As long as the sex isnt R*ape (unless thats the kink in the book) then I don’t see a problem in it. My issue with a lot of arranged marriages are just that the couple seems to fall in love too quickly for me. But im not a fan of insta-love in general so thats not specific to marriage tropes.

“Problematic” is a useless term and one that shows you care too much of what others think. Additionally, books that have no problems and do not depict human reality are not worth reading.

Life is problematic. Books are problematic because art reflects life. Problematic is also way more interesting in print.

I mean, they happen IRL. I live in America and I know someone who is in an arranged marriage. It happens.

“Problematic” is problematic. Seriously. I understand the impetus to purge the unpleasant parts of human-ness from novels, but the problem is that doesn’t do anything to help the actual things themselves. If anything it tends to perpetuate them because people think they’ve done something to effect change when they haven’t. I had to stop and think if this applies as well to romance books as it does other genres and I’ve decided it does. If a romance book portrays characters or relationships you don’t like, good. Learn from that. Why don’t you like them? Reading that can buttress your armor against them in real life, and maybe the experience can impel you towards stories that flip the thing you were bothered by. I’ll take the charitable view and guess that the people saying something is “problematic” are well-intentioned, but that doesn’t mean you should listen to them.

I can’t speak for the trope itself, but my parents were an arranged marriage. I’ve thought about this a fair bit and I really do believe arranged marriages can work really well, especially in cultures that are more set up for them.

You’re problematic

You know what’s really problematic? People using the word problematic to avoid discussing things because they lack the maturity and intelligence to do so.

Seeing as how arranged marriages still exist and are a thing even in todays world, I don’t see a problem.

nah arranged marriages in general are fine

It’s not my favorite trope, but I don’t mind them in historical because that was a reality.

When it comes to contemporary ones though, unless they are set in a culture/subculture where they are common, the plot reasons just never make sense. (Unless maybe it’s a marriage for health insurance in the US or for immigration status, those are the only believable reasons to me.)

The one that does bother me is when the marriage is the result of a dead relative mandating the person marry within a certain timeframe or marry a certain person to get an inheritance in a will–no matter how much the protagonists may have loved that relative, it’s deeply deeply shitty and manipulative to try and play on someone’s grief for you and force them into something as big as marriage and try to make their lives fit in the box you mandated from beyond the grave like that. And yet the plot and characters never recognize that. It’s usually oh teehee, great-uncle Bob was so romantic/just wanted me to find love and look how great it worked out!

I think arranged marriage can be (ugh) “problematic”, but writing about “problematic” things in books isn’t an endorsement of them and isn’t in itself “problematic”.

I guess I don’t know what you mean by problematic. Even still today, nearly half of all marriages in the world were arranged. Since it’s declining rapidly in China, I’m sure that percentage will decrease as the current population ages and dies, but it’s still the norm in India and in many other places around the world. So I don’t know what you mean by trope or why stories about something that is extremely common would be inherently problematic by any definition. I feel like you are talking about something specific without stating exactly what it is. Is there some new series about arranged marriages or something?

I have a few friends who had arranged marriages. They’re all very happily married and honestly have some of the most harmonious households I’ve ever been in. I think they’re only “problematic” in fiction when specifically written to be disrespectful.

but like…books are about real life scenarios. so….unless you want to read a book about some kind of paradise where nothing ever goes wrong…i mean… it’s just life.

would i want to be in an arranged marriage? probably not. but are they okay for some people? sure.

i’m certainly not going to be offended by a book about them.