This story is part of RICE Media’s Storytellers initiative, a mentorship programme for budding content creators to learn about the art of creative non-fiction. This piece is a product of a partnership between RICE Media and Singapore Management University (SMU) for its Professional Writing module.
Top image: Courtesy of the author
The photo above captures my parents on their wedding day. My mother is in a traditional red-and-gold sari, adorned with ornaments and jasmine garlands. My father stands beside her in a shirt and tie—you can’t see it, but his hand is hovering protectively behind her back. They’re nervous yet excited to kick off a new chapter of their lives.
They had met exactly a week before this picture was taken.
I used to think their story was wild. In fact, I still do. One week? That’s how long it takes me to decide if I like a new café, not who I’ll spend the rest of my life with.
When I was younger, this was what my mother said: “Arranged marriage was the best for me because I trusted the process. Love was the journey.”
I’d roll my eyes, hearing it. Love was supposed to be a discovery. To me, marriage was supposed to be the culmination of a love story, not the beginning.
That belief held until I met someone who rewrote it.
‘I Want an Arranged Marriage’
Saraminah is a friend I made in my first year of university. She’s the sort of person who still talks about soulmates—the tender, idealistic kind who’d be the heroine in a romcom. We became friends quickly.
Finding love is something we often talk about. She told me she had dated before, both organically and through online dating. But her relationships never lasted long.
“They all start with sparks and excitement,” she says, scrolling through her phone, showing me her past chats. “But they all end in silence.”
She looks up and says casually, “I want an arranged marriage.”
I laughed in response because I didn’t believe she was serious. We were 20. We’d grown up on To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and Taylor Swift lyrics. We were the generation raised to emulate modern romcoms, not fancy traditional matchmaking.
At first, I dismissed it as the kind of thing a girl says after a heartbreak. Except she’s not heartbroken. Not anymore, at least.
She was serious.
“Look,” she sighs. “I’m tired. At least with an arranged marriage, you know you’re both trying. Families get involved, and things start to become intentional.”
Her words unsettled me. If someone as romantic as her is starting to see arranged love as a viable choice, what does that say about the rest of us?
Dating Today
To understand where she was coming from, I had to understand the current dating climate.
Dating today feels like a game because it’s been gamified. We have endless freedom, endless options, and endless swipes, but we are exhausted. These apps make it feel like connection is always one swipe away, but somehow it keeps slipping through our fingers. And if you want better chances, you’ll have to spend some cash.
What results is a connection so fragile that it evaporates when either side gets slightly bored or slightly anxious. Here is a real exchange from Hinge that Sariminah showed me:
Him: “So what are you looking for?”
Her: “To be honest, I’m looking [for a] long-term partner, but we can take it slow ofc.”
Him: “Haha, same. Let’s get to know each other.”
(12 hours pass)
Her: “How was your day?”
Him: “Good, hbu?”
Her: “Good too! I had a long day at school, I’d love to call and tell you about it. Is now a good time?”
(Seen. No reply.)
When she scrolled back to show me similar chats from other weeks, the pattern was so predictable that it felt scripted. Flirt slightly! Match energy! Fade into ambiguity!
Some chats were downright ridiculous. There was one chat in which Saraminah asked, “What’s your MBTI?” to which her match replied with, “I dunno what’s that lol, but what’s your rice purity score?”
This is the dating landscape so many of us know: conversations that go nowhere, easily mismatched values, and people who disappear without warning.
What’s left is the ache of undefined relationships.
Why Arranged Marriage Works (for Some)
Are we the problem? Or is that just how modern dating is?
The problem isn’t the apps themselves. It’s the illusion of unlimited choice.
Barry Schwartz, in The Paradox of Choice, argues that too many options lead to paralysis, dissatisfaction, and regret. This is what we experience on dating apps: infinite profiles, infinite micro-preferences, infinite exits, and infinite second-guesses.
In a world full of choices, we feel less free. We’re afraid to commit—or even hope. Given this outlook, arranged marriage can begin to look like a source of structure.
“It’s not romance I’m avoiding; it’s uncertainty,” Saraminah clarifies. “With arranged marriages, there are fewer choices, but these choices are vetted and much more grounded and real compared to dating online.”
