No Stupid Questions

It's probably worth mentioning that an "arranged marriage" can mean anything from when two families agree to marry off their children without their children's consent, to when families play match-maker and set their children up on dates but their children get the final say.

In India, for example, you get both, with the former being more common in conservative, rural areas and the latter more common in urban and middle-class areas. So it's not a one-size-fits-all situation.

As to why it persists? Practicality, I suppose. If you want to get married, it helps if you filter out all the people who aren't serious about settling down. Plus it's not like love marriages have a superb success rate, given how common divorce is nowadays.

in many cultures it's tradition like India, while in others it's a nessicity because it's illegal to look at, befriend or chat with any female

Being real, it depends on what people think marriage is.

There's multiple concepts out there, which may or may not conflict with each other.

What really matters is the people involved agreeing on which concepts they will be engaging in. That's the truth no matter if it's arranged or not.

Now, when arranged = forced, that's some fucked up shit. But the two aren't inherently the same thing.

When it comes right down to it, "marriage" is just a word for a formalized union between people that is recognized by the community/state. How the people involved get there is kinda meaningless. A carefully arranged marriage in a culture where marriage is done for practical reasons is no worse of a concept than two random drunks in vegas getting hitched just because. It's not even a worse concept than two people that love each other choosing to formalize their bond (and it doesn't even have to be romantic love, good friends can sometimes a marriage make).

I'm not saying the culture in Afghanistan is good or bad. I do have my doubts that the marriages arranged are done so in a healthy and equitable manner, but that's a separate issue from assuming that arranged marriages are somehow a relic of the past and that it should die out. They still exist because people want them to.

Others have already talked about the potential benefits of matchmaking, but not a lot of people have talked about marriage as a joining of families. There are lots of cultures where it's normative to live together with parents and grandparents (which if you think about it also means aunts and uncles, cousins, etc.). There are lots of benefits to people who live this way - greater financial stability, access to childcare, healthcare, increased lifespan, lower depression - and so it makes sense. If you are bringing someone new into the household, it may be important for the heads of the household to weigh on or even choose the person or the family.

I know a young man who headed back to India for an arranged marriage. I expressed my extreme surprise that he would agree to marry someone he'd never met, and he said he trusted his parents to choose someone compatible. "After all, they know me better than anyone else." I remain baffled, honestly. He seems an otherwise savvy, modern person. But there you go, happy to commit to a stranger.

I dread to think what kind of bloke my parents would have picked for me...

I have friends who are Afghan who have had arranged marriages

So what have they said to your question?

I can think of a lot of reasons. In a rural area, finding a suitable partner is tough. Why not let a web of adults help out.

For some of my friends in the US, finding a nice person to date is difficult. An arranged marriage means 1.) they are recommended to a suitor and more likely to be taken seriously, 2) the suitor is recommended to them, so they are less likely to be a waste of time, and 3) someone else is also at least a little invested in the relationship. Given the above, and that the actual people involved still have to consent for the relationship to progress, an arranged marriage actually makes a lot of sense.

It's kind of like a dating app (which also recommends a match), but if the algorithm was human and actually worked to your benefit instead of to make money.

Sheesh. There's a lot of weird ideas in this thread.

I made a lot of mistakes in my teens and 20s, including but not limited to my poor choices in romantic partners.

If it was culturally appropriate, it would've been great to have some help.

Matchmaker, matchmaker, find me a match. One of my kids told me she did wish I could just match her with someone compatible because she thought I'd do a better job on her behalf than she would.

That's the bottom line, right? Now in our situation, I just told her no. Because I think she is wrong. But if all of culture was tilted towards this, if it was a common practice here, then sure I would probably have thought she was right and asked around.

I do agree with the answer upstream about combining families, getting a good network of extended family is a powerful resource. Not one I'd personally trade my kids to get, but again if it was the more common practice, would I question it? Probably not.