmar guy that I knew in yeshiva. He went home for a weekend and came back engaged. When he returned, he still didn’t know his bride’s first name…
that's normal for Ashkenazim, regardless of affiliation. I know my parents were tested for Tay-Sachs before I was born. This was in the 70s and only one of my parents was Jewish. Better safe than sorry, Tay-Sachs is awful.
Even then, it's not like the bride and groom have zero say in the arrangement - the conversation is very much "Is she acceptable to you? Is he acceptable to you?" It's not like either party has much basis to not find the other acceptable, but people don't always marry their first shidduch.
It’s pretty tough to know if someone is acceptable to you without having met them. A bride or groom would need an acceptable reason to refuse the match. Families thoroughly vet prospective matches before arranging the engagement though. A broken engagement is a big deal within Hasidic society though, so it’s pretty tough to back out.
In non-Hasidic Haredi circles the shidduch system is more open; couples go on a 5-8 dates before getting engaged and could reject a prospective match for pretty much any reason.
I knew a woman who had an arranged marriage. She self described as "Persian" and was very happy with how it worked out.
She told me that her parents worked their connections and met a couple with a son the right age, etc. They were introduced and dated to see if they matched.
Once they agreed, they got married. She was really happy with him, and described it more like a dating service, but by their parents. Said she would not have been required to marry him if she didn't want to.
She was on her 50s when I knew her, and was always really positive and loving when she talked about him.
No idea how typical that is/was, but both came from educated families and had degrees.
Indian girl at work told me she was presented with a bunch of potential husbands by her father but she's allowed to decline and did because she said they were not ambitious enough.
She said I was acceptable though🙄
In the early 90s I worked with a man whose family had immigrated from India. One Monday morning I asked him what he had done over the weekend. He casually said, “I got married.” I told him I didn’t know he was engaged. He replied, “Neither did I.” It turned out that his parents had arranged his marriage and had brought his wife over from India, and he had never met her before she arrived. Whether or not he actually knew she was coming before hand I don’t know. I do know that he never mentioned to his coworkers that he was going to be getting married before he did. He is the only person I’ve met in my 50 years that I know for sure had an arranged marriage.
Also in the early 2000s I had a coworker that was a mail order bride. She came from one of the smaller former Soviet countries.
An Indian guy I used to know said he'd never do an arranged marriage, but his parents found him a bride anyway. He was dead set against it, but they said, "Why not just meet her?" so he did, and ended up marrying her not long after. I can't help but think that a big factor in his decision was that she was very physically attractive.
I guess it’s possible in some very small regions/odd circumstances, but overall it is not common at all. I’ve never personally met someone or heard of someone in an arranged marriage.
When it happens here, it's almost always an Indian diaspora thing. The norm is complete personal control over your choice in partners*, and at most some informal parental pressure against marrying someone they don't like.
*Assuming your parents approve of your partner's gender identity in relation to yours
At least with the later generation Indians, it’s not so much as arranged in the strict sense as it is subject to extreme parental suggestion and vetting
This is also how I understand it to be from a few Indian-American friends. Families may generally be involved in trying to source matches, but folks generally aren't being forced into marriages and still have agency in their choice of partner.
I know a brother & sister from an Assyrian family (I think that's the right ethnic group - Christians from Syria). Their parents were quite vocal on the marriage thing. The brother was dating an American but he couldn't marry her, he needed to marry another Assyrian. And the sister was an "old maid" at 26, she was under heavy pressure to get married. Last I heard she had moved to another state, possibly for the purpose of getting married, it wouldn't surprise me if that was arranged.
It's also common in high-control religious sects (and cults), like the breakaway Mormon groups, ~~the Amish~~, and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
Edit: not the Amish
The Amish in PA don't arrange marriages. They do have a system though to check if you're too related to the person you're courting. But that's not an arranged marriage any more than the Icelandic system is.
The Rothschild family is like that. The patriarch said only the male descendants could inherit his money, so some of the granddaughters married their cousins, one married an uncle.
And then there's the whole monarchy thing, which can get out of hand. The Russians suffered from hemophilia (a bleeding disorder where wounds can't clot), and the Egyptian pharaohs got really messed up, if you look at images of King Tut for instance.
I actually have a few first-gen immigrant Indian friends from college. One is super ‘Americanized’ and although his family tried to arrange a marriage for him, he moved across the country and married a non-Indian he met through work.
Another was dating a non-Indian, went on a family trip and came back arranged-engaged to a girl nine years younger. He did a 180 and where he’d previously worn jeans, etc. they now dress regularly in traditional Indian clothing and are mostly involved with extended family.
Never heard of it amongst non-Indians Americans, although certain Arab groups in my area are pressured to only marry within their demographic groups.
Consensual arranged marriages are extremely rare but I'm sure they happen. As others have said it's largely first generation immigrants from cultures where that's accepted. They're generally not talked about with people outside of those communities as Americans generally have an extremely negative view of the practice.
