Arranged Marriage 1

Original Essay

Marriage is commonly defined as the relationship between two people of opposite sex known as husband and wife, and it is a key to bring them happiness. Therefore, choosing a husband and wife is one of the most important decisions for everyone’s life because a marriage can bring either a happy life or an unhappy life. In many countries in the world, and especially in the western countries, a man or woman can choose their own partner. In contrast, in some countries like Cambodia, parents arrange their children’s marriage. However, if we take a closer look at arranged marriages, there are some contrasting ideas about them in our society. We can easily acknowledge that parents have more life experience, but this does not necessarily assure that they will always choose the right spouse for their child. In fact, arranged marriage generally has both advantages and disadvantages. One of the most important advantages to arranged marriage is having a good financial security and living condition. Of course, Money doesn’t automatically bring a good happiness, but the lack of money can cause lots of troubles in the family and stresses in any relationship. In Cambodian tradition, parents often involve transfers of property to their marrying children, and hopefully they wish to bring their children with a very good financial and living condition. For example, some Cambodian parents give property such as house, land, money and jewelry to the new couple after getting married, and they have an important role in solving any problems happening to their married children. In addition, parents have greater life experiences than their children; therefore, they can usually make a better decision or judgment. For instance, In Cambodian culture, many parents always think carefully about whom their children should marry, and most of their thoughts focus on financial situation, family status and individual behavior because they strongly believe that if their children get married to a husband or wife who has these things, problem will not happen.
The second advantage of the arranged marriage is that children can bring gratefulness and honor to their family. Cambodian people believe in Buddhism. In Buddhism, People believe in returning gratitude to their parents, and children have an obligation to maintain their family’s honor. Marrying into a good family is considered to be a way of returning gratitude to parents, especially for a young girl. Moreover, getting married to someone that is arranged by parents is recognized that children obey Khmer traditional culture and respect their parents gratefully. For example, when a daughter get married to man that is selected by her parents, she will be considered a grateful daughter because everything she behaves doesn’t go against Khmer tradition. The third advantage is that parents can end a very big and important duty in their life. Traditionally, it is an obligation for Cambodian parents to choose and arrange marriage for their children so that their family’s reputation and honor can be retained. Generally, Cambodian children live with their parents until they get married, and parents have a lot of responsibilities for their children. Choosing marriage partner for their children is one of the most important responsibilities during their life. For instance, from the time their children were born until the time they get married parents have to do a lot of duties such as taking care of their children’s health, earning money to support the basic needs and education for their children and looking for children’s marriage partner either. After getting married, children have their own responsibility and they have to follow the ways their parents behave toward them. Therefore, parents do not need to responsible for such heavy burdens anymore.