Nobody likes to be forced into a relationship. Being "set up" for a date, or being continually hounded about one's romantic life by sincere but overbearing family members and friends can be unsettling, to say the least. And even though a person may want to be married someday, the often awkward process of finding the right person can seem to be more bother than it's worth. Add to that the risk of making a life-altering mistake, and the decision-making process can be paralyzing.

In many parts of the world, a single person does not have a choice about who to marry. Marriages are arranged by the family (usually the father), and brides are treated much like family property.

The popular musical Fiddler on the Roof depicted three young Jewish girls who were afraid of becoming the unwilling partners in arranged marriages to men in Anatevka, their small Russian village. They sang of hope that the matchmaker would make them "a perfect match," but later in the same song they told the matchmaker not to rush, please! As the story progressed, they worked to change the attitude of their father, Tevye, toward marriage selection. Although the matchmaker was still very active in Anatevka, and even though the fathers were a powerful force in the family, Tevye's daughters managed to talk him into giving them permission to marry the boys they loved--except for one daughter who insisted on marrying a young man outside of the family's faith.

Attitudes toward marriage continue to change. In highly mobile, urbanized cultures where family clans are not the chief forces (and fathers do not reign like kings), the decision-making process of bride and groom selection has shifted to the individual preference of the single people involved, though usually with the desire for family approval. But this has not always meant that the single person has made better decisions.

Single young people and divorced or widowed older people are all capable of getting married for the wrong reasons. A young person might enter marriage on the basis of romantic feelings alone--or only cold facts. A divorced person might remarry without having learned from the mistakes of the past--only to marry the wrong kind of person for the wrong reasons. Or a widowed person who feels desperately alone might rush into a new relationship and marry--only to regret it later.

The Bible offers helpful principles that apply to young or old, first-time marriages or second marriages, arranged marriages or romantically induced ones. Whoever does the deciding should consider the issues that will be discussed in this booklet.

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