As Tom Holland put it in Dominion:
“Here was a development pregnant with implications for the future. Opening up before the Christian people was the path to a radical new conception of marriage: one founded on mutual attraction, on love. Inexorably, the rights of the individual were coming to trump those of family. God’s authority was being identified, not with the venerable authority of a father to impose his will on his children, but with an altogether more subversive principle: freedom of choice.”
Western Europeans came to see marriage not just as a business deal between two clans, but a bond between individuals; increasingly, stories about romantic love saw it as likely to lead to not to disaster, but to “happy ever after”.
Along with rules about consent and age, the Church also became increasingly strict about the marrying of relatives, which had a profound effect on wider society. Once people were forced to marry out, their loyalty to their family declined in relation to wider society and this fostered more radical ideas. Maybe Romeo wasn’t just a member of the Montague clan but an individual with his own desires? Maybe his individual happiness was more important than the extended family’s status? The effects have been long lasting, with various studies showing a link between the Catholic Church’s ban on cousin marriage with corruption and democracy.
Yet across the world, and among Asian diasporas, arranged marriage remains the norm, while marriages rates in the west have plummeted since the 1970s. Maybe western ideas of love aren’t the only way forward.
Poor St Valentine was unlucky enough to live under a rare leader who discouraged marriage, since throughout history most social pressure has been exerted the other way. In medieval England, in Great Dunmow in Essex, a side of bacon was given each July to a couple who had been married for “a year and a day” and could honestly say they had not regretted it. Most societies wanted marriage because they wanted children (the word “proletarian” stems from “offspring”, denoting the social class who had no property but served Rome by having children). But most societies also recognised that people had to be nudged into making the plunge.
Since the final phrase in this great love revolution in the late 20th century, when social pressure to marry early was relaxed, and with it the Church’s long-held prohibition against divorce, marriage rates have fallen dramatically.
There are now around a quarter of a million marriages a year in Britain, just over half the rate in 1969 when the Divorce Reform Act was passed. Marriage has also become a luxury good, with the gap between professional and working classes rising just this century from 22% to almost 50%. The results are huge numbers living alone, a figure that will surpass 10 million by 2040.
Many are happily single, but many others just don’t find the right person through a modern market that is far from efficient.
Maybe arranged marriage makes more sense. When westerners think of the practice they tend to think of forced marriages, and the horrific tradition of honour killings that often result, but arranged and forced marriages are not the same thing.
In many traditional societies, arranged marriage takes the form of sons and daughters being given a short list of potential suitors from which they can choose (assuming the other person picks them, of course). Speed dating originated among Jewish communities in New York for this exact purpose, and mimics traditional practices in certain ways.
And arranged marriages do have better outcomes, on a purely measurable level.
Harvard’s Dr Robert Epstein analysed the phenomenon among south Asians and Orthodox Jews and, with an admittedly small sample, concluded that they were more successful than the secular western route.
There is certainly the argument — and the one made by matriarchs and patriarchs down the ages — that western romantics mix up love with lust, which is a reasonable criticism. There is probably something in the ancient Greek idea that being in love is a form of temporary insanity, and in no other area of life would we consider making a huge life choice during a period of temporary insanity a good idea. There is also the argument that even intelligent people make bad romantic decisions, taking a crazy salad with their meat, as that old romantic failure Yeats observed (bitterly).
Yet marriage survival rates do not necessarily reflect happiness levels, and even self-reported statements about happiness might just reflect rationalisation. Higher suicide rates among Asian women — as opposed to lower ones among older Asian men — suggest that strong families have their downsides, although suicide among western women has not declined since divorce was liberalised, while female happiness has overall declined.
And while marriage rates in the West continue to fall, especially in the US, young people in India are not spurning arranged marriages as that country gets richer. Likewise, in China and across the East “love” continues to play a far less important role in marriage than in Europe.
Western romantics might see that as cold or cynical, but then, perhaps our attitude is rather naïve and even silly. Love wins — but then sometimes it doesn’t.
Anyway, have a happy Valentine’s Day everyone; don’t forget to pick up some flowers at the petrol station.
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