the perfect partner. Ron comments.

[Guest guest]

Hi Ron,

You make good points. But to clarify, I wasn't touting arranged

marriage, though Janet had some interesting thoughts on certain

religious communities that counsel youth, and that DOES make a lot of

sense! Not many young people give a thought to what their shared

goals are and they go by blind faith that they can iron out their

difficulties after they marry. Heck I know couples my age, married a

year or two ago, who are in that predicament now, too. Everyone else

saw the problems coming but they thought that saying, " I do " would

make the problems go away!

I was trying to point out, perhaps not very successfully, that

survival rates for arranged marriages are about on par with non

arranged marriages. So obviously long term successful marriages

depend on something more than mutual attraction .. though it does

help get things going. It won't sustain it though, that was my point.

And patriarchal societies exist most everywhere in the world, whether

or not arranged marriages are practiced or not. Not intended as a

rebuttal, just clarifying my point.

I'd also thought of listing off my criteria for an ideal mate but

that's a moot point for me as I've been married nearly 25 years. If

my husband ran off with some sweet young thang, well, a " shopping

list " would still be moot, as I really wouldn't be interested in

starting over again and sharing my space with someone new. The guy I

got is trained already - at least as well as he's going to be <grin!>

Sooo, instead, I went off on another one of my famous monologues and

stated, in a general way, my opinion of the sort of things that I

think would make for an ideal pairing and to me, very important,

after respect, loyalty and dependability, is shared interests.

- Helen