Arranged Marriages: Did our ancestors get something right?

Before you bring out Cain to flog me, just read first.

This thought came to me while I was watching an episode of Game Of Thrones where Little Finger was telling Sansa how she had to marry into the family currently controlling the North. (Before this because a Game of Thrones talk, let me move on...). She revolted and he gave her valid reasons why she needed to marry.

Watching Game of Thrones, you will see how marriages where based on analyses and logic...people were made to marry in order to strengthen family ties, form alliances...marriages were a political tool and for that reason (plus the wide acceptance of infidelity and sexual perversion), marriages really were 'till death do them part' (regardless of if this death was brought on by the spouse).

Now, let us come closer to home.

If you are in your twenties to early forties, chances are that your grand parents' marriages were arranged or were a family alliance or your grand mother was given to your grandfather as collateral for a loan that just never got repaid. Regardless of the case, the constant thing is that your (our) grand parents did not 'fall in-love' and then get married. They found themselves tossed together by different circumstances of life and accepted that the only choice they had was to stay in the marriage, be committed to it and make it work.

Of course in almost a century, the tenets of commitment and values have changed but have the tenants of marriage? 

There is a growing number of failed marriages every year, all around the world...people are now entering marriages with the mindset of not having to stay if it doesn't work. The tolerance level for a significant other's excesses seems to be reducing exponentially and more and more people are feeling rather cool to be single parents.

Don't get me wrong. There are some stories I hear and I honestly wonder how the people were even able to be married for more than a month...and then there are those I hear and I just honestly feel that someone over reacted. Before you ask, no, I do not support arranged marriages. I think that marriage is something you enter into with a person who's excesses you are ready to live with for the rest of your life, knowing fully well hat they will live with yours. You can only marry a person you know well enough to see the good in them despite their excess. So no, I do not support arranged marriages.

But do I support entering into a marriage without thinking about how you have the option to leave? Yes I do. And I think that is something our ancestors got right.

Perhaps if more and more people stop planning the exit from the start of the marriage...perhaps if tolerance levels were not ridiculously low...perhaps if less people who are not part of a marriage, give their unsolicited advice and opinion on people's marital issues, there would be less failed marriages.