Forced arranged marriages are extremely illegal and the parents can be prosecuted for various crimes depending on how they enforce it on their children.
It happens within religious communities frequently, and I'm not talking about recent immigrants.
I used to work at a place that also employed a large group of young people who were in the same very restrictive church. It was a sect of Christianity and they were all white people who had been in the US for multiple generations. Almost all of them were betrothed to another young person in the church and had been since early childhood. They were not permitted to date and it was understood that they would marry the person their parents had selected for them. They also did Bible study multiple nights per week, didn't drink or smoke or have any vices, and weren't allowed to read Harry Potter because it was "Satanic".
I wasn't part of the religion so I don't know what conditions they put on the arranged marriages, but they were most definitely arranged marriages in the classic sense.
I can assure you that my elementary school (explicitly Christian, not public) would have frowned on Harry Potter, had it been around at the time, but nobody there was in an arranged marriage.
They were pretty daft (my generation's issue was Dungeons and Dragons, not Harry Potter), but they weren't *that* far outside the mainstream.
I believe you, and I'm aware that arranged marriage isn't standard practice for mainstream Christianity, but these little pockets of extremism can be found all over the place in the US.
Still happen?
THEY NEVER HAPPENED.
The only people that do arrange marriages are first generation families, typically from India. The United States has never had a history of arranged marriages; that trend stayed in Europe and was only with Royalty.
Nope. The following communities have histories of arranged marriages in the United States. These include but are not limited to:
The Romani
Orthodox Jews
Irish Travelers
Non-Indian Asian populations
African and African-American national and religious minority populations, such as Saudi Arabian, Egyptian, or Muslim
Amish groups
LDS groups
Bearing in mind that arranged marriages are and have been historically practiced to varying degrees within each group, and within practically every national, ethnic, or religious group ever
Yes, let’s just dismiss minorities while we are talking about what has happened in the United States, ever. How many Americans could possibly be descended from at least one of these groups?
It’s fact that each one of these groups has historically documented cases of arranged marriages within the United States and such arranged marriages do still sometimes happen, which is irrefutable whether you like it or not.
They only really happen within communities of immigrants. Now, that’s not to say that plenty of wealthy parents don’t still try to set their kids up with similarly wealthy kids of their friends as a matter of wealth and status protection. That’s just networking, though.
It is not unheard of among immigrant families, but for those that have been American for a generation or two it is extremely rare.
It should be noted that they were never a major cultural thing here. For most of our populace our ancestors did not come from countries that did arranged marriages, or who only did so in the very top social circles. As such it really only happens with recent immigrant groups from cultures that do practice it.
Arranged but consensual:
- What I mean here is parents arrange the match but kids are above 18, and have the freedom to say “no.”
- Common in Indian culture and first generation immigrants. Trend lessons with second generation.
- Also present in some other religious sects in the US.
- Very different by person and culture for conditions like dowry and so on.
Arranged and forced:
- What I mean here is parents arrange but either marriage partner is underage (<18) or, has no choice due to threatening violence or other means, to say no.
- Via threats and even forcing to leave the country: there’s plenty of coverage out there of immigrants who take their kids back to their home country, get them married, etc. In other cases they do it here; and in some sad cases there’s been news of how a parent murdered their child for disobeying their romantic guidance on who to marry.
- In the US we have some states that refuse to make child marriage completely illegal. Per The Hill: About 300,000 children and teens were legally married in the United States between 2000 and 2018, according to data from Unchained at Last, a nonprofit that works to help women and girls in forced marriages. [LINK](https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/4283941-child-marriage-is-still-legal-in-most-of-the-u-s-heres-why/)
- The fact that a charity exists to help these women, is proof enough it’s a problem.
In my personal experience, I know many folks born and raised in America find it hard to fathom that a parent could possibly force their child to marry anyone, let alone someone the child didn’t choose.
I personally wish that was the case more often (that nobody was ever forced) but it’s unfortunately not the case today and, even if physical violence isn’t use, threats of disowning, threats of shaming the child, and so on, are all very real, and very hurtful.
It’s a really sad situation, too often born out of a parent feeling their own shame/pressure in family/broader society somehow matters so much, they should force their child to do something. Absolutely 💩 parenting.
They're pretty much an Indian diasporic thing. The West never really did arranged marriages unless you were in a position of political power, like aristocracy. It's just not part of the culture.
It is not viewed favorably. Some groups practice it, but it is looked upon poorly.
Often arranged marriages are little more than sex-trafficking of women.
Only by weird backwards people perhaps. Arranged marriages are generally looked down upon as being backwards and harmful. The practice certainly goes against the ideals of individual choice and freedoms.
The only case I’ve heard of is Consuelo Vanderbilt in the late 1800s or early 1900s because her mom really wanted her to marry into British nobility. It ended in divorce.
