My parents met in a liberal Protestant church singles' group in Berkeley, California. Once couples married they had to leave the group, so the married couples formed their own group. This married couples' group stills meets monthly more than fifty years later.

Of the thirty plus couples who were involved in the the married group for more than a short period of time none divorced. They are now working on their second millenium of happy marriage. Pretty good for a bunch of liberal Protestants from Berkeley, California.

As a teen I attended many of the monthly get togethers so I got to see many of the marriages in action. They all seemed relaxed and reasonably happy. The wives were fairly assertive. The couples were only marginally religious, and while they were not at all radical, they were not conservative either.

While my parents group was liberal, other more conservative groups report similar success. My former landlord meet his wife in a Catholic singles' group based in San Francisco. The married couple from this group only meet about once a decade so they can not be as sure of their success as my parents group, but nevertheless my former landlord reports that he has not heard of any divorces. Other Catholic singles' groups I have contacted claim similar records of almost perfect success in avoiding divorce.

But whether the records are perfect or almost perfect they are clearly far better than the typical American success rate, and probably have a better success rate than Third World arranged marriages.

It is surely understandable if the Third World is not impressed by the mess the First World has made of courtship and marriage, but I would argue that the West does have a very good model in the religious singles' group.

As many people in the Third World are uncomfortable with arranged marriages perhaps they should look into this successful model of allowing marriage partners to choose for themselves.

More of my web pages on religious singles' groups

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