[timwaagh]

Shouldn't it be more shocking that your friend agreed to an arranged marriage? I mean I'm not in Norway (pretty close though) and I don't know to what degree this is acceptable in Norwegian culture. But in mine it very much isn't. We ought to expect more from women these days. Because caste might be a completely foreign problem to us, but arranged marriages used to be the norm here as well. It took the second wave of feminism to eliminate that problem and make parents feel ashamed for even trying. We wouldn't want to have that practice sneaking back in through the back door again.

[magicalhippo]

Both were quite shocking to me.

However the arranged marriage did not come as such a surprise, I guess because there's been a fair bit of talk about it here due to other immigrant cultures also practicing it.

[saagarjha]

Modern arranged marriage is usually "here is someone you may be interested in" rather than "you must marry this person that you have never met".