Marraige Proposals

I am not sure if many of you have heard about arranged marriages in Japan, but they still happen regularly, there are even arranged marriage agencies over here to hook rich, young, businessmen up with a beautiful , young, eligible women up for marriage. These services are mainly used by the parents if deemed that their son isn't wise in his choice of women, or the family has a very proud heritage and doesn't want to risk losing honour. There are even agencies (private investigator types) that parents have hired to check the heritage lines of the girl (or boy) their child is going to marry. This is because in Buddhism 100's of years ago those who slaughtered animals, tanned leather or any other job involving the blood of dead animals were regarded as unclean and had to live in their own communities, they could not associate with other commoners. So back to the point, it has not been unheard of for these well to do, proud families to hire private investigators to trace the lineage of the fiance/ fiancee to see if they have come from the blood line of these leather tanners or animal slaughterer's because if they have it would be a disgrace for that person to marry into their family.

My experience with arranged marriages is interesting to say in the least. So far I ahve had about 4 mothers come to me and say "Oh I would really like it if you married my daughter" now 2 of these women I would have only met them and their daughter that day lol. It is sort of funny, but I get a little worried about one mother who keeps coming back, you can tell this woman is dead serious, and to make matters worse the daughter is one of my best friends at school!! So this mum keeps coming "oh i would love it if you married my daughter, I would really like you to marry my daughter, please marry my daughter". Lol I get the feeling sometimes that the daughter may actually be in on it as well. But it was probably the other night that got me worried the most. We had a party for for Kendo club, and my friend (the girl) happens to be in kendo club as well. Parents also happened to be invited to this party, so you can guess what happened..... managed to get cornered (literally) by not only my friends mother, but her fahter as well!!! And yes they were both putting pressure on "oh please marry our daughter, we would love you to marry our daughter. She is a beautiful girl isn't she? and she has a great personality" somehow I managed to just go with with what they were saying and wriggle my way out of there.


Thats it for my arranged marriage experiences, though there could be more to come!

Jieshi