[duaneb]

>proves

No, it doesn't. To actually prove love marriages do not make sense, every single love marriage should fail. Anyway, 50% is a pretty damn good success rate, I think. I don't think I could choose someone to spend the rest of my life with correctly on my first time. It's perfectly natural to fall out of love - that doesn't mean that love marriages don't work, it just means that some don't work.

[sp332]

It's not just about finding "the right person". Lots of external factors can have a huge effect on marriage success, like religion http://www.edivorcepapers.com/divorce-statistics/christian-d... or local culture http://www.divorcerate.org/divorce-rate-japan.html or even changes in culture over time http://www.edivorcepapers.com/divorce-statistics/divorce-rat... eta: 50% is not a good rate.

[duaneb]

Isn't religion/culture/whatever just one aspect of finding the right person?

[sp332]

If it was, I think it would just be finding someone with similar views. It's interesting that different groups have different success rates.

[duaneb]

I'm not saying we search for those who have the same views, I'm saying we search for those whose quirks won't be a problem down the road. For example, I'm non-religious, and I have dated extremely religious people (i.e. she attended church every day). Surprisingly, it wasn't an issue at all.

[AznHisoka]

He's not saying it makes no sense. He's saying arranged marriages have just as high a success rate, if not higher. Personally, I can see that intuitively as well. Expectations are low, and there's not as much "passion". Not a lot of passion sounds bad to a lot of people, but it's better than having tons of passion, and having it turn sour.

[jmathai]

Agree that it doesn't prove anything.

Disagree that 50% should be considered a good success rate though.

[duaneb]

> Disagree that 50% should be considered a good success rate though.

Perhaps this is just a signal that society may be moving past "Till death do us part". I don't think this indicates anything bad about society, except perhaps people forgetting how serious society once treated marriage.