There are cultures and countries for which this is true but Germany is not one of them.
> The Western European marriage pattern is a family and demographic pattern that is marked by comparatively late marriage (in the middle twenties), especially for women, with a generally small age difference between the spouses, a significant proportion of women who remain unmarried, and the establishment of a neolocal household after the couple has married. In 1965, John Hajnal discovered that Europe is divided into two areas characterized by a different patterns of nuptiality. To the west of the line, marriage rates and thus fertility were comparatively low and a significant minority of women married late or remained single and most families were nuclear; to the east of the line and in the Mediterranean and particular regions of Northwestern Europe, early marriage and extended family homes were the norm and high fertility was countered by high mortality.[1][2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_European_marriage_patt...
> There are cultures and countries for which this is true but Germany is not one of them.
My grandmother (from Germany) told me how in former generations, it was not uncommon for parents to look out for marriage partners for their children. Formally, this is indeed not an arranged marriage, but de-facto, it mostly is/was.
EDIT: Or even more indirectly, parents send/sent their children to social occasions where the child is very likely to meet the kind of marriage partners that the parents desire. To me, this still has a strong "smell" of (partly-)arranged marriage.
> parents send/sent their children to social occasions
Absolutely people try to position their kids into the best social class they can. And still do, this is 90% of what parents house-shopping for "good schools" are doing, not to mention the great college admissions game. But this is not the same thing as an arranged marriage culture.
Edit: that is not to say, that sometimes relationships don't dissolve for good reasons... but even then, more could be done to make things fair, predictable, etc. as opposed to incentivizing both parties, and their lawyers, to fight and be as mean and nasty to each other as possible.
When people start treating jobs like marriages (a nurtured ideology), this is what you get...
For men, yes.
As long as they have all the money and can have lovers, how is that even a question?
Not sure if that's the case in historic Germanic regions, but it's a crutch to take the principle "women are universally oppressed by men" and believe that's all you need in order to make any statement about gender across all of time and space.
It wasn't (aside from food and other common needs).
> it's a crutch to take the principle "women are universally oppressed by men"
I did not say that. The OP spoke of centuries where arranged marriages were common in Germany, and there's no doubt that women did not have equal rights during that time. The crutch here is to define "success of marriages" through fertility rates and number of divorces.
Also, giving women free reign is causing great inequality between men and women in their chances of having a partner and forming a family, which I believe will be problematic in the future. Very well explained by this other user: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19891412
His point wasn't about happiness for either party, it was that men simply had more societal control and rights than woman at the time arranged marriages were common - so it wasnt so much a partnership as it was one party having a huge amount of control over the other party's autonomy. That may not be the case with arranged marriages today, but I think the historical trend points in that direction.
>Also, giving women free reign is causing great inequality between men and women in their chances of having a partner and forming a family, which I believe will be problematic in the future. Very well explained by this other user:
This is just sexist drivel, to me you're a.) making frankly unwarranted generalizations about how both genders date, b.) reiterating the shirt 80/20 meme spouted by right wing incels, and c) proposing a system that takes away both party's freedom of choice with relationships because it's "unfair" to men.
Meh, in my experience (Indians I know) females in both families have the same amount of power when choosing a mate, even more power than males I'd say.
>This is just sexist
Reality is sexist. Both genders are different. That's just the way it is.
>making frankly unwarranted generalizations about how both genders date
You have statistics here, which paint a broader picture: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19601600
>reiterating the shirt 80/20 meme spouted by right wing incels
Why is my argument bad? "People I don't like say the same thing" is not an argument.
>proposing a system that takes away both party's freedom of choice with relationships because it's "unfair" to men
I didn't propose that we go back to arranged marriages, and I agree that there's no easy solution. In fact I've got nothing to propose. The fact that there's no solution doesn't mean we should just pretend there's no problem.
Either way, ok there are some biological differences between the genders and reality can be sexist, but neither of those points support or justify what you are saying about men and woman.
Can you be more specific on what in the link is suppose to support your point?
And the "80/20 rule" is a bad argument because it isn't supported by actual studies or whatever as far as I know, its more of a gross misuse of the Pareto rule by right-wing incels, Redpillers, or whoever to how woman date.
If that were true people wouldn't automatically switch to love marriage when uncoerced. My experience of dating people from cultures where arranged marriage is still a (dwindling) thing tells me that no, they absolutely wouldn't go back to the days where it was prevalent.
"But they learned to make do and be happy in the end!" is not an argument. It can be used to justify literally any practice, because people always strive to be happy even in the worst conditions.
Seriously, what's with people wanting to coerce other people's romantic lives? When did we switch from "live and let live" to "the state should give me a girlfriend"?
Hey, if the state (that is: the people that pay taxes) should give you free food, housing, education, health care etc - why stop at romance?
Perhaps if dating is too time-intensive for these people, they should (somewhat) go back to arranged marriages. Also, if one otherwise has to go on many dates, arranged dates/marriages are probably less expensive. Finally, this should also increase the safety aspects that, according to the article, many young people fear.