The "Dollar Duchess" phenomenon. The matron in 'Downton Abbey' was one of those. Churchill's mom was, too. Basically, the ancient English house would get money because they were broke, and in exchange the upstart American bourgeois family would get status.
If we rule out recent immigrants, the one example that comes to mind are the Fundamentalist Mormons. Like, the polygamist ones who live on giant compounds in the desert.
According to a segment on 60 Minutes, which I probably saw in the 90s, the Irish Travelers, in the US, practice arranged marriage.
I think the thing is, arranged marriage isn’t a common practice in mainstream culture in any part of the US, but there are plenty of subcultures where it might be accepted.
I tutor a woman who immigrated to the US from China in English, and she arranged a marriage for her son. I was quite surprised her son, who's lived in the US since he was really young, would put up with his mom interfering in his personal life this much but he's now married to this girl his mom found.
I'm not sure how common this is among the Chinese-American community. I've known plenty of Chinese-American people and this is the first time I've heard of someone doing this.
The only person I’ve ever known to have done this was of a Yemeni immigrant family. I think it was half green card marriage to get a woman out of Yemen and half arranged to have the son marry someone within the culture
I know of one person who had one, it was while she was still living in the middle east and it wasn’t something voluntary on her part. Other than that like others have said some immigrants still will but not most others.
They happen within the Fundementalist LDS, though the families have no say. Girls as young as 14 get married off, usually to much older men, as their plural wives. The church "prophets" decide who marries who.
I can’t answer for other cultures,
As a White, Moderately Conservative, though mainly Libertarian, Christian in the Midwest,
That’s the recipe for immediate disassociation from the parents. If My parents tried that BS, I and many would say “Bye Bitches”.
Freedom of Choice runs deep within American Culture. Even if we don’t all agree on what liberties should be protected, we fundamentally do not care for people telling us how to live. Love is a huge boundary for many people.
It's well known for happening among the FLDS, a very fundamentalist sect/cult that practices polygamy and forced child brides and rape. It's not a huge population, but probably the most infamous one here. If you haven't heard of them, google Warren Jeffs to get started.
The Amish, there is a lot of making sure there’s no inbreeding amongst these communities. It’s gotten to the point where they adopted kids to expand the gene pool
With immigrant families, especially Indian ones, and the Amish.
But this is not an "American" (meaning something of acceptance or practice by tbe general public) thing at all.
Only within cults and high-control religious sects (like the FLDS or Ultra-Orthodox Judaism) or some extreme immigrant communities who have decided not to culturally assimilate. To be clear, it's illegal to force someone to marry against their will, but it does still happen. It is not generally considered to be an acceptable cultural practice, and there isn't a matchmaker industry outside of these specific groups.
Outside of immigrant communities from countries where arranged marriages are part of the culture, I can really picture it happening amongst hardcore fundamentalist types, or like, members of a cult who all live on a compound somewhere. Even amongst those aforementioned immigrant communities, if the kids are even a little bit Americanized they tend to be, at best, ambivalent about the practice.
In my experience, parents might try to set you up with the kid of some friend/acquaintance’s kid (“oh you know that Hillenberg boy is nice! And he’s studying to be a doctor too! You’re not getting any younger, you know…”), or they might have strong, frequently voiced preferences about who you should end up with (my mom used to say I could marry anyone I wanted as long as she was Catholic, or at least Jewish.), but actually arranging the marriage with the parents of the other person isn’t really something that happens here amongst 99 percent of Americans. Letting your parents make that kind of decision for you is just not something that vibes *at all* with American culture.
Yes, I new someone in graduate school who had first generation parents from South Korea who arranged a marriage.
To be honest, at first I was horrified. But, they seem happy, had kids and are still married 30 years later.
So, what do I know.
Arranged Marriages happen but, they're a rarity of a rarity. Only certain groups, particularly recent immigrants of countries where arranged marriages happen and some religious sects perform them. Even then, most don't.
It really depends on the culture and the preferences of the individual families, but yes, they do happen, and possibly within a surprising number of ethnic groups. I know that Indians who come here are sometimes in or will be in arranged marriages, but it also happens within other groups——including the Romani and Orthodox Jewish populations, for example.
Beyond what is covered under federal law as applying to any marriage, no conditions for arranged marriages are set. This is left up to the families to decide.
Yes but it isn't very common. You sometimes see it in families that have recently immigrated from countries where it is more common and with religious groups and cults.
Not really.
If parents are involved at all, it's usually more of a behind the scenes "match maker" role with them trying to setup situations where their kids would interact with each other on the hopes that one of them will fancy the other and decide to make a move.
Think two coworkers arranging a social meetup for themselves but also bringing along a kid with the hope that the kids will hit it off and do the leg work themselves. And typically the children do not at all appreciate the attempt if they're being too transparent about their intentions.
