Should You Pay The Dowry For Arranged?

What Is This Thing?

In olden times, when marriage was less about love and more about property, betrothed couples were set up by interested third parties in matches that would benefit their respective clans. What this show presupposes is: what if some marriages still work like that?

When Is It On?

Tuesdays at 10 PM (more or less; it's on after Married At First Sight, which has always run over its hour so far this season) on fyi.

Why Was It Made Now?

The niche success of Married At First Sight -- which spent its first season acting like its "spring total strangers on each other at the altar" premise was tantamount to arranged marriage in the way the world understands it, WHICH IT IS NOT -- obviously convinced someone at fyi that if people like watching a faked-up version of arranged marriage, they might like watching real arranged marriages even more.

What's Its Pedigree?

None to speak of: obviously, the participants are all real, non-famous people, and Moxie Pictures, the production company behind it, mostly makes commercials.

...And?

I went into this pretty grossed out by the idea of contemporary people voluntarily participating in a tradition that's so misogynistic...yet also slavering in anticipation of all the judging I was going to do. Surprise: all my expectations were met, and quickly! "In the Gypsy culture, you gotta be a housewife," says Nina Miller, the thirty-eight-year-old mother of an eighteen-year-old groom. You're supposed to clean, you're supposed to cook, you're supposed to take care of the kids -- if not, then why are you a woman?" "When I think of roles in southern traditional families," says Meghan, a bride-to-be in South Carolina. "I see it as back in the 1950s, where the wife stays home, and she cooks and she cleans, with lots of kids in my huge stone house."

("Uh." - Every other woman in the south.)

Romani Christian, Nina's son, has only seen his seventeen-year-old fiancée Maria in church -- and if it's from enough of a distance, he might not even know, as we learn when we meet her, that she's going to be married in her braces. Christian's parents and at least his paternal grandparents were also arranged, with Christian's grandfather George cheerfully telling him at dinner that he didn't love his wife until well after they were married, so Christian should just focus on getting married and knocking Maria up (Nina would like a grandchild within a year -- when she'll still be a year younger than I am now, AND I AM NOT THAT OLD YOU GUYS). If Christian has any kind of job or is pursuing post-secondary education, it doesn't come up, and if everything I learned from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding is accurate, college is definitely not in the cards for Maria. Which is upsetting, because this feels like a situation where Maria's probably been sheltered and constrained her whole life from dreaming any bigger than her "culturally" prescribed role in life.

It's different for Meghan, who's almost certainly been to college (what a waste of that face and hair if she was never in a sorority!), apparently has her own car and dog and discretionary spending money if her reportedly large collection of purses is anything to go by -- excuse me, "pocketbooks," as she and Josh both insist upon calling them in a long argument about how many she'll be allowed to buy after they're married. That most of Meghan's series-premiere plotline revolves around her getting ready to break the news to her dad that she's already gone close to ten grand over his wedding budget -- which, despite her stated apprehension, she otherwise seems to think is cute -- tells you most of what you need to know about her. Let me add that if she were not so self-involved as to be focusing all her attention and passion on making sure one day of her life is absolutely perfect, she might have noticed, as I immediately did, that the reason Josh's mother Lisa may have participated in this wedding arrangement is that if the choice of partner had been left to Josh there might not have been a wife in the picture at all, if you catch my drift.

...But?

The third bride, Ragini -- betrothed to groom Veeral since their parents found them on an Indian marriage-arranging site -- is established in her career, not interested in cooking, and thus my actual favourite. However, the fact that she and Veeral come from a longer, much more established, and much more liberal and accomplishment-based arranged-marriage tradition means that, compared to the other two train wreck couples, they really make for bad TV.

...So?

It's easy enough to fast-forward through Ragini and Veeral -- or treat them as a break that reminds you love is actually real sometimes. You won't have to wait long to get back to deer-in-the-headlights Christian and Maria, or shrill cartoon Meghan and long-suffering blando Josh : there's a lot to hate here, by which I mean, a lot to love.