For her, arranged marriage offered something modern dating could not: a shared intention from the start.
“No one was pretending. No one was playing it cool. No one was dragging their feet. Both families knew the purpose. Both individuals knew what they were agreeing to explore.”
To Saraminah, it wasn’t “falling in love”. It was “building towards something”. It echoes my parents’ story.
When I asked my parents more intentional questions, their answers about each other surprised me.
My mum: “He brought his whole family. A man who is honest won’t lie or deceive you in front of his mother.”
My dad: “She was kind. I thought she would be a good partner in life.”
“Love came later,” my mother then remarks, almost proudly, as she took my dad’s hand in hers.
It challenged everything I thought I knew. What if love grows more reliably when it is not rushed? What if stability, not just sparks, is the real foundation?
But then again, the concept of arranged marriages is not, and has never been, an uncomplicated institution.
The Capacity to Choose
Arranged marriages, in their original form, carried expectations that were often suffocating. Women were expected to be pure, obedient, and adaptable. Men were expected to be providers before they were companions. The collective family mattered more than the individual couple. Choice was filtered through obligation.
Economist Amartya Sen described this dynamic in his concept of cooperative conflicts, a situation where women “adjust their desires” to maintain harmony within systems where their bargaining position is structurally weaker. In many traditional arranged marriages, women had limited room to negotiate or resist.
Even today, some of those shadows remain. Certain communities still treat arranged marriage as the default path, especially for daughters. The expectation to say yes is often unevenly distributed; cultural shame lingers around refusal.
This is where my own discomfort sits. If I, as a young woman, ever said yes to an arranged marriage, is that a choice? Or am I enabling a system that was never designed with my freedom in mind?
Sociologist Naila Kabeer argues that true agency isn’t just the “capacity to choose” but the ability to make choices that carry meaning, dignity, and alternatives. If a woman chooses arranged marriage simply because all other paths feel unsafe, unstable, or disheartening, is that really personal agency?
I asked Saraminah about it.
“Honestly, I don’t feel forced into it!” she declares. “I want something to work, and I want to choose a system that helps me make it work.”
Her words sat with me. She was clear-eyed about wanting to build something on her own terms.
Saraminah wasn’t imagining herself being presented on a platter. She was imagining a process, one where she gets to speak, question, decide, and walk away if needed. A version where her parents’ involvement is more of an additional filter than a cage.
“If I choose an arranged marriage, I want to be the one defining what I’m agreeing to.”
She pulls out a document she’d been working on—one that maps her needs, her boundaries, her values, and her fears. Non-negotiables, set before anyone else could decide for her.
That was when it clicked that her choice against modern dating wasn’t a retreat, but her intentional act of self-respect.
Why Marriage Still Matters
Her certainty also led me to a question that had hovered in the background of my mind: Why do we even want to get married at all?
It sounds basic, almost too simple. But when I asked my friends, most paused. They spoke in vague sentiments: “companionship,” “stability,” “someone to grow old with”. No one had a concrete answer, and yet all of them assumed they would marry one day.
It made me wonder whether marriage has become one of the last forms of structured commitment we trust.
My parents embodied that certainty in a way I never understood as a child. My father laughed when I asked if he was scared on the day they met.
“No,” he said. “We decided we would build something. Love isn’t the start; it’s the reward.”
I used to think that was backward. Now, not anymore.
I started this piece thinking it was about the strangeness of a young person leaning towards an arranged marriage in these modern times. But the deeper I went, the more I realised it was more than that.
I sit at the crossroads of two different views that are built around arranged marriages. Saraminah, choosing structure and tradition out of certainty. My parents, who built a 21-year marriage from a single week of knowing each other.
Across both stories, one truth stands out: We’re all trying to choose love in the way that lets us breathe. I can only hope that when it’s my turn to choose love—regardless of how I find it—I can feel secure in the choice. And more importantly, secure in myself.
That’s why this matters. Whether we swipe for it, wander the world for it, or let our families help us find it, what we really want is a relationship that feels safe enough to stay.