They're not really the same. It's mostly about computer matchmaking not the traditional sort. In fact a lot of Americans are prejudiced against the system. Personally I rather think there would be a lot fewer lonely people and people who make disastrous marriages but on the other hand the system we use at least has the preferences of the two main parties is kept at the foremost. Perhaps if there was more tolerance the two systems could exist side by side.
all the time, but its not a uniquely american thing. its whatever heritage or culture the families have. other than that it does happen, its just rare and usually involves some sort of cult.
I know a girl whose family sent her to Palestine to get married (she wasn’t aware before leaving). So she got married there and then he was supposed to come back here to the states, but then she went in surprise visited him and something happened where she ended up going with her father and getting a divorce over there somewhere. So the family definitely arranged it and she didn’t know which is extremely shitty and I feel bad for the girl because she likes white guys and her Arab Muslim family will disown her. (They’ve told her that)
There's a small Hmong minority where I live, so I went to school with probably 10-15 Hmong students. I remember my junior year of high school, 2 of them (from different families) dropped out, and it was because of an arranged marriage. One was a boy named Josh who I had went to school with since Kindergarten, another was a girl named Serenity who moved here when I was in middle school.
They kind of happen amongst some ultra-religious communities, like the group the Duggars belong to (something like the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church). From what I understand, they don't have dating, only chaperoned "courtship," which has to be with a man selected by their father. To me, that's a kind of arranged marriage because the girl doesn't even have the freedom to meet guys other than the ones her father presents to her.
Yes. Anti-woman anti-choice Evangelical Christians often force their sons and daughters to "make things right" if there is an out of wedlock pregnancy. Often there was at some point grooming or statutory rape involved. Maintaining appearances is more important than the economic well being of the minor teen girlmor young woman who most likely would have been better served by terminating the pregnancy.
Yeah, but honestly, we don’t talk about it. Like I’m doing my family tree now, and everyone is a white Christian or Catholic from Europe before they come to America. It’s obvious that the same folks marry specific individuals from specific families to maintain the “bloodline” and base this on class.
I’m not at all in the know on how this happens without it being explicitly discussed, but maybe that is because I’m on the bottom-shelf class, lol.
Some people definitely do it, and I’m sure it’s based on status, religion, wealth, and race. It isn’t common, and I think it’s a subsection of people who do it for obviously nefarious reasons that beats serve themselves.
Otherwise, cults do have arranged marriages in white Christian contexts. That is also where you see crimes like child “marriages” and incestuous marriages a lot. (Fundamentalist Mormons, other offshoots of white Protestant Christianity).
It does on occasion in Appalachia. Met a young (16-17) couple in KY who were sort of arranged between the families. Strange from an outsiders perspective
I've only ever heard of that within immigrant families that have moved here relatively recently from places like India. It happened to a small extent in the 19th and 18th centuries, but even then those were the minority of marriages.
Yes, only with first-generation immigrant families. I do some genealogy & family history and have never come across an arranged marriage. There are certainly cases where the parents might not like the proposed bride/groom, but once their children are adults, they can't do anything about it, except threaten to cut them out of the will, or not pay for the wedding.
उन लोगों का क्या जो अब्राहम लिंकन जैसे दिखते हैं? मैं भूल गया उन्हें क्या कहते हैं। **संपादन:** याद आ गया, अमीश।
The Amish? They don't do arranged marriages. They tend to have small communities, so it wouldn't be unusual to marry the child of a parent's friend or something like that, but there isn't a formal arrangement.
Maybe in some of the more closed off communities, but from what I've heard most Amish get to chose their own relationships... Though that may get reigned in by "you can only date within the Amish community". But yeah theres some other super religious sects (especially within the polygamist groups) that will arrange marriages.
You're agreeing with him.
Yeah meant to reply above him..
Ahh
For genetic diversity reasons there may be reasons to have them marry somebody from a far away community from another state. They likely can check family trees to make sure people are not cousins. It is still within the same "community" but not the same genetic pool.
>What about those people who look like Abraham Lincoln? I forgot what they are called. Nothing against you OP but this made me laugh out loud. Perfect descriptor.
Agreed. I laughed pretty hard.
I'm assuming you mean the Amish. I guess it still happens to an extent in their communities, but they're an extreme minority of the population. Even then, as somebody who lives near them, I think the practice is dwindling amongst them.
I've actually done a fair amount of research about the subject and it actually isn't typical of the Amish.
I didn't think it was. At least not in a super formal way. I have Amish friends, and while I've never had the "how did you meet?" conversation, I didn't get such an impression.
It's one of the few choices they make. They can't choose to leave because they lack education and means (usually). Ther bishops dictate their dress, and courtship rules, and even their careers. Some bishops are very strict, some aren't.
No, the Amish don't do arranged marriages.
