"The Parent-Child Relationship
During an Arranged Marriage"
February 10, 2000
Source of idea
I have an arranged marriage. This means my parents will choose a family, in which there is girl about my age, and the parents of the girl and my parents will determine if she and I would be a good match. If they decide our futures would correspond well together, they will organize all the marriage details, such as date, place, guests, even the band and the after-party snacks. Still being a teenager when my parents were taking the fist steps of the arrangement, I was threatened by the lack of control I had. As a result, I acted in ways that disturbed my relationship with my parents. I did and said a lot of things that did not make sense to me. For example, I said I felt things that I did not, merely to make my parents worry, and I expressed that I would probably never be happy with the wife they would choose for me, simply because she was to be chosen by them. Eventually, my own attitudes toward life, love, and my parents changed. Once I realized I was depressing myself and everyone I cared about, I stopped my protests and became more open-minded to, and involved in, my arranged marriage. This left me wondering if other people in arranged marriages act the same as I did.
Background information
There are many studies on adult relationships, arranged marriages and non, that have compared how the partners feel now as compared to when they first met. These studies are important because they show what is likely to happen in a marriage. There are some studies — such as that of X. Xiaohe and M. K. Whyte (1990) — that have compared the difference in the quality of the marriages between the couples that had an arranged marriage and the couples that did not. Xiaohe and Whyte looked at the marriage satisfaction level of the two types of couples in China. Overall, they found that the couples with an arranged marriage were consistently less happy than the couples without an arranged marriage (they called these couples "love matches," because they fell in love before they were married; as opposed to the couples with arranged marriages who fell in love after they were married).
There have also been many studies on divorces and general family dysfunctions. One study in particular — that of J. Dunn, K. Deater-Deckard, and K. Pickering (1999) — looked at the effects a divorce (and other problems the parents were having, such as arguments, violent conflicts, and lack of faith in each other) had on children, with emphasis on the resulting relationships between the siblings and, to a lesser degree, the resulting relationships between the parent and the child. It was not a surprise their research showed that when the parents were having problems with their marriage it reflected on both the sibling and the parent-child relationship, especially that of the mother and child. For example, when the parents were having violent conflicts, so were the siblings, and not just at home. In addition, the siblings carried with them a general loss of spirit, a sort of depression, that undermined their relationships with each other and with their parents.
Hypothesis
Since Xiaohe and Whyte's (1990) research showed that couples who had an arranged marriage were less happy than couples who did not have an arranged marriage, and since the research of Dunn et al. (1999) showed that children whose parents were having marital problems were more prone to have problems in their own relationships than children whose parents were not having marital difficulties, I wondered if the two somehow related back to me. I wondered if I had always known that arranged marriages led to a lower happiness — because my parents and all of my married relatives have had arranged marriages and because I have grown up in the United States, which is a love culture where arranged marriages are not the norm — and that this knowledge led me to act in unconventional ways when I was faced with my own arranged marriage — and thus the knowledge that I was likely to be unhappy in my own marriage, like looking a loaded gun down the barrel.
Finally, I came to a hypothesis. The parent-child relationship of a family going through an arranged marriage process is more likely to be disturbed than the parent-child relationship of a family that is not going through an arranged marriage process.
Research method
Any family who is arranging a marriage — this is usually a family from an old-style society, such as the Middle East and certain parts of Asia and Europe, but it can also include a family from such a developed country as the United States, particularly an immigrant family (Holmes-Eber, 1997) — can use the results of this correlational study. Fortunately, knowing a lot of people from my culture, who would be willing to help me because they are my relatives, it would seem that I have a ready pool of participants for my study. However, since they are my relatives, they would not be a good group to study. I do not think they could be honest with me, even if I assured them that everything would be confidential, mainly because they are my relatives and because they would already be somewhat biased to me as I would be to them.
Consequently, I have to study a group that is similar to my culture; but a group that I do not know, and a group that does not know me. Therefore, because of our same religion and marital practices, I will study Iranian Americans. Specifically, I will study three groups of Iranian-Americans from the Chicago area: Iranian-American families who (1) will be having an arranged marriage, (2) will not be having an arranged marriage — these are the couples who are in what Xiaohe and Whyte (1990) call "love matches," couples who meet by themselves, and (3) will going through a process that is somewhere between group 1 and group 2 — these are the couples that will not totally rely on the parents yet are not totally independent either; needless to say, this group will be the most realistic to real-world couples. For ease in the calculations, I will only use 300 families — that is, 100 per group. They will first be contacted and asked to participate by mail. (I will explain what will happen once they agree three paragraphs down.)
Before I continue, I need to develop my hypothesis by way of explaining the variables. My independent variable falls on group one because they are the only group that will be having an arranged marriage. I consider an arranged marriage — my independent variable — a legal wedlock between two people who were introduced by their parents and whose wedding details, such as date, place, and guests, were organized by the parents. But the independent variable also falls on group two; because they are the total opposite of group one, since the members will not be having an arranged marriage. A non-arranged marriage, or a "love match" according to Dunn et al. (1999), is a legal wedlock between two people who met by themselves and married not because they were pressured by their families to marry but because they chose to marry as an expression of their love. (I will in no way undertake the impossible task of defining love; in any case, it should not be a factor for this study!) The people who will be included in group one and group two will be the extremes, for ease in calculating results and for ease in testing my hypothesis. This means group one will be couples whose parents have total control, whereas group two will be couples whose parents have no control. Group two will be kept as a sort of control group and an anchor for reality.
The dependent variable, then, will be the way the parent-child relationship changes. Specifically, it is the parent-child relationship, and I will look for changes — for instance, changes in the communication between the parents and the child or the emergence of uncharacteristic attitudes or behaviors of the child toward his/her parents — in that relationship.
