In India, Love Marriage Ends in Divorce. Arranged Marriage Ends in Regret.

Once upon a time, in a land of rituals, rishtas, and WhatsApp family groups, a girl dared to fall in love. Her family gasped. Her relatives called an emergency Zoom. Meanwhile, another girl quietly married a stranger her uncle found on a matrimony site. “At least he has a government job,” everyone said.

Years later, both women sit on their beds—one drafting divorce papers, the other wondering if “this is just how marriage is.”

In India, marriage is not about love. It’s about surviving the great Indian family. And in that battle, love marriages often get crushed by expectation. Arranged marriages? They die slowly, out of emotional starvation.

But we still glorify both, as if being married is the win. Not being happy. Love marriage in India isn’t just a personal choice. It’s a rebellion. Against caste, community, astrology, and that nosy aunty next door. But the revolution doesn’t last long. Because after the wedding, comes the real test—“adjusting” to each other’s families, cultures, and food preferences.

Suddenly, that cute Bengali guy who loved reading Rumi now needs your mother to stop putting garlic in the daal. The romance turns into negotiation. And love, that pure emotional high, is now expected to survive on chai, compromise, and annual family trips to Vaishno Devi.

It’s not that love fades. It’s that no one tells you that love isn’t enough when you're carrying five generations of cultural baggage. Ah, arranged marriage. The great Indian outsourcing of life’s biggest decision to people who still forward “Good Morning” messages with sunflowers.

Here, compatibility means your stars match, your surnames don’t offend anyone, and the boy has “scope in Canada.” You meet twice, sip coffee in a room full of uncles, and are expected to commit to forever.

Emotional intelligence? Optional. Shared dreams? Irrelevant. But hey, if it doesn’t work out, at least you didn’t break anyone’s heart—just your own.

Years later, you’re still smiling in anniversary pictures, wondering if this is what stability is supposed to feel like. Or if numbness is just easier to manage than disappointment. Divorce in India is still whispered, like a dirty word. “Shhh... her marriage didn’t work out.” Meanwhile, regret? That’s perfectly normal. Wrap it in silence, tie it with duty, and label it “shaadi ka compromise.”

Love marriages are more likely to end in divorce, not because they fail more, but because the people in them have tasted freedom once. They know they have the right to be happy. Arranged marriages often last longer, but ask around quietly, and you’ll hear a different truth: they didn’t survive because they worked. They survived because leaving wasn’t an option.

There’s no statistic for silent suffering. But there are generations who can tell you what it sounds like. Whether you fall in love or fall into an Excel sheet of biodata, one thing is common—your happiness is not the priority. Your image is.

Marriage here is about settling down, not growing together. About looking good on paper, not feeling good in your soul. And once you’re married, your problems don’t matter unless they embarrass someone. Abuse? “Work it out.” Loneliness? “Have a baby.” Therapy? “Why are you overthinking?”

We teach our kids to dream, but when it comes to marriage, we hand them a script and say, “Just read your lines. And smile.” Everyone tells you how to get married. No one tells you how to be married.
We obsess over wedding décor, venues, and guest lists. But we never talk about communication, emotional labor, or mental health. We prepare brides to be good wives. We prepare grooms to be good providers. But no one prepares humans to be good partners.

So whether you picked your person or had them picked for you, you’re now inside an institution that never asked you what you want—only what you’re willing to sacrifice. In India, love marriage is judged. Arranged marriage is expected. But both can hurt in ways nobody warns you about. Because the real problem isn’t which path you take. It’s that both paths are laid out by people who forgot to ask: what if the person walking them wants more than just survival?

Maybe the next generation won’t settle for less. Maybe they’ll choose a relationship where love, respect, and freedom are required, not optional. And maybe, just maybe, one day, we’ll stop asking, “Love or arranged?”
And start asking, “Are you at peace?”