First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice from the Wisdom of Arranged Marriages

by Reva Seth

Seven time-tested secrets to dating the husband
of your dreams -- taken from the centuries-old
tradition of arranged marriages


Want commitment, love, and romance? Forget The Rules , and stop waiting for an idealized Prince Charming. In First Comes Marriage , Reva Seth shares the wisdom of more than three hundred women in arranged marriages...and shows how this classic tradition can teach twenty-first-century women important lessons about how to find -- and keep -- Mr. Right.

The men you date will become the men you marry. The seven secrets in this counterintuitive guide will help you become more selective and increase your chances of finding the right person to share your life with. Seth knows her secrets work -- she married her husband after only meeting him seven times.

A practical, surprisingly progressive guide to love and romance, First Comes Marriage will open your eyes to what makes a guy perfect for you...and will help you find him, date him, and keep falling in love with him forever.

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 3, 2008

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seven principles from arranged marriages to apply to relationships. The principles were great; the writing drove me batty. I do think this is because the formula of a self-help book is something like: write a principle, write a personal experience supporting the principle, write fourteen anecdotes of made-up people described by their age and career that perfectly illustrate your principle, write a few pull-out quotes from said made-up people that reinforce your principle, write a sentence saying how your principle has tiny exceptions, write a sentence saying that even the exceptions to your principle only show the truth of the principle itself. I am a terrific audience for this book, and I was still super annoyed with how blindly positive she was about these principles. Basically every couple that followed them was happy forever, and every couple that didn't was doomed. A dash of the complexity of reality would have really made this excellent.

[Sonia T · Rating 4 out of 5]

My marriage was headed for divorce and this book changed they way I look at relationships and prompted me to save my marriage. (My husband also read most of this book. Marriage is saved.)

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

The topic of arranged marriages is certainly interesting but Reva Seth did not do it justice. The fact that her most profound advice can be paraphrased as "Common values are more important than common interests" struck me as lame. Isn't that just common sense?

[Kunal · Rating 4 out of 5]

My older brother gave me this book a few years ago, however I never had any interest in reading it for a few years. Recently, I saw it still sitting on book shelf so I picked it up to start reading, and I could not be happier for doing so. It is a very fascinating book about the lessons she learned from interviewing hundreds of woman who got arranged marriages who spoke about their experience of being in an arranged marriage from the beginning to the whole marriage journey that they have went through. The premise of the book is that given in the U.S. which is based on love marriages has a 50% divorce rate, we should better understand these arranged marriages which have a much higher success rate. What was fascinating was that they discuss that one's success in a marriage is if they share the same values more than anything else. In general, most of us are very concerned about whether our partner will have the same hobbies as us, if their looks are perfect, etc. but what happens is that we outweigh those points and sacrifice whether their values are similar to ours which is what causes us to enter into unhappy marriages just because we end up realizing the hobbies and interests don't actually make up for the differences in values. The big learning lesson is that I have to figure out what my values are in order to figure out who shares my values as it relates to a partner.

[Anahita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you someone who thinks arranged marriages are weird, strange decisions with no possibility of growing a loving relationship? Do you get involved in discussions against arranged marriage with your friends? Do you think "you" should go and find Mr. Right and not your mom? Welcome to my world! That was me for a few years until I got convinced to read this book, and boom! now I am a fan of arranged marriage! I think this book helped me to open my mind and perspective in this topic. The author was very careful in not picking a side and rather present some facts which were reasonable and made sense. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book and I could not stop recommending it to my friends - who mostly were in favor of arranged marriage anyways.

[Jennifer Triplett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this to see if it might be usable for my romantic relationships course. It doesn't work for that purposed, as it's written as a "find a husband" guide for women, using the methods of arranged marriage. It doesn't speak to men at all and presumes a goal of marriage. That's fine, it knows its audience, just doesn't work for the class. It did have some interesting points, including limiting yourself to only a small handful of "musts" in a partner, instead of searching for an unrealistically long list embodied by a person who doesn't exist, and the interviews were interesting. It's just a far step from anything academic, so not really usable for me.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago before I met my now husband. This book gives some excellent advice that I used to quickly move through less than suitable suitors. Growing up in the US I was told by society that silly things like having common hobbies and marrying your best friend are actually important when looking for a spouse. This book saved me a lot of time looking beyond such trivial traits.

