Arranged Marriage: Bible's Perspective, Part 5

For part 4 in the series, please click, Arranged Marriage, Part 4

The process: Selection phase

Let’s look at the selection process. When your family gets into the selection mode, the selection is made on many factors which include social and financial/economic status, educational qualifications, caste, language spoken, regional, skin complexion, artistic talents and any other objective or visible traits/qualities. Bible calls it the lust of eyes and pride of life. The subjective traits, like habits, views on things and issues, and thought process of a person, are only visible or made known when you know and have interacted with the person.

Tell me, my dear, where is God in all of these? Does God looks at outward appearance or the heart, the inward being? Does God make any difference between a Jew and a Greek? Did we not all receive the same Spirit and partake in the same heavenly blessings? Are we not all called by one and baptized in one name?

And then, you have the audacity to claim that you have prayed about the proposal, or that you are praying about it, that you are seeking God’s will, and that you are waiting on the Lord.

Are you so ignorant that you do not know that when the start is illegal, the next process is illegal and void ab-initio. If an act is illegal and void in the first place, then, the whole process is termed illegal and deemed void.

The process: Final decision

Then you visit the girl’s family to make a final decision. When you parade your daughter in front of a boy’s family, you are signifying that your daughter is just a commodity who is in the marriage market to be sold out to the best and suitable buyer. By parading her, you also make a statement to the fact that your daughter is less in value than the boy, which is absolutely ridiculous and contrary to the Bible. Bible considers both man and woman equal in marriage.

God created man and woman in His own image. Thus, they are both equal before God. God commands woman to be silent in the church and do not have the authority to teach and preach to men I Cor 14:34-38, I Tim 2:9-15. I Pet 3:7b referring to husband and wife, says, ‘as being heirs together of the grace of life.’ Thus, they are co-heirs. Paul in Eph 5:22-33, commands husbands to love their wives and the wives to submit and respect their husbands. Submit not as a servant but as a helper and a partner. Authority of a husband is not like the authority of a schoolmaster but to lead and guide with love.

For part 6 in this series, please click,  Arranged Marriage, Part 6

Arranged Marriage: Bible's Perspective, Part 4

For part 3 in the series, please click,  Arranged Marriage, Part 3

Just answer me these questions, how is it possible that you scraped through your college life, church life, social life, and professional life and you could not find a person whom you love and adore, after your own heart? Do you mean to say that God did not create a person and brought him/her in front of you during all these years since your adolescence and adulthood? Are you saying that my God is unconcerned about you? That He has no plan for them whom He chose before the foundation of the world? You then believe in a cruel God, but not the God of the Bible.

My God has, in different times, and in different similitude, revealed his deep concern for us, His chosen and saved ones. In Matt 10:30, Jesus said, ‘But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.’ In Zech 2:8, it is written, ‘He who touches you touches the apple of His eye.’ Is 49:16, ‘See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.’ Just a few out of many exhortations recorded in the Bible.

For part 5 in the series, please click, Arranged Marriage, Part 5