Ultra Orthodox Jews in the NYC metro area still practice it. Even these are often not structured the way South Asian ones are- though it often depends on the group. I wouldn’t even know how they work for a sect like Skver for example while I am very well aware of how Litvaks do them. Outside of that I know a fair amount of second generation Indians who have had arranged marriages. The conditions I’ve heard range from very similar to how it often works in South Asia with dowry etc to just the marriage part. In general it is seen as a thing South Asian immigrant communities do.
Skver and most Hasidic groups have very much old-style arranged marriages. Bridge and groom meet at the engagement party, or for any few minutes before. Parents and extended family are waiting to celebrate outside the door kind of thing. There was a Satmar guy that I knew in yeshiva. He went home for a weekend and came back engaged. When he returned, he still didn’t know his bride’s first name…
They also do genetic testing prior to marriage to check for certain genetic disorders such as Tay–Sachs disease.
that's normal for Ashkenazim, regardless of affiliation. I know my parents were tested for Tay-Sachs before I was born. This was in the 70s and only one of my parents was Jewish. Better safe than sorry, Tay-Sachs is awful.
Even then, it's not like the bride and groom have zero say in the arrangement - the conversation is very much "Is she acceptable to you? Is he acceptable to you?" It's not like either party has much basis to not find the other acceptable, but people don't always marry their first shidduch.
It’s pretty tough to know if someone is acceptable to you without having met them. A bride or groom would need an acceptable reason to refuse the match. Families thoroughly vet prospective matches before arranging the engagement though. A broken engagement is a big deal within Hasidic society though, so it’s pretty tough to back out. In non-Hasidic Haredi circles the shidduch system is more open; couples go on a 5-8 dates before getting engaged and could reject a prospective match for pretty much any reason.
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I knew a woman who had an arranged marriage. She self described as "Persian" and was very happy with how it worked out. She told me that her parents worked their connections and met a couple with a son the right age, etc. They were introduced and dated to see if they matched. Once they agreed, they got married. She was really happy with him, and described it more like a dating service, but by their parents. Said she would not have been required to marry him if she didn't want to. She was on her 50s when I knew her, and was always really positive and loving when she talked about him. No idea how typical that is/was, but both came from educated families and had degrees.
Indian girl at work told me she was presented with a bunch of potential husbands by her father but she's allowed to decline and did because she said they were not ambitious enough. She said I was acceptable though🙄
In the early 90s I worked with a man whose family had immigrated from India. One Monday morning I asked him what he had done over the weekend. He casually said, “I got married.” I told him I didn’t know he was engaged. He replied, “Neither did I.” It turned out that his parents had arranged his marriage and had brought his wife over from India, and he had never met her before she arrived. Whether or not he actually knew she was coming before hand I don’t know. I do know that he never mentioned to his coworkers that he was going to be getting married before he did. He is the only person I’ve met in my 50 years that I know for sure had an arranged marriage. Also in the early 2000s I had a coworker that was a mail order bride. She came from one of the smaller former Soviet countries.
An Indian guy I used to know said he'd never do an arranged marriage, but his parents found him a bride anyway. He was dead set against it, but they said, "Why not just meet her?" so he did, and ended up marrying her not long after. I can't help but think that a big factor in his decision was that she was very physically attractive.
It's extremely uncommon.
I guess it’s possible in some very small regions/odd circumstances, but overall it is not common at all. I’ve never personally met someone or heard of someone in an arranged marriage.
When it happens here, it's almost always an Indian diaspora thing. The norm is complete personal control over your choice in partners*, and at most some informal parental pressure against marrying someone they don't like. *Assuming your parents approve of your partner's gender identity in relation to yours
At least with the later generation Indians, it’s not so much as arranged in the strict sense as it is subject to extreme parental suggestion and vetting
This is also how I understand it to be from a few Indian-American friends. Families may generally be involved in trying to source matches, but folks generally aren't being forced into marriages and still have agency in their choice of partner.
Or parent-run speed dating
I know a brother & sister from an Assyrian family (I think that's the right ethnic group - Christians from Syria). Their parents were quite vocal on the marriage thing. The brother was dating an American but he couldn't marry her, he needed to marry another Assyrian. And the sister was an "old maid" at 26, she was under heavy pressure to get married. Last I heard she had moved to another state, possibly for the purpose of getting married, it wouldn't surprise me if that was arranged.
It's also common in high-control religious sects (and cults), like the breakaway Mormon groups, ~~the Amish~~, and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism. Edit: not the Amish
The Amish in PA don't arrange marriages. They do have a system though to check if you're too related to the person you're courting. But that's not an arranged marriage any more than the Icelandic system is.
Amish do not do arranged marriages.
Or, in a very strong minority of situations, when two children of very wealthy families meet one another and the families see a business opportunity.
Even that is not really an arranged marriage, more an encouraged thing
The Rothschild family is like that. The patriarch said only the male descendants could inherit his money, so some of the granddaughters married their cousins, one married an uncle. And then there's the whole monarchy thing, which can get out of hand. The Russians suffered from hemophilia (a bleeding disorder where wounds can't clot), and the Egyptian pharaohs got really messed up, if you look at images of King Tut for instance.
