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From: mokhtar@ubc-vision.CDN (Farzin Mokhtarian)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Arranged Marriages Questions
Message-ID: <992@ubc-vision.CDN>
Date: Wed, 3-Jul-85 19:21:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.992
Posted: Wed Jul  3 19:21:57 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jul-85 06:12:58 EDT
Organization: UBC Computational Vision Lab, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 51


>	There are probably more not-for-love marriages in existence
> than the romantic would like to believe.  It seems to depend on your
> expectations about marriage (and partnership). 
   
It also depends on how much you believe in love or how much confidence
you have in love.
  
>						 I have known men of
> Western-cultures who went at marriage as they would a car purchase:
> a checklist of musts and preferences, then the one with the best cost/
> performance gets the nod.  [Some women probably choose husbands the
> same way.]  If the people in the marriage are to be functional partners,
> there is no need for closeness, mutual admiration, or affection-- just
> a kind of tolerance and some agreed-upon guidelines for behavior.

It is not as easy as you try to make it sound. Obviously it is possible to
make such a marriage "functional" but even people who settle for not-for-love
marriages would not say that there is "no need for affection" because 
affection is a basic human need no matter how you reason about it. So if that
affection does not come from their "functional partner", they will have to
either look elsewhere for it or deny it to themselves.
  
>	My mom used to tell me that it's easier to marry someone you
> really like but don't love than to marry someone you love but don't like.
   
Did she tell you that it was also better?                   
   
>      I think her point was that the passion of "love" ebbs and flows,
> whereas a fundamental appreciation of the other person endures and
> sustains.
   
Was she speaking of her "love" or love in general? Obviously love is not
strong enough to last the realities of life, is it? In fact it is very
fragile. Almost as fragile as life is.
    
>           My experience is that you'd better marry someone you really
> admire AND love or you won't have enough resources to make that partnership
> work.  But then, that's because I have high expectations for my marriage.

>					Patricia Collins
  
Nicely said but why do I get the feeling you are preparing yourself mentally 
for something more "functional/enduring/sustaining" than love? 
   
   Farzin Mokhtarian
   ubc-vision!mokhtar

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"Love is out of fashion now, but how come they still need it?"