Playing with the Arranged Marriage Trope

Hmm... I think the setting has a lot of promise, but since there are some similar ones out there, I'd want to hear the plot of the story first!

Lyra Jean said:

While I know that anything can work if you write well enough I just wanted to know if this idea would make you want to read the story.

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It made me have a lot of questions, that was for sure.

1. While you get to choose who to mate with your mate decides where you will live.

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Is there a good reason for this?

Also, who is the "you" here? The man, the woman, the person who wins the coin toss?

2. Both Mars and Venus have opened up communications with Earth. You may choose someone from there. While it is not required we ask that you choose someone who wants to live on Earth.

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Are the people currently living on Mars and Venus humans or aliens? Why does the government want you to choose someone who wants to live on Earth? If it's that important, why not make this a requirement?

3. Since we are still in population decline we ask that each couple have at least three children. Gender is not important and you will be compensated for each child no matter which planet you live on.

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What does the government do to people who have two children, one child or no children? Unless it's a future or a world where people aren't infertile or where they don't have any health issues that would make pregnancy difficult/life-threatening.

4. You have one full year to make your decision. We suggest that you write to everyone of interest and make your decision carefully.

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No email? Facebook? Skype?

5. If after meeting you or the person you have chosen decides that you will not be able to fulfill your obligation then upon notification the government will match you up with someone else. You have one year to notify the government of this decision.

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Is the only obligation the have-three-children requirement?

6. Once the government matches you up with someone else you will not be able to petition the government for another change of mates.

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This makes me wonder: let's say the government matches you up with another person who can't fulfil the have-three-children requirement. Are you then stuck with that person because you can't petition the government for another change?

Or the government matches you up with someone who's willing to have three children, but after the honeymoon period they turn out to be controlling and abusive. Stuck with them again?

I'm all for arranged marriages and complex worldbuilding, so I hope all the questions don't come off as negative. They're just what sprang to mind as I was reading.

If the goal is children, why bother with marriage? If the problem is a dangerously low population, wouldn't it be better to have a different sire for each child for greater genetic diversity?

#5 Doesn't seem to be worded quite right. It should instead say that if you and the other person don't co-file a statement of choosing each other and intent to fulfill the child obligation within one year, then the government will choose someone for you.

I like arranged-marriage stories too, especially SF or F, but the set-up here needs more work. Is there anything special about the person receiving these rules, such that their genetic contribution would be more valuable than other people's, and that's why they get to pick? Or perhaps there could be something different about the people available to choose from, such as them not being human, and there would be some reason to encourage humans to interbreed with non-humans?

Lyra Jean said:

I came up with rules for this ...

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I am filled with the desire to form a rebel underground and overthrow the despots who set this up.

In other words, I'd be pulled away from the story you're writing because a different story obtrudes. I wouldn't get involved with
I'll meet a wonderful man and we'll get married and have lots of conflicts and fall in love
while I'm chomping at the bit to get to
This is unendurable tyranny. Let's stockpile weapons.

Mostly though ... Worldbuilding has to be plausible. Yours doubtless is and it's just not made clear in a short posting.

If I were a government and the population problem is that folks find kids tiresome, expensive and career-destroying -- I'd pay parents a huge stipend every year for each kid. I'd give parents maternity/paternity leave, free child care, first crack at the good jobs, preferential college admission, the most desirable housing, deferment from the draft, special parking places, free seats at the opera.

If the problem were infertility, I'd encourage promiscuity and extended families to care for kids.

If there were a need to match folks from different planets for some reason, then I'd make it profitable, fun and career-enhancing to relocate young. I'd make travel away from one's home planet free; the return trip expensive. Make employers set aside most jobs for off-planeteers. Make colleges and vocational programs only available to off-planet applications.


As to a forced marriage trope ...

Howsabout:

Instead of a tyranny that runs the lovelife of every single person on three planets ...
Let's say some of the population holds a rare recessive gene and it is essential folks with this gene marry each other and reproduce.

The government requires these marriages. They set up ways for these folks to get to know each other. They offer computer matching. They run singles tours. They provide old fashioned matchmakers.
If these folks don't pick a mate before age 21, the government does it for them, using computer matching.

There might be orders of cohabitation. Government kinkiness could ensue ...

job said:

As to a forced marriage trope ...

Howsabout:

Instead of a tyranny that runs the lovelife of every single person on three planets ...
Let's say some of the population holds a rare recessive gene and it is essential folks with this gene marry each other and reproduce.

The government requires these marriages. They set up ways for these folks to get to know each other. They offer computer matching. They run singles tours. They provide old fashioned matchmakers.
If these folks don't pick a mate before age 21, the government does it for them, using computer matching.

There might be orders of cohabitation. Government kinkiness could ensue ...

