Marriage refers to a legal union between a man and a woman, where they become a wife and

husband. A family refers to a social unit that consists of children and their parents. Particularly,

in my analysis, I will dig deeper in to arranged marriage and love marriage of Vietnamese and

British to grasp a better understanding of marriage culture as well as marriage value of people in

two nations.

In the UK, arranged marriage is not highly encouraged, especially forced marriage is illegal.

Arranged marriage is generally planned by parents, family and religious leaders. It may

sometimes involve emotional abuse, physical abuse or even sexual abuse. In some particular

families, parents may want to arrange marriage for children because some parents consider it as

an important part of region and culture. They are even worried about family’s tradition and

honor, they want to maintain family values and honor which have been passed down from

generation to generation and they themselves feel a sense of responsibility in keeping them. This

conventional thought is immensely hard-wired to some British’s mindset and it occasionally

places pressure on both parents and their children. As well as that, even though same-sex

marriage is nationally accepted and gains tremendous support from the community, there are

even some severe overturnings to LGBTQ marriage as parents do not approve of their children

being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Therefore, parents may want to make a thorough and

careful preparation for children’s marriage in advance. Unlike forced marriage, which is an

abuse of human rights and people are not entitled to the freedom to make their own decisions and

choices, arranged mariage is perceived as a cultural tradition and people actually have a choice,

even though these two forms of marriage share a lot of mutual similarities. In fact, arranged

marriage is common in many regions in the UK and can affect both boys and girls. It doesn’t
only happen to young people, adults may suffer too. It should be acknowledged that arranged

marriage may sometimes give rise to forced marriage. If people are made to marry someone who

they do not want to, they have the right to no and choose who they marry, when and whether

they want to get married or not. They can make their own decisions and be able to tell someone

about and seek help for what’s happening to them. People may worry that if they tell someone

then their parents and other people could get into trouble and everything can get worse and fall

into a chaos. They literally don’t have to deal with that on their own. Undoubtedly, there are

people who will not judge them, always stand by them and give them significant support for

what they are going through. They can totally contact a counsellor in private at any time and talk

about anything. In my opinion, to be quite frank, the British are typically open-minded and they

are utterly supportive and respecful for their children’s decisions in marriage. Parents generally

are not manipulated by others’ opinions, but rather they want to share their happiness and delight

with their kids.

For several decades, in Vietnam, marriage has been considered as a social contract and it was

arranged by parents previously. For the most part, parents’ choices were impacted by traditional

opinions affecting the welfare of the lineage rather than the preferences of each individual. These

days, even though arranged marriage is against the law, many parents still choose to make plans

for their children’s marriage, often with the help of their relatives and even fortunetellers and

strong influence of elders. Obviously, children are expected to adhere to their parents’ proposal

to repay them for the gift of life. Going against their desires is conceived to be dishonorable.

Conventionally, partners were selected on the basis of social status, wealth and religion. The

mother of the girls have always been personally sensitive to the possibility of being disrespected
and went out of her way to make sure everything checked out carefully before agreeing to the

marriage. Apparently, the final decision was made after consulting the fortunetellers who made

predictions for the spouses’ future and ensured the heroscopes of two people went well and

matched with each other. If everything run smoothly, an engagement party was hosted by the

husband’s family with the very presence of important participants in two families (especially

their relatives) and one of the members in husband’s family would be on behalf of the family to

make proposal and ask for the girl’s hand and girl’s family responded by listing out good virtues

of their daughter

In modern day, Western culture has influenced Vietnamese a great deal, parents now tend to be

of more an advisory role in the decision-making process of their childrens’ mate and Vietnam

has been witnessing a significant decline in arranged marriage simultaneously. Currently, it is

not too unusual to see parents hold the expectation of a high-status mate with a lucartive

profession since they are interested in helping decide a mate for their children out of concern for

their future. Even though children from time to time consult their parents, parents are more open

and respectful to the children’s choice compared to the past. If both the children and parent reach

an agreement over a mate, they will soon arrange an appointment with their counterpart’s family

and make engagement for marrying. By contrast, if parents oppose to the children’s decision,

they will probably try to convince them otherwise, but will cease if their children are still

insistent. Even though parents hardly over give absolute choice, they still bear great influence on

the their children’s decision to get married. After marriage, in some cases, when some spouces

are unable to self-afford their own living, they have no other choice but be dependent on their

family. In contrast, the couple will be likely to establish their household instead of maintaining in

their family and receiving financial aids from their parents. To sum up, from my perspective
while Vietnamse are widely open to the decision of their children to choose their life-long

counterpart, some families are still holding an anticiquated belief to make absolute arrangement

for their children’s marriage.

References

Hans J. (2008). Marriage, dating and weddings in Vietnam

Forced marriage. From: childline.org.uk