Arranged Marriage

My good friend MD is the epitome of a modern woman – bold, self-sufficient, and liberal in her beliefs. She was the first girl I knew to have her hair ironed back in the 90s, the first in our journalism class who dared to have her work published, and the first feminist I know to embrace out-of-the-closet lesbian lovers.

MD is perhaps my most forward thinking friend. Who would have thought that, in the end, she would willingly succumb to a most traditional concept – an arranged marriage?

As I witnessed my friend’s legal marriage to a man she barely knew, I wondered – are arranged marriages the next big trend in the city? Has the age of love and courtship become so forward that so much of the future is going back to the past?

About three years ago, MD, after having had several failed relationships, expressed her intention to her spiritual mentors to have her marriage arranged. She was tired of making the wrong choices, of being clouded by the illogical decisions of a person half crazy with love, she said.

Fast forward to the summer of 2008, little did MD know that her solo flight to an international yoga conference in Davao would land her in weddingville. The day before she was supposed to fly back to Cebu, she was told that “her husband was ready.”

So they met for the first time. The man could barely speak English or Cebuano, but they talked. Nineteen hours later, they were blessed in a spiritual ceremony as husband and wife. The legal rites followed 3 months later.

There was no courtship. No rings or red roses. No premarital sex. But apparently there was a meeting of the mind and soul.

“Did he “complete” you?” we asked. MD answered, “No, but 3 years ago I profiled the man I wanted to marry. He completed my checklist.”

Perhaps it’s mad to marry when one is not in love. But then maybe in a world in which the search for "The One" has disappointed so many of us, there is comfort in letting someone else solve the love dilemma. Imagine never having to waste time looking for love. I quote one woman, “We’re on option overload, and we’re maxed out in terms of time, and we’d all love a partner. So it makes sense to enlist those who know us best to forge a proper and satisfying match.”

I still think having an arranged marriage was one of the craziest decisions my friend made in her life. It was also the bravest. To MD, who never backs down from the unusual, best wishes to your new life in Korea!

-- Sunstar Weekend, 9/20/08