Schema Magazine

Looking for love in the right places | First Comes Marriage: Modern Advice from the Wisdom of Arranged Marriages

Are you tired of trawling the bar scene for companionship? Have internet dating sites left you feeling less than hot? Maybe you should try looking to the ones who know you best for potential mates: your loved ones.

According to author Reva Seth in her new book, FIRST COMES MARRIAGE: MODERN ADVICE FROM THE WISDOM OF ARRANGED MARRIAGES your best bet to finding everlasting love is to forget what you learned from TV and movies, and to get traditional. Real traditional.

Seth, who is of South Asian descent, doesn't advocate what's typically thought of as an arranged marriage (although her own parents had one). Instead, she defines an arranged match as one where the couple meets via family or friends. Seth also advises readers to get practical in their quest for love by forgetting about the "puppy dog emotions" and sexual fever most of us are swayed by initially, and to instead evaluate our mates on compability and values. In fact, she says that the seemingly all-important spark doesn't matter at all, but that couples can learn to make sparks "if you know how to unlock your passion".

Seth's advice is backed up by over 300 interviews of women in successful marriages; however all the interviewees were in arranged marriages, begging the question of the unrepresented unhappy women in arranged marriages, or the happy ones in "love matches".

However, this book does have an interesting perspective and sound advice worth thinking about. So, perhaps instead of looking for a mate that loves Gossip Girl, ultimate frisbee, and late-night Taco Time runs as much as you do, you should look for someone who believes in RRSPs, having 2.5 children, and who also believes that yes, people who wear shoes indoors are just unhygenic. *wink*