Having declared my variables, I now pick up where I left off three paragraphs ago. Once the people have responded, by mail, that they will be willing to participate, we — by we I mean the researchers — will first survey them and assign the appropriate families into the appropriate groups. Afterwards, we will conduct in-depth studies of each of the family members to understand his/her relationship before s/he participates in the arranged marriage process. Then, we will send them surveys, every month, so they could report and rate any changes they have noticed since the last interview or survey. Such questions would include: a) how many hours per week do you talk to your parents? b) is this more or less than last week? c) is this more or less than last month? and d) if you have felt any change in your communication with your parents, can you guess why? Once a year there will be an interview between a researcher and the family members. This interview/survey process will begin two years before the arranged marriage process begins and end two years after the marriage. However, there will be yearly survey of the married couples for the next five years of marriage.
I do not believe the results will match my hypothesis. But, I do believe the parent-child relationship will be disturbed. First, because marriage is such an important part of maturing, I believe that the children will inevitably alter their relationships with their parents so they could accommodate the new relationships with their spouses. But aside from this natural change, group one and group two will show a more significant change than group three. The relationships of group three, I predict, will grow stronger because the parents will be such a large part of the child's decision making. The relationships of group two, however, will not strengthen. In fact, these relationships should weaken — first, we need to analyze how strong the relationship was in the beginning; because the parents that will not be involved in their child's marriage, would probably not have been very involved in his/her life, and thus the strong relationship would not have been present from the start — because these couples will be in love with each other. They would consider each other more important than their parents; thus the distancing. Similarly, the relationships of group one should also weaken — of course, we need to consider the kind of relationship that was there from the beginning; the authoritarian parents that force their children to marry, most likely did not have a positive relationship to begin with — for a couple of reasons. Firstly, since the child is in no way in control (remember, I'm only studying extremes!) of his/her marriage, s/he would likely feel resentment, anger, and disapproval of the parents; and this would alter the relationship. Secondly, once the marriage is arranged, the child will be more concerned about corresponding with his/her spouse, or soon to be spouse, than s/he would be interested in maintaining the relationship with his/her parents.
I expect to see a high correlation between the child’s ability to choose his/her spouse and the child’s disintegrating relationship with his/her parents. Likewise, I expect to see a high correlation between the child’s inability to choose his/her spouse and the child’s disintegrating relationship with his/her parents. However, this does not necessarily mean that the parent-child relationship of group one will be more likely to be disturbed than the parent-child relationship of group two. In fact, the correlation will most likely be about the same, with a little stronger correlation in group one because of, what is perceived to be as, the hostile-like environment (as opposed to the withdrawal-like environment of group two).
Although these expectations might seem concrete, the study is inescapably limited. First, and most important, because I am considering the extremes, the study might not actually represent real-world situations. For example, there is probably only a very small percentage of families that correspond to group one; it is unreasonable to think that a child would absolutely not be involved in his/her marriage arrangement. Therefore, this makes group one seem unrepresentative of the total population. However, this group could still serve as a warning not to exclude the children, and it could represent the odd horror stories of arranged marriages that Americans often hear. Also, the couples who correspond to group two will probably not be interested in how weak their relationships are with their parents. Nevertheless, I feel this study would be important because it would serve as an example for other arranged marriage studies and that this study, however uninteresting or unrepresentative it might be, is a necessary first step.
A second limit to consider is who would want to participate in such a demanding study. A survey is quite annoying when done sparingly, but imagine how unpleasant it would be if one had to be completed every month for years! Moreover, since the surveys are self-report studies, the participants are more likely to make themselves seem better by lying and by undermining important changes as insignificant. However, this is why I put in the in-depth interviews and made the study cover so long a time. A third problem is getting people for group two. Since this is a "love match," I will have a very difficult time finding people two years before they fall in love. I cannot exactly tell a person to fall in love two years after I have found him/her; and once the couples are married, the spouse might not want to continue the seven years of study after the marriage.
Rational for the correlative study and a further conclusion
Since this is a correlative study, I cannot randomly assign people to groups. In any case, it would be unethical of the study to order people into a certain group. I cannot take away the freedom and free will of anyone who does not want an arranged marriage, and I cannot force anyone to fall in love who would rather make marriage an agreement by way of the parents. Even though I am limited by the ethical issues and my inability to randomly assign subjects, I am not limited from manipulating my independent variable. In fact, I do manipulate it. I have three categories: the independent variable is present (group one), the independent variable is slightly present (group three), and the independent variable is not present (group two). Furthermore, I can control most extraneous variables. Since all participants are Iranian-Americans from Chicago, they all have the same cultural backgrounds and opportunities. Moreover, these are all people of about the same age — namely, young adults and their parents. However, since this study is so specific to a certain group of people, it is not very representative of the total population of the United States. I would have to expand my study to the East and West coast as well as to other countries to make it more representative. And I further wonder about its generalizabilty because of the third-variable problem.
Nevertheless, I feel the in-depth interviews and the length of time will give this study credit, and I hope the study will be seen as a necessary and positive first step to understand arranged marriages and the effects they have on family relationships.
References
Dunn, J., Deater-Deckard, K., & Pickering, K. (1999). Sibling, parents, and partners: Family relationships within a longitudinal community study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 40, 1025-1037.
Holmes-Eber, P. (1997). Migration, urbanization, and women’s kin networks in Tunis. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 28, 54-72.
Xiaohe, X. & Whyte, M. K. (1990). Love matches and arranged marriages: A Chinese replication. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52, 709-722.
