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Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage: Difference between revisions

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Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage (view source)

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{{quote| And if a man dying by some unexpected fate leaves daughters behind him, let him pardon the legislator if he gives them in marriage, he have a regard only to two out of three conditions - nearness of kin and the preservation of the lot, and omits the third condition, which a father would naturally consider, for he would choose out of all the citizens a son for himself, and a husband for his daughter, with a view to his character and disposition - the father, say, shall forgive the legislator if he disregards this, which to him is an impossible consideration. }}
* Similarly, in Plato's ''[[The Republic (Literature)|Republic]]'', all "marriages" among members of the ruling "guardian" class are arranged by the state. We say "marriages" in quotes, because it appears that these are one-time things rather than permanent relationships. Also, although the selection of pairings is officially either random or the work of the gods, it's actually the philosopher-kings who make the decisions, breeding citizens according to the needs of the state.
* In the ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' [[Doctor Who Novelisations (Literature)|novel]] ''Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon'', many people on Overindustrialised Future Earth work for faceless megacorporations that "take care" of their employees, arranging their accommodation, education, and, if the Company considers it necessary, marriages. They do try to arrange compatible matches, but probably only because unhappy employees are bad for productivity, and the matching process involves a stack of employee profiles and a computer in the personnel department, as opposed to, say, people getting to meet people. One character recalls agreeing to be married as a condition of his next promotion, and then hearing no more about it until he returned from a business trip to find his new wife waiting for him in the kitchen. At first he's much more interested in his new apartment ect. but as she cheerfully chatters away, informing him that they are likely to be in debt to the Company for the rest of their lives, he notices she's very pretty....Resulting in a [[Perfectly Arranged Marriage]].
* In [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''Falling Free'', the company is trying to breed the newly created quaddies. When a young couple, with a baby, is told whom they are assigned to have their next children, they revolt.
* [[Matched]]: The government controls every aspect of your life, including who you will marry based on compatibility measures.
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== [[Live Action Television]]: ==
* In ''[[Babylon 5 (TV)|Babylon 5]]'', the Psi Corps arranges marriages between powerful telepaths in order to facilitate the breeding of even more powerful telepaths. If the people involved try to refuse, the Corps is perfectly willing to arrange rapes instead having apparently never heard of in-vitro fertilization and surrogate mothers. Or maybe they're just sadistic.
 
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
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[[Category:Wedding and Engagement Tropes]]
[[Category:Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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