Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Today's soundtrack: Jefferson Airplane "Somebody to Love" ::
So there's this guy I know from work who just got married. He's from India and a Hindu and everything and his marriage was arranged for him by his parents and the parents of the bride. That's "arranged" as in, he never met his bride-to-be before and won't until the actual ceremony. Now, I watch foreign films, read books, and such all the time so something like this wasn't all that surprising to me. I mean, I knew there were still parts of the world today that do arranged marriages, like say, India and Japan, for example. Everyone else at the "office", however just couldn't seem to wrap their brain around such a concept.
He explained as he was finished university, had a steady job, he's in his late twenties, and nearly all of his friends are married or going to be soon, so he figured it was time. He telephoned his mother overseas in India and told her he would like to get married and to find him a bride. He requested a female roughly his own age who had an education and either in a professional career or on her way to one, like and engineer or doctor, and maybe something decent as far as looks goes would be nice. Many e-mails, five hour long international phone calls and six months later, his mother had found her. A friend of a family friend had an eligible daughter in her late twenties who was finishing pharmacy school and they sent over a photo. This was the one.
This all made sense to me, but our coworkers couldn't get past the fact that he wouldn't actually meet her face to face until the ceremony. "You're going to marry someone you never even met?" This question was asked by everyone at least twice. They couldn't understand that where he was from, this went on all the time. "What about love? A marriage can't work unless it's for love!" They make it work.
You know, I don't see a problem with it. Yeah, I'm a romantic at heart and my insides go as squooshy very easily, but part of me can't help but see the convenience. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to ring your mother and say "Mum, I want to get married. Take care of it, will you?" Just skip over all the unpleasantness, embarrassment, and tomfoolery of the whole dating scene. I mean, how often do you hear someone whine about not finding "the right person" or being such and such an age and not yet married or about winding up alone? Do people really find their one true loves in night clubs and smokey bars? Most people never find true love to begin with.
Never mind the wonderful bypass of all those sticky break-ups. How often have we found ourselves getting our heart trod on or having to console a close friend over an ex?
What about the divorce rate anyway? We don't seem to be doing so well picking our own mates to begin with, so why not let someone else have a go at it? People get drunk and married in Las Vegas every day only to sober up and get them annulled the next morning. Arranged marriages are dealt with far more seriously. They follow more onto the "when you get married, you get married for life" stance than your average every day American who has no problem with getting all gooey romantic one day and marrying someone only to get divorced six months later.
So, good for him, I say. And to all of you nay-sayers...
what's your problem?
William (match maker)
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