I’m happy to say my husband and I now have four beautiful children, have been married for eight years next month, and are always happy most of the time ;)

[Claudia R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt the author gave common-sense and down to earth advice about relationships and what is wrong with our modern dating culture, and I would agree with her sentiment on this, but her vision of arranged marriages seemed a little sugar-coated.

It doesn't exactly jibe with the accounts I have personally heard on arranged marriages and how they actually work out.

[Kate Flourish · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this would be more of a behind-the-scenes view from women who are in arranged marriages (which is something of a curiosity to me, being raised in a western culture in which people picked their own spouses) but this is actually a self-help book (my bad, it should have been more obvious to me from the title!). In a way, that was the author's intentions when she started out to write the book, but after interviewing more than 300 women (and a few men) in arranged marriages she came across certain observations which she breaks out into 7 "rules" of why arranged marriages are usually more successful (lower divorce rate, general happiness with the marriage) than those in which the person picks his/her partner and these "rules" are things one could consider to increase the chances of getting and staying married.

Basically, the "rules" are probably things your grandmother told you (e.g., your husband doesn't need to be your best friend (that's what girl friends are for!), you don't need to have shared hobbies (but you DO need to have shared values), don't fall into the trap of how romance is portrayed in books/movies (your partner can still love you without buying roses or a mushy card for valentine's day), etc)). I think the number one reason for arranged marriages being more successful is something she didn't mention- BOTH people who enter into an arranged marriage WANT to get married NOW. There is no "I'm not ready to get married, I need to focus on my career for the next few years", no "sliding instead of deciding" into commitment ("since I'm staying over 6 nights a week, might as well move in together to save money", "since we've been living together for 5 years, might as well get married to save on our taxes", etc), no ultimatums from one partner to another one not ready/interested in marriage ("we need to be engaged by my birthday or I'm leaving"), or feeling pushed into getting married due to family pressures after dating each other for a few years, etc.

[Heather Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admired Seth's non-conventional angle of marriage. First studying arranged marriages in undergrad, I quickly took a liking to their sturdy foundational tenets, and the way Values guided arranged marriage versus such things as commonalities in traditional American marriages, unions that have set a bad track record of recent. A section I found particularly entertaining was commentary on the tradition of diamond rings as a sign of love and fidelity, and the fact that this tradition originated from a marketing strategy of the DeBeers company. As someone who finds the security of a diamond engagement ring completely unnecessary, I enjoyed her satirical study of this intelligently orchestrated marketing scheme. I, personally, do not want a diamond, and never have. Love is much more grand than to subscribe to the conventional way of proposing. How about a simple band of gold. Or rather, how about a well-evidenced vow. . .

[Shweta Ramkumar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting and insightful book highlighting the core principles of arranged marriages that make them unique and (in theory) more successful than casual run-of-the-mill hook-ups and relationships based purely on physical attraction. Though I found a lot of her points to be rather polarised and hasty generalisations (especially I have witnessed so many arranged marriages lately that have been utter disasters !) and while she certainly doesn't totally advocate arranged marriages or defame love marriages, it does give different way of looking at relationships in general and a lot of the principles that can definitely be applied by us in our love / married lives or if we're on the hunt for Mr / Ms Right. Highly recommend it to all singletons and people in committed relationships :)

[Akshay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interviewed 300 women in arranged marriages to find out what are the secrets to the success rates

Families have solid idea of "marriage musts" going into selection process

Women have low/realistic expectations about what their husband will bring to their lives together

The medias notion of love and someone who fulfills every desire for a women is unrealistic and sets relationships up for failure

Shared interests are not as important as one thinks because you can do that with other people
Outlines common serial problems like the just for now syndrome, staying in relationships cause its easiest, not fully committing

Living together before marriage is a bad idea for success

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was taking a class on Love @ university. Thought this was an excellent book. I interviewed a couple who were in an arranged marriage, got a lot more details from them than the book. I wonder if there are some taboos about putting the whole thing in black and white.Say what you will, I think the advice is pretty good, don't marry your "best friend" marry someone who will evolve into your "soul mate". Can't go wrong there.

[Aimee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I randomly picked this out at the library and wasn't expecting much- I'm just interested in arranged marriages since my grandparents met through a matchmaker in Japan and had a successful, seemingly content life together. I enjoyed reading the quotes from the women Seth interviewed, although the advice itself isn't totally groundbreaking. This would be a good read for anyone who's interested in evaluating, strengthening, or finding a committed relationship.