ARRANGED MARRIAGE TELEVISION SHOW SERIES
ARRANGED MARRIAGE TELEVISION SHOW TV

He looks shell-shocked during his pre-engagement ceremony, and while his fiancée Radhika seems more composed, I worried more for her. The seemingly hapless Akshay is bullied into getting married by his overbearing mother, who blames his indecision for her soaring blood pressure and threatens to choose a wife for him if he won’t commit to accepting one of the dozens of women Taparia has found for him. They seem sure that if only they can find the right person, the two of them will slot together like puzzle pieces and their life will feel complete. They sense a void in their life and conclude it can only be filled by a soulmate. They want the convenience of an arranged marriage – the fully vetted partner who “ticks all the right boxes” and is “ready to commit” – but they also want the “spark” and “chemistry” of new love.

ARRANGED MARRIAGE TELEVISION SHOW TV

Sometimes it feels like these reality TV romantics want so little – to be loved, to be understood – and sometimes it seems they want it all. They say they cannot forge a “deep connection” with anyone when everyone suspects there’s someone even better out there, just a Tinder swipe away. They blame online dating and hook-up culture. They are all almost pathologically committed to finding “The One” but have lost all hope of doing so.

But the couples matched on shows such as Married at First Sight and Love is Blind say they feel overwhelmed by the choice, and the responsibility of choosing. Most young people in the West enjoy historically unprecedented freedom and choice over who to marry, or whether to marry at all. Married at First Sight is one of several exploitative, completely addictive reality TV dating shows that tries to remedy its participants’ dissatisfaction with modern dating culture by reinventing arranged marriage.Ĭam and Jules from Season 6 of the Australian Married at First Sight are still together.

ARRANGED MARRIAGE TELEVISION SHOW SERIES

The British version of the international reality TV series has never successfully matched a couple ( in Australia three couples are still together: Jules and Cam and Michael and Martha from Season 6 and Erin and Bryce from Season 2).Īs a result they have this year recruited “a brand-new team of elite matchmakers”, who have found four unlucky-in-love singletons desperate enough to marry a stranger, who they will meet for the first time on their wedding day. The program's spiritual adviser is Harvard University humanist chaplain Greg Epstein, who said he takes marriage seriously and noted, 'What the show is promoting is for people to think long and hard about what really makes for a long-term relationship, what really makes for a good marriage. The show is trying to get people to think in a different way on how they are choosing potential partners.'īut, Rohrer noted, the mechanism contradicts the stated motive.Over 7000 people applied to star in the fifth series of the UK version of Married at First Sight – an astonishingly high number given the limited appeal of having your heart broken live on national television (in Australia 11,200 people applied this year). This is neither entertainment nor 'reality.' It is damaging to society and propagates the lie that marriage is a joke, a game and an experiment.' 'Contemplating marriage with complete strangers and a built-in escape is contrary to the concept of a God-designed, life-long covenant with a clearly defined purpose and goal. 'The broken homes and weakened families created by divorce hardly warrant greater encouragement,' he continued. This show puts two people in a precarious position that will potentially scar them for future healthy relationships and, worse yet, endorses the destructive view that divorce is a logical escape route when marital challenges arise. Rather, it is a divine relationship defined by God in the Garden of Eden and confirmed throughout Scripture. 'Marriage is not a game show, a contest or something to entertain the masses.

'A major role of pastors today is spending serious time counseling couples who want to enter into the sacred union of marriage,' Rohrer said. American Pastors Network President Sam Rohrer says the show makes a mockery of marriage, which God calls a sacred union.

Arranged marriage television show