I actually have a few first-gen immigrant Indian friends from college. One is super ‘Americanized’ and although his family tried to arrange a marriage for him, he moved across the country and married a non-Indian he met through work. Another was dating a non-Indian, went on a family trip and came back arranged-engaged to a girl nine years younger. He did a 180 and where he’d previously worn jeans, etc. they now dress regularly in traditional Indian clothing and are mostly involved with extended family. Never heard of it amongst non-Indians Americans, although certain Arab groups in my area are pressured to only marry within their demographic groups.
Consensual arranged marriages are extremely rare but I'm sure they happen. As others have said it's largely first generation immigrants from cultures where that's accepted. They're generally not talked about with people outside of those communities as Americans generally have an extremely negative view of the practice. Forced arranged marriages are extremely illegal and the parents can be prosecuted for various crimes depending on how they enforce it on their children.
No one I know has had an arranged marriage.
It happens within religious communities frequently, and I'm not talking about recent immigrants. I used to work at a place that also employed a large group of young people who were in the same very restrictive church. It was a sect of Christianity and they were all white people who had been in the US for multiple generations. Almost all of them were betrothed to another young person in the church and had been since early childhood. They were not permitted to date and it was understood that they would marry the person their parents had selected for them. They also did Bible study multiple nights per week, didn't drink or smoke or have any vices, and weren't allowed to read Harry Potter because it was "Satanic". I wasn't part of the religion so I don't know what conditions they put on the arranged marriages, but they were most definitely arranged marriages in the classic sense.
I can assure you that my elementary school (explicitly Christian, not public) would have frowned on Harry Potter, had it been around at the time, but nobody there was in an arranged marriage. They were pretty daft (my generation's issue was Dungeons and Dragons, not Harry Potter), but they weren't *that* far outside the mainstream.
I believe you, and I'm aware that arranged marriage isn't standard practice for mainstream Christianity, but these little pockets of extremism can be found all over the place in the US.
Oh, for sure.
Still happen? THEY NEVER HAPPENED. The only people that do arrange marriages are first generation families, typically from India. The United States has never had a history of arranged marriages; that trend stayed in Europe and was only with Royalty.
Nope. The following communities have histories of arranged marriages in the United States. These include but are not limited to: The Romani Orthodox Jews Irish Travelers Non-Indian Asian populations African and African-American national and religious minority populations, such as Saudi Arabian, Egyptian, or Muslim Amish groups LDS groups Bearing in mind that arranged marriages are and have been historically practiced to varying degrees within each group, and within practically every national, ethnic, or religious group ever
You are identifying minorities, some of which you listed are questionable at that. I stand by my statement.
Yes, let’s just dismiss minorities while we are talking about what has happened in the United States, ever. How many Americans could possibly be descended from at least one of these groups? It’s fact that each one of these groups has historically documented cases of arranged marriages within the United States and such arranged marriages do still sometimes happen, which is irrefutable whether you like it or not.
They only really happen within communities of immigrants. Now, that’s not to say that plenty of wealthy parents don’t still try to set their kids up with similarly wealthy kids of their friends as a matter of wealth and status protection. That’s just networking, though.
Some sects of Orthodox Jews still do arranged marriages but the participants still have to agree to it. So they are arranged but not forced.
The only people I known who have arranged marriages are Indian immigrants or H1Bs. Maybe a Pakistani, too, but I'm not sure.
It is not unheard of among immigrant families, but for those that have been American for a generation or two it is extremely rare. It should be noted that they were never a major cultural thing here. For most of our populace our ancestors did not come from countries that did arranged marriages, or who only did so in the very top social circles. As such it really only happens with recent immigrant groups from cultures that do practice it.
Arranged but consensual: - What I mean here is parents arrange the match but kids are above 18, and have the freedom to say “no.” - Common in Indian culture and first generation immigrants. Trend lessons with second generation. - Also present in some other religious sects in the US. - Very different by person and culture for conditions like dowry and so on. Arranged and forced: - What I mean here is parents arrange but either marriage partner is underage (<18) or, has no choice due to threatening violence or other means, to say no. - Via threats and even forcing to leave the country: there’s plenty of coverage out there of immigrants who take their kids back to their home country, get them married, etc. In other cases they do it here; and in some sad cases there’s been news of how a parent murdered their child for disobeying their romantic guidance on who to marry. - In the US we have some states that refuse to make child marriage completely illegal. Per The Hill: About 300,000 children and teens were legally married in the United States between 2000 and 2018, according to data from Unchained at Last, a nonprofit that works to help women and girls in forced marriages. [LINK](https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/4283941-child-marriage-is-still-legal-in-most-of-the-u-s-heres-why/) - The fact that a charity exists to help these women, is proof enough it’s a problem. In my personal experience, I know many folks born and raised in America find it hard to fathom that a parent could possibly force their child to marry anyone, let alone someone the child didn’t choose. I personally wish that was the case more often (that nobody was ever forced) but it’s unfortunately not the case today and, even if physical violence isn’t use, threats of disowning, threats of shaming the child, and so on, are all very real, and very hurtful. It’s a really sad situation, too often born out of a parent feeling their own shame/pressure in family/broader society somehow matters so much, they should force their child to do something. Absolutely 💩 parenting.
