Arranged Marriage vs. Free Choice: the Wrong Statistic

In an short piece entitle “Pitfalls of Passion” in the August 29 issue of “Sunday Life”, Bella Ellwood-Clayton writes that “[t]he type of love Westerners chase doesn’t, by and large, last. Arranged marriages, on the other hand, have a global divorce rate of about four per cent compared to Australian, American and Canadian figures, which place us at about the 40% figure. So what do do countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India – where most marriages are arranged – know that we don’t?”

This statistic is not only rubbish, it is insults (through ignorance) the plight of those women who are forced into arranged marriages. The major reason arranged marriages last is that unhappy partners – invariably the women – are not allowed to divorce, or face incredibly high barriers (physical punishment, social stigmatism, ostracisation) to do so. Comparing the statistics from the two regions assumes they are both indicators of how happy/successful a marriage is, when this is patently not the case. Is Ms. Ellwood-Clayton really touting a culture in which loveless, one-sided marriages are accepted over one in which partners are free to amicably separate and seek new relationships over different periods in their lives?

While I hardly expect a detailed discussion of the topic in an article that is scarcely longer than this letter, and broadly agree with the ideas otherwise raised in it (including possible benefits of arranged marriages), I do expect an absence of crap; and that use of statistics was crap.