Why all marriages are actually arranged marriages

Can it be that marriage also came from the rich, like morals, literature and college reunions?

- MANU JOSEPH

Materialists, a delightful film, especially for people who are not wounded, wants to say that beautiful women want to marry wealthy and tall men, and wealthy men want to marry beautiful young women. And people who are not so sought-after choose others like them. Thus the marriage of the under-desired, too, is of two equals, of their two equal handicaps.

"Marriage is a business deal, and it always has been, since the very first time two people did it," says Lucy, the protagonist who rates herself as too good for most men but not worthy of a multi-millionaire who is in good shape and six feet tall.

Can people who don't have a business make a business deal? Can it be that marriage, too, came from the rich, like morals, beliefs, literature and college reunions? And others imitated it in a senseless way, as usual not knowing the origins of what they are aping.

Marriage as a business deal is at the heart of world history. Indian emperors married more than once as a way to form alliances. If at all they married for love, it was because they could marry for business too. The marriage of Marie Antoinette to the French dauphin Louis was arranged to solidify an alliance between Austria and France against Prussia and Britain. Catherine was married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, to unite England and Spain. Even today, the wealthy tend to marry the wealthy. The idea that marriage unites two social equals to make them more formidable loses meaning the moment it percolates down the classes. For, is it worth the torture of a loveless marriage that results when a mechanic marries a nurse just because there is some vague commonality between their families?