Perhaps this is something which a married person should be writing but I thought to jot down my views on it and maybe read it some years later when I am married, on God's will. We humans have always categorized marriages into love marriages and arranged marriages. In some cases there exist arranged-cum-love marriages.
Basically marriages involve three stages.
Spiritual Unity, Physical Acceptance and
Mental Likeness are the three stages that encompass a married life. Whatever we can think about the events or situations, they can be pulled into one of them and we might also have witnessed failure in any of them leading to divorce. Before I draw the sequential structure with the three stages in Love marriage and Arranged marriage, let me describe what the three stages actually are.
The first one of them being
Physical Acceptance. It is one of the strongest factors that initiate something called 'Relationship' excluding blood relations (the relationship in current context refers to friendship, acquaintance, affair or marriage). Humans always have this factor tingling in their mind, perhaps it is a natural phenomenon in the human brain to get attracted to someone or something looking good and the eyes are the most catalyzing tool for this reaction. So physical acceptance does not simply and exclusively mean sexual attraction. It is but its also the post-phase of physical acceptance (marriage or affair). In a married relationship, physical acceptance is one accepting the other as a part of his/her body.
Mental likeness is self-explaining, something that is linked to mind or thought process. Opinion, thoughts, philosophies, deeds, etc., are all elements of this stage. I feel this is more linked to your soul. Mental likeness clings to both worldly and non-worldly matters.
Spiritual Unity is the belief and submission of one's spirit to another person in relationship with God. If I say a Hindu boy and a Christian girl are spiritually united then I am wrong unless they worship one God. If I say a husband and wife are both Christians, but one practices Catholic and the other practices orthodox, or any other man made sub-caste you name, they are still not spiritually united because they both aren't united in their mode of worship. Both have to be one in belief, practice and worship in relationship with the one God.
Now marriage is a magical journey in which two travelers have decided that they
gonna stick together in every situation, be it odd or even, be it harmonizing or aggravating. If we align the three stages in a particular order, they form Love marriage and Arranged marriage. According to me,
Love marriage is when the Physical Acceptance acts first, followed by the Mental likeness and then least followed by the Spiritual Unity whereas Arranged Marriage is where Mental Likeness or Spiritual Unity acts first followed by Physical Acceptance.
Now, in order to attain a blessed life, speaking in the context of life in union with God, it is very important that Spiritual Unity comes in front. It's a truth that today in every marriage individuals are attracted to each other on elements that fade with age rather than the element which should grow by age. I would never like to convey my readers that Love marriage is unsuccessful or arranged marriage is the better. It varies from couples to couples, Keep the importance of spiritual growth as husband and wives which will let them respect each other more.
When one hand fails to do it alone, involuntarily the other hand comes and joins. When one eye cannot perceive the vision, the other struggles harder to sustain it.