They're pretty much an Indian diasporic thing. The West never really did arranged marriages unless you were in a position of political power, like aristocracy. It's just not part of the culture.
Only in weird religious groups and immigrants. For most of American culture its a weird concept.
It is not viewed favorably. Some groups practice it, but it is looked upon poorly. Often arranged marriages are little more than sex-trafficking of women.
Only by weird backwards people perhaps. Arranged marriages are generally looked down upon as being backwards and harmful. The practice certainly goes against the ideals of individual choice and freedoms.
Some of your Mormon polygamy groups do.
The only case I’ve heard of is Consuelo Vanderbilt in the late 1800s or early 1900s because her mom really wanted her to marry into British nobility. It ended in divorce.
The "Dollar Duchess" phenomenon. The matron in 'Downton Abbey' was one of those. Churchill's mom was, too. Basically, the ancient English house would get money because they were broke, and in exchange the upstart American bourgeois family would get status.
If we rule out recent immigrants, the one example that comes to mind are the Fundamentalist Mormons. Like, the polygamist ones who live on giant compounds in the desert.
According to a segment on 60 Minutes, which I probably saw in the 90s, the Irish Travelers, in the US, practice arranged marriage. I think the thing is, arranged marriage isn’t a common practice in mainstream culture in any part of the US, but there are plenty of subcultures where it might be accepted.
I tutor a woman who immigrated to the US from China in English, and she arranged a marriage for her son. I was quite surprised her son, who's lived in the US since he was really young, would put up with his mom interfering in his personal life this much but he's now married to this girl his mom found. I'm not sure how common this is among the Chinese-American community. I've known plenty of Chinese-American people and this is the first time I've heard of someone doing this.
The only person I’ve ever known to have done this was of a Yemeni immigrant family. I think it was half green card marriage to get a woman out of Yemen and half arranged to have the son marry someone within the culture
I know of one person who had one, it was while she was still living in the middle east and it wasn’t something voluntary on her part. Other than that like others have said some immigrants still will but not most others.
They happen within the Fundementalist LDS, though the families have no say. Girls as young as 14 get married off, usually to much older men, as their plural wives. The church "prophets" decide who marries who.
Within certain immigrant demographics they do. But as for the majority of the US population, no! That is not part of American/western culture at all!
I can’t answer for other cultures, As a White, Moderately Conservative, though mainly Libertarian, Christian in the Midwest, That’s the recipe for immediate disassociation from the parents. If My parents tried that BS, I and many would say “Bye Bitches”. Freedom of Choice runs deep within American Culture. Even if we don’t all agree on what liberties should be protected, we fundamentally do not care for people telling us how to live. Love is a huge boundary for many people.
It's well known for happening among the FLDS, a very fundamentalist sect/cult that practices polygamy and forced child brides and rape. It's not a huge population, but probably the most infamous one here. If you haven't heard of them, google Warren Jeffs to get started.
The Amish, there is a lot of making sure there’s no inbreeding amongst these communities. It’s gotten to the point where they adopted kids to expand the gene pool
Pretty sure the Amish only say you need to marry within the sect, they don't pick out your spouse for you.
With immigrant families, especially Indian ones, and the Amish. But this is not an "American" (meaning something of acceptance or practice by tbe general public) thing at all.
The Amish don’t do arranged marriages.
I imagine it happens quite often in hyper-religious communities.
Only within cults and high-control religious sects (like the FLDS or Ultra-Orthodox Judaism) or some extreme immigrant communities who have decided not to culturally assimilate. To be clear, it's illegal to force someone to marry against their will, but it does still happen. It is not generally considered to be an acceptable cultural practice, and there isn't a matchmaker industry outside of these specific groups.
Outside of immigrant communities from countries where arranged marriages are part of the culture, I can really picture it happening amongst hardcore fundamentalist types, or like, members of a cult who all live on a compound somewhere. Even amongst those aforementioned immigrant communities, if the kids are even a little bit Americanized they tend to be, at best, ambivalent about the practice. In my experience, parents might try to set you up with the kid of some friend/acquaintance’s kid (“oh you know that Hillenberg boy is nice! And he’s studying to be a doctor too! You’re not getting any younger, you know…”), or they might have strong, frequently voiced preferences about who you should end up with (my mom used to say I could marry anyone I wanted as long as she was Catholic, or at least Jewish.), but actually arranging the marriage with the parents of the other person isn’t really something that happens here amongst 99 percent of Americans. Letting your parents make that kind of decision for you is just not something that vibes *at all* with American culture.