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Love, love, love!

I'll write it if you don't, Lyra Jean.

Hmm. It still seems odd that the government would try for marriages. They could simply reward men for donating sperm, then any couple who wanted to be together even if they were genetically compatible could get sperm compatible with the woman. So could single women, especially if they were living in a women's group home where the group members took turns providing childcare and meals. Marriages are very important in stable societies with little social mobility, strong religion, and a focus on inheritance. Marriages are usually the first thing to go out the window in any kind of survivalism/post-apocalypse setting because everyone has bigger things to worry about.

On the other hand, I can certainly see people in your set-up being assigned to live together in genetically compatible groups like a singles cruise or mixer, or co-ed college dorms; they might even pay for this service. If they were re-colonizing certain abandoned places on earth (maybe they have natural resources that no one has been gathering since the apocalypse) then the government or corporations certainly might plant colonies of genetically-compatible people at these locations. The more isolated the group, the more it would resemble an arranged marriage.

Lyra Jean said:

That's why I posted this here while I was still in the rough draft stage. There are a few online dating sites that let you choose what you are looking for whether it's marriage, just dating, or friends only. Maybe I can have a similar set up like that so the person has options besides marriage.

Thanks, I will definitely take it into consideration.

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Personally I think you'd have an easier time setting up a future arranged-marriage story that would be fun to read if you traded in the plague/genetic-damage setting for something that isn't post-apocalyptic, but whatever you choose I'll look forward to hearing about it as the idea progresses. Also, out of curiosity, is this inspired by all the Harry Potter fanfics about marriage laws passed after the defeat of Voldemort due to heavy casualties in the wizarding world, and the desire to pressure purebloods and muggleborns to intermarry instead of saying culturally separate and, in the purebloods' case, getting inbred?

For point 3 you mean sex, not gender. Sex is male/female. Gender is masculine/feminine.

LA*78 said:

For point 3 you mean sex, not gender. Sex is male/female. Gender is masculine/feminine.

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Hm. Had to look this up, because I use 'gender' the same way as OP.

While the classical usage is masculine/feminine, the word has come into recognized use in both contexts. I thought this citation in the (OED) Oxford English Dictionary interesting (bolding mine):

gender, n.

3.a. gen. Males or females viewed as a group; = sex n.1 1. Also: the property or fact of belonging to one of these groups.

Originally extended from the grammatical use at sense 1 (sometimes humorously), as also in Anglo-Norman and Old French. In the 20th cent., as sex came increasingly to mean sexual intercourse (see sex n.1 4b), gender began to replace it (in early use euphemistically) as the usual word for the biological grouping of males and females. It is now often merged with or coloured by sense 3b.

b. Psychol. and Sociol. (orig. U.S.). The state of being male or female as expressed by social or cultural distinctions and differences, rather than biological ones; the collective attributes or traits associated with a particular sex, or determined as a result of one's sex. Also: a (male or female) group characterized in this way.

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Lyra Jean said:

You know I read all the Harry Potter books except for the last one. Actually the inspiration was that I love sci-fi but I can't write Hard SF even though I love reading it and Bollywood films.

Most of the books I read where it involves the colonizing of other planets within our solar system Earth is always a powerhouse dominating the other planets. I just want Earth to not be a powerhouse so Post Apocalypse was the only thing I could think of to make that happen.

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The Marriage Law Challenge was started in the Harry Potter fangroup WIKTT (When I Kissed The Teacher, focused on the Severus Snape/Hermione Granger pairing). This was in 2003. The challenge was quite popular with fanwriters and spread to other pairings and, with modifications, to other fandoms.

Janet Miller's Gaian series are futuristic romances where Earth tried to be domineering of their colony world Gaia but Gaia is kicking Earth's butts in a war in the first book, and is victorious and independent in subsequent books. Gaia ends up short on women because the earth space military destroyed the main girls' school on the planet while the school was in session, killing a huge number of female students and staff. On the other hand this series has the odd element that gaian males are sexually neuter when not bonded to a woman. They can't masturbate or anything - seems a bit dehumanizing to me, somewhere between sad and disturbing. And the worldbuilding doesn't even acknowledge such a thing as homosexuality.

Other than that, there are many sci-fi series where colonizing a planet requires a long voyage in cold sleep, in which case it would basically be impossible for Earth to have any authority over a colony because of the years' delay to travel there. Or there are set-ups where an alien race transplant one or more groups of humans from Earth to start colonies, so those wouldn't be under Earth's control at all. It's also easier to get away with inventing an Earth-like planet if it's not in our solar system, because in reality Venus is pretty much never going to be livable by humans. Mars has some pretty big challenges due to the low gravity meaning it can't keep an atmosphere. And the Moon is incredibly poisonous.

