The Sadness in Some Arranged Marriages

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Two generations ago, in my family, it was rather normal for a young woman's marriage to be arranged, particularly if she were twelve years of age and if he were around twenty years older than she. And one generation ago, it was perfectly normal for first cousins to marry - that my parents are indeed first cousins is entirely beside the point, though.

Two years ago this month, my sister was piecing together the requirements of her Media assessment task. She was to create a piece of film depicting the theme 'life and death'. She decided firstly to ask the sweetest couple in our neighbourhood who are around eighty years of age and hold hands wherever they work to partake in this project, and they agreed so long as we provided fruitcake and tea. That was easily arranged, they came to our house and shared their story with us, he, being a German boy, who asked she, being a Polish girl, to the dance, and they were inseparable since. After briefly digesting the preserved cherries and other fruits found in the cake, they were off to be filmed holding one another and puckering their lips and pressing them to one another's.

And that part of my sister's little film was sensational. Despite the awkward kissing scenes and the fact that once you watch it, you realise my sister stood there like a creep recording old people sharing saliva, it was a beautiful sight. In contrast to the sight of the other footage, that is, which contains my grandma Loris. Her husband, deceased for almost thirty years, is remembered by one of our families in one photograph, a singular black-and-white portrait of him sitting alone, smiling. My sister made her way to that family's home to film some footage of it and Loris. "Act sad," my sister directed. "Act sad. Look like you're crying. Stroke the photo. Look sad." Crying from laughter, more like. The footage my sister ended up with was a happy Loris dancing and slapping a photograph of a man no longer here, of a man that she put through emotional turmoil when he was in our midst. 

And it had me thinking - arranged marriages as such are utterly sorrowful. Just as sorrowful as the marriage of my second grandmother, Samia and her husband George. George is over twenty years her senior, and there is not one moment I can recall where they have gotten along with one another. In the photograph below sits their original love for one another, which is rather minimal, and in the photograph below it sits a photograph which shows the reactions they gave to my aunty asking them to pose in a loving embrace. 

In the situation of Loris, though, one would think that despite being forced together, having shared a bed would have made them compassionate to one another on a human basis. I am not sure how her husband was. I never had the opportunity to meet him, however I know of him, and I know that he was a lovely man. And it saddens me, the fate of people in arranged marriages. It is almost dehumanising to partner one with an older spouse.