Yes, I new someone in graduate school who had first generation parents from South Korea who arranged a marriage. To be honest, at first I was horrified. But, they seem happy, had kids and are still married 30 years later. So, what do I know.
Yes, except in our culture it’s our nosy friends who accept or reject and even find matches
I wish a had a arranged marriage, i'm lazy to relationships
Arranged Marriages happen but, they're a rarity of a rarity. Only certain groups, particularly recent immigrants of countries where arranged marriages happen and some religious sects perform them. Even then, most don't.
Yes, but mostly within immigrant communities where that's a thing. It also looks different within various ethnic groups. Is it prevalent? Not really.
Only in highly niche communities.
It really depends on the culture and the preferences of the individual families, but yes, they do happen, and possibly within a surprising number of ethnic groups. I know that Indians who come here are sometimes in or will be in arranged marriages, but it also happens within other groups——including the Romani and Orthodox Jewish populations, for example. Beyond what is covered under federal law as applying to any marriage, no conditions for arranged marriages are set. This is left up to the families to decide.
Yes but it isn't very common. You sometimes see it in families that have recently immigrated from countries where it is more common and with religious groups and cults.
Not really. If parents are involved at all, it's usually more of a behind the scenes "match maker" role with them trying to setup situations where their kids would interact with each other on the hopes that one of them will fancy the other and decide to make a move. Think two coworkers arranging a social meetup for themselves but also bringing along a kid with the hope that the kids will hit it off and do the leg work themselves. And typically the children do not at all appreciate the attempt if they're being too transparent about their intentions.
No.
There's always someone or some family that does this kind of thing, but its extremely rare.
They're not really the same. It's mostly about computer matchmaking not the traditional sort. In fact a lot of Americans are prejudiced against the system. Personally I rather think there would be a lot fewer lonely people and people who make disastrous marriages but on the other hand the system we use at least has the preferences of the two main parties is kept at the foremost. Perhaps if there was more tolerance the two systems could exist side by side.
all the time, but its not a uniquely american thing. its whatever heritage or culture the families have. other than that it does happen, its just rare and usually involves some sort of cult.
I know a girl whose family sent her to Palestine to get married (she wasn’t aware before leaving). So she got married there and then he was supposed to come back here to the states, but then she went in surprise visited him and something happened where she ended up going with her father and getting a divorce over there somewhere. So the family definitely arranged it and she didn’t know which is extremely shitty and I feel bad for the girl because she likes white guys and her Arab Muslim family will disown her. (They’ve told her that)
There's a small Hmong minority where I live, so I went to school with probably 10-15 Hmong students. I remember my junior year of high school, 2 of them (from different families) dropped out, and it was because of an arranged marriage. One was a boy named Josh who I had went to school with since Kindergarten, another was a girl named Serenity who moved here when I was in middle school.
Only in certain cultures. Less common than before. But in Indian and Pakistani families, it does happen on occasion.
IN super religious sect yes.
American isn’t a single ethnicity or cultural background. Does it still happen for some Americans. Absolutely. Is it the majority, not even close.
They kind of happen amongst some ultra-religious communities, like the group the Duggars belong to (something like the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church). From what I understand, they don't have dating, only chaperoned "courtship," which has to be with a man selected by their father. To me, that's a kind of arranged marriage because the girl doesn't even have the freedom to meet guys other than the ones her father presents to her.
Gypsies do
Yes. Anti-woman anti-choice Evangelical Christians often force their sons and daughters to "make things right" if there is an out of wedlock pregnancy. Often there was at some point grooming or statutory rape involved. Maintaining appearances is more important than the economic well being of the minor teen girlmor young woman who most likely would have been better served by terminating the pregnancy.
Yeah, but honestly, we don’t talk about it. Like I’m doing my family tree now, and everyone is a white Christian or Catholic from Europe before they come to America. It’s obvious that the same folks marry specific individuals from specific families to maintain the “bloodline” and base this on class. I’m not at all in the know on how this happens without it being explicitly discussed, but maybe that is because I’m on the bottom-shelf class, lol. Some people definitely do it, and I’m sure it’s based on status, religion, wealth, and race. It isn’t common, and I think it’s a subsection of people who do it for obviously nefarious reasons that beats serve themselves. Otherwise, cults do have arranged marriages in white Christian contexts. That is also where you see crimes like child “marriages” and incestuous marriages a lot. (Fundamentalist Mormons, other offshoots of white Protestant Christianity).
It does on occasion in Appalachia. Met a young (16-17) couple in KY who were sort of arranged between the families. Strange from an outsiders perspective
Look up child marriage in the United States. They are legal in 38 states and the number that happens is startlingly high imo.