I'm not sure whether to say this or not -- but I think the scientific basis of your worldbuilding may need some fine-tuning.

I) Not tonight, Honey. I have a headache.
Let's say folks everywhere are just not reproducing.

But ... If a population infertility problem can be solved by fertile women having 3 kids, you're talking about maybe 25% of folks are infertile, give or take. If there were much higher levels of infertility, the remaining fertile women need to have more than three children each to compensate.
(There is math for this. Don't make me get out my calculator. You wouldn't like me with my calculator.)

So ... is 25% infertility a crisis? (US averages 7% to 10% infertile.) How hard is it to find a mate when 75% of the boys on campus are fertile? How necessary is government intervention, beyond making many kids very desirable?

Does this work as a story?
I'm already reaching for my uzi when the government tells me who to take to bed. And 'Forced Sex' might be a turn on. *cough*.
But 'Forced Baby-Making' is not a turn on for me. No.

II) -- That Special Someone. If people must be matched within a small group of specific other people, there has to be some reason for this. (In Fantasy, of course, it could be a complicated curse or incompatible magic. In SF, there has to be science-ing.)

I could come up with two possible science-y reasons.

a) Gene Damage. Okay. Scenario One is that folks acquired a lot of recessive gene damage from biological warfare. It tended to hit specific genes. The government arranges matches so the male and female do not have the same bad genes. Their bad genes don't overlap, as it were, so the kids are fine.

But no breeder in his right mind would do this because it increases the overall number of bad genes. You can, with time, reduce the number of bad genes in a population but none of the ways for doing this would be gentle and happy as background of a Romance.

Does this work? Turning serious here -- having 'bad genes' IRL is sad and terrible and full of human tragedy. So is infertility. This stuff is pretty common. I don't know how well this works as the basis of a Romance story, even if you keep the gritty reality of it well away from the action.

Not so much science-y
(Returning to happier if completely irrelevant thoughts --
I will just say that mating incompatible magics -- the government is doing this to create superwizards -- gives you forced sex and might lead to disastrous consequences in bed as the pair try to keep it all under control.)
But I digress.

b) Subtypes. The second possible science is illustrated by purebred dogs.

Perhaps the human race has split off into specialized versions. Some fly. Some breath under water. Some are supercomputers. Maybe -- given the war background -- folks are different sorts of soldiers. Perhaps long inbreeding in the lines has made everybody unhealthy and only semi-fertile

Nobody wants to abandon the status quo. Naturally, they only mate within their own group. Naturally, they despise every other group.

The government wants to restore humanity to a multipurpose animal. They want to stop internecine warfare between human computers and human visual artists by making everybody a mongrel.

Only some members of some human subtypes can match to produce fertile hybrids. Thus our MMC and FMC wind up in bed together.

But in the long run careful mating will bring everybody into one breeding pool. Think of dachshunds and wolfhounds. They can't interbreed. A couple generations of careful crossbreeding with other purebred dogs and everybody's great grandkids can romp it up with everybody else's. All mongrels.

Does this work? I think so, but I also think it's very far from what you're playing around with.

Lyra Jean said:

So perhaps I can make everything a sort of profession with child-bearing and raising a family as one of the professions along with other skills needed to help build up society.

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Lots of woman want to have children, so you can decree that your FMC does. That would separate her outrage at being coerced into sex from any outrage about being forced to have kids. So her internals work.

It does seem difficult to come up with a reason for the forced sex that doesn't involve the need to produce children. You probably need the forced babies to make your story work.

When it comes to your reader dealing with the baby-breeder thing -- I've given just my take on it ... and spoken out loud only because you're asking for opinions. This doesn't make it some sort of universal opinion.

I think maybe you just have to accept that some readers aren't going to like the trope. This is true of any kinda story you write. (I write spies and you would not believe how many people tell me they don't like spy stories.)

So don't feel you have to change stuff because this kinda story doesn't appeal to everybody.

I'll try to help you make the trope plausible ...

Look. The problem with mating the gene damaged to one another is the gradual buildup of bad genes. You could make these directed matings a temporary measure. Five or six generations maybe. Say laboratories are beavering away to learn how to repair the genes themselves -- and they have a good prospect of getting it done.

Lyra Jean said:

So perhaps I can make everything a sort of profession with child-bearing and raising a family as one of the professions along with other skills needed to help build up society.

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This is an interesting concept. It's hard to imagine a society where a woman would be paid for having children rather than the other way around, but I'd like to move there, lol. On the other hand it would really suck if having babies was the job you wanted but you could be rejected for it due to your genes or something. If anything that would be worse than our own society's problem that so many people want to be artists and writers compared to how few people want to employ them.