As i said i don't think arranged marriges are a good thing but i can see impeccable reasons to disagree.

Yes it is a bigger influence then schools but don't underestimate the influnce what education you have has on the rest of your life. Learning a diffeent trade later is costly and you will seldom get any jobs but jobs you have education for or mcjobs. There are thoose people who had an education as lawer or doctor (if middle or upper class) or some trade (if lower class) because their parents pushed them and later made an entirely different career but they are the exceptions.

And yes the classic example of a 40 year old guy and a teenage girl is bad, but IMO the problem is not that the marrige is arranged but that one gender is treated inferior to the other.

But there's one key difference.

Children aren't old enough to make decisions for themselves. A nine year-old doesn't understand why studying now will help him later in life. He just wants to play videogames.

But someone who is old enough to marry (and I believe the age should be 18 for both sexes), is also old enough to vote, and should be treated as though they are mature enough to decide who to spend the rest of their life with.

Yes, people do make mistakes, but the parents' role should be limited to educating their offspring about making wise decisions and disciplining them when they make bad ones. They can teach their 16 year-olds why it's a really bad idea to have unsafe sex and why dropping out of highschool to run away with Johnny is setting yourself up for failure.

They shouldn't be able to force their 18 or 22 year old child to marry someone, or deny them any meaningful opportunity to say "no." (Expecting you to decide on the basis of a few, short, supervised meetings with the proposed partner is pointless.)

Plus the parents won't necessarily make better decisions than their offspring. Parents tend to look at more superficial qualities like education levels and earning power when choosing mates for their children. Personality, character and compatability take a back seat. The reason that cultures where arranged marriages still happen have lower divorce rates isn't because couples are better matched, it's because divorce is a social taboo. If you get divorced you will be disowned by your family, or in some cases, violently attacked. This forces couples to stay together no matter how unhappy they are.

So, if in addition to 15 year old girls being forced to marry 40 year old men, 15 year old boys were being forced to marry 40 year old women, that would make it okay?

I should have said either partner not either gender.

I had thought about arranged marriges between children of roughly equal age.

> 'Course, there are others who would say I'm committing
> Moral Imperialism. What say you?

I don't think that's Moral Imperialism.
A rape is not just punishment for a false rape accusation.

I think there is a set of morals that should apply to everyone.

Separating cultural norms from universal law isn't always easy.

For example some see eating spiders as wrong, but in some cultures
because other sources of certain nutrition isn't available they basically have to eat spiders (well unless a new source of nutrition gets imported).

I suspect very few people see eating spiders as morally wrong. Some hard-core vegetarians, perhaps, but nobody else. Most people wouldn't do it, but that's because it's gross, not unconscionable.

There are things that are wrong in some cultures, but not wrong in others.
Homosexuality.
Pre-marital sex.
Prostitution.
Gambling.
Drinking.
Smoking.
Drug use.
Dancing.

If say, a Puritan culture decided to outlaw dancing in their town, is that culturally justifiable?