Same in India also. Arranged marriage doesn't mean forced marriage. It's unfortunate people have this perception. Even in arranged marriage, men and women agree for marriage only if they are ok.
Same in India also. Arranged marriage doesn't mean forced marriage. It's unfortunate people have this perception. Even in arranged marriage, men and women agree for marriage only if they are ok.
I don't understand this indignation followed by a generalization. For the record, I'm Indian and have lived for decades here. What you say may probably be true in urban India, depending on the family, education levels of the woman and the parents, economic class, religion, caste and several other factors. But even in urban India, adult women don't have much say in refusing to marry a man whom their parents have decided is the best match. If you look at rural India, it's likely a lot worse.
A woman agreeing to marry a man doesn't mean that she's voluntarily choosing to do so after doing her own "due diligence" and checking if this match would support the kind of life she desires or dreams to lead.
Most of the time, the man and woman get to talk to each other for a very short while, almost like a job interview, after which they're expected to decide on the "yes" or "no", if such a choice is even available. The fact that divorce is looked at as a disgusting matter combined with this decision making process is a big bummer. But I will give credit to the social support structure to keeping things running (though sometimes to the detriment of individuals).
The same matter is a lot different for the men involved. As with many other instances and places around the world, the men do have more freedom and choice.
P.S.: For a funny take on marriages in India, watch this movie from 1998 called "Hyderabad Blues". [1] Most of it still holds true now.
Of course India is a big country with a lot of people. Their culture is not completely shared. To state anything in absolute terms is probably wrong.
For the record, i can safely say that arranged marriages without the couple even meeting were common in my parents generation upto the 60s, became unusual in my generation (I don't know of any case in my family) around the 80s/90s and now would be unimaginable in my children's generation. This is a mostly (but not completely) urban middle class experience, spanning a very large family in north and west of India.
Things are different in the North vs the South, rural vs urban, poor and rich, different religions probably and so on. We are probably the most heterogenous society on earth, so this is not surprising.