Arranged Marriage Comparison the Giver

Research Paper

The Importance of Choice and Love in Marriage

A marriage between a man and a woman has been part of human history since the beginning of time. This social union between the couple creates kinship and creates a bond that usually lasts until death. Throughout history marriage has been the defining aspect of love between a man and woman brought together through matrimony. In the majority of societies a man or woman meets one another, courts them and as they get to know one another creating a connection, decide to be married and bonded together. In some other societies there is a completely different system of marriage. It is called an arranged marriage. This is where the parents of a groom and bride choose the spouse for their child and most of the time they don’t meet their partner until their wedding day. There are many distinct differences between both types of marriage, causing both of them to have different effects on the marriage and family. In Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver the society has a very similar structure to this arranged marriage system where men and women are matched based off of compatibility and brought together into a family. One can see tremendous differences between the families in this society compared to ones whom have found a marriage out of love. The use of aspects of arranged marriage in modern day society and the systems of arrangement in the society in Lois Lowry’s The Giver will be used to prove that a couple who has undergone an arranged marriage’s relationship will lack the love and freedom of choice that a traditional union of marriage has.

Marriage is by far the chief concern of all human life. “When we reflect that from it arises the nearest and most endearing relationships which go to form the comfort and happiness of the existence of the world