Third and Final Continent: Arranged Marriages

Unlike the traditional Western “love marriage”, arranged marriages are much more analytical.  Certain important factors are considered such s reputation of the prospective families, wealth, appearance, values, religion and medical history.  Typically, parents choose the future spouses and depending on varying parts of the world, the future newlyweds are given a choice on ho their partners will be.  I a forced marriage however, no choice is given at all.  If they refuse to marry the chosen spouse, it can result in punishment or even death in rare cases. 

The newlywed couple is married, while still being complete strangers with the hope that they will develop a natural, loving relationship with time.  In the Third and Final Continent, the narrator experiences an arranged marriage himself with a woman named Mala.  The male’s family is responsible for seeking the female.  In this case, the narrator’s brother and wife selected Mala.  Once a prospective spouse is selected, families may “receive photographs and detailed reports on a person’s family, education, and finances”.  Just like in the story, the narrator is given Mala’s many talents, her age as well as her family background.   In a way, an arranged marriage, while securing financial stability, can also be a traumatizing event in one’s life.  While reading the story, it seems as if the marriage itself was not a choice made by the narrator.  The narrator felt as if this union was simply something he had to do, he neither refused nor accepted. 

As I put myself in Mala’s shoes, I can definitely understand her disattachment in the beginning of her relationship (marriage).  Mala feels distant towards her new husband and his family, but nonetheless she must cook and clean because those are her new duties to her new family.  At night, the loneliness seems to hit her.  I could not imagine living my entire life with my family and then leaving them to live with complete strangers. These strangers are Mala’s new family.  I could definitely appreciate Mala’s sadness.  A quote that stood out to me in the story was Mala’s letter to her husband that read, “I write in English in preparation for the journey.  Here I am very much lonely.  Is it very cold there.  Is there snow.  Yours, Mala.”  I can’t help but think of property when I read that.  Yours, meaning that she now and always will belong to him.

At first, it is obvious and realistic that there is no love between Mala and the narrator.  There are no feelings of caring for one another, yet there is respect, which is evident in Mala’s letter.   The narrator does not look forward to Mala’s arrival, but know that s is “something inevitable”.  The narrator spots an altercation between and Indian woman and a dog.  Here, for he first time, he becomes aware that as husband, he will have duties when it comes to his wife.  This show that for the first time, the narrator begins to care, even slightly about Mala.  He will have to, “welcome her and protect her”.  He know

s he has to buy her necessities and forewarn her on the precautions of specific streets.  Once at Ms. Croft’s house, the narrator begins to feel sympathy towards his stranger wife.  He is nervous of what Ms. Croft will think of his new wife.  He begins to understand just how much of an outsider Mala must feel.  She left the familiarity of her home in India to live with him and be his wife in this strange and foreign new land.  Ms. Croft brought the two together, and it was because of her that the tension and distance began to fade away.   It is funny how it took someone else (Ms. Croft) to make the narrator see what kind of women (wife) he had standing right before him. 
In arranged marriages, the idea is that love will take time, but the husband and wife will eventually grow to love each other.  This is certainly the case at the end of The Third and Final Continent.  According to research conducted in India, “couples in arranged marriages have more extended periods of being in love that partners who choose their own mates”.  Unbelievably so, statistics also show that, “arranged marriages end in divorce about ten times less often than non arranged marriages”.  Mala and the narrator ended up falling in love after marriage, so much so that there it is crazy to think that there “was ever a time that they were strangers”.