Some years back, during the roaring nineties, Singapore's authoritarian Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, extolling "Asian values," attributed the lack of democratization in his own country, as well as its spectacular economic success, to the persistence of Confucianism.  Other pundits commenting on the then highly successful economies of the Asian tigers agreed with this nebulous "Asian values" hypothesis: the unique combination of acquisitiveness and communitarianism, familial love and harsh discipline, was behind the triumph of a hybrid breed of capitalism and a less repressive kind of authoritarian rule. 

This values debate was muted after the Asian economies came down with a terrible flu in the late 1990s.  But the mystique of "values" continues to puzzle observers of developing countries.  At times, they are inscrutable and unchanging; at others, they seem to adapt with incredible rapidity.  While Lee Kuan Yew reified unchanging values in his ideology of communitarian-authoritarian-developmentalism, he also recognized that values were not static.  He was acutely aware, for example, of the meteoric rise of Christianity in South Korea, arguing that economic development led to a desire for new belief systems as populations outgrew their old traditions. 

When American academics first began to focus on the political economy of development in the aftermath of World War II, they tried to attribute some of the difference between developing and developed countries to values.  Developed nations tended to subscribe to values like "meritocracy" and "efficiency" while developing countries tended to privilege "ascription" and "familism."  Put in modern parlance, and in relative terms, developed countries seemed to have functional institutions which rewarded productivity, while developing countries seemed to be mired in nepotism, corruption, and inefficiency. 

While the descriptive differences between developing and developed countries were accepted by many scholars, there was never a consensus around the direction of causality: did values cause development, or did development cause value change?  Many thought that with development, secularism and modernity would triumph.  Others, following the logic if not the letter of Max Weber's argument in The Spirit of Capitalism, thought that modern value systems were a prerequisite for development.

For the most part, this theorizing has turned out to have been a fool's errand.  A half century later, we understand spectacularly little about either values or development.  What we know today is that values may sometimes impinge development, and development may sometimes alter values, but we hardly know how either thing is likely to occur or when.  The South Korean embrace of Christianity is a good example.  Once upon a time, a country developing rapidly like Korea would have been expected to embrace secularism.  Driven by a recognition that the United States, one of the most developed countries in the world, is also one of the most religious, most scholars now recognize that development does not impede religious ties, and may even occasionally stimulate them.  But few countries have followed Korea's path: widespread adoption of a new religion alongside development.  And few could tell us when to expect a poor country to look more like secular Europe, persistently religious America, or transformatively religious Korea, after it develops.    

2. Tradition

One thing that is certainly true, however, is that when societies seem to be changing rapidly, social analysts are almost always surprised about the parts that persist.  I was not surprised, then, to see that the Hindustan Times was surprised about the surprising resilience of arranged marriage in India today. 

Some readers may object that marriage is not a particularly surprising place to find enduring traditions.  True: marriage is one of those social institutions that seem to persist through a great deal of social upheaval.  One need only consider how few supposedly "modern" countries will permit homosexuals to marry to see what great weight tradition carries in the minds of most people when it comes to marriage.  A less weighty confirmation can come in the form of watching liberal, progressive friends with grand views of social change fall into petty disputes about the "appropriate" wedding invitation, number of months in advance of the wedding to send the "save-the-date" card, the right place to register, and how many of their parents' friends to resist inviting.  We all end up getting a little moist around the eyes when it comes to marriage, except for the Europeans, who have largely stopped doing it.  But note: failing to marry is not a strategy which attacks the traditions surrounding the institution.  It implicitly recognizes the weight and responsibility of that tradition, and opts out.

The persistence of arranged marriage is still surprising to the Hindustan Times, and well it should be.  HT is not surprised to find that rural India still believes in and practices arranged marriages.  Nor is it surprised that urban India still practices arranged marriage.  No, the source of its surprise is that young people in India, or as it affectionately refers to them, Gen Now, still desire arranged marriages.  In fact, a recent survey by the paper found that over 90 percent of urbanites between 17 and 25 years old approve of arranged marriages.  Numerous interviews seem to confirm the view that arranged marriages are at least as acceptable as love marriages, and maybe more so.  It is not just that young people are okay with arranged marriages; they seem to prefer them in many cases.

The paper explores a number of hypotheses about the sources of this curious affection for tradition: young people are lazy and want help getting married from their parents, young people are insecure and want guidance from their parents in making tough decisions, young people are deferential and believe their parents know best.  But the most interesting hypothesis is the one which gives the credit for the persistence of arranged marriage to the institution itself.

Rather than young people remaining the same in the face of change, it is arranged marriage which has changed to suit them.  Gone are the days of forced marriages between people who have never met, at least in urban India.  Arranged marriages today involve choice, contact, and communication.  Indeed, the most remarkable shifts in the arranged marriage market are caused by the availability of social networking technology.  According to HT, 60 percent of women's marriage profiles posted on internet marriage and dating sites are posted by their families, not by the women themselves.  But then the families often stand back and let the power of the web guide the "arranging."  Families in this scenario take the first step- putting their kids on the market using a particular set of socially acceptable criteria- and the last step- approval- but they let the kids work out the details themselves.  In this respect, arranged marriages for young Indians are like match.com for young Americans: just another part of the portfolio of activities we undertake to meet new people and find a partner. Why not have your parents working for you to supplement your normal efforts?  Internet dating sites do the same thing, and probably less well.

Actually, all the hypotheses in HT point in the same direction: a recognition among young people that looking for a partner is hard, time-consuming and risky, and a search by these young people for outside help.  Indians have a tradition of arranged marriage which they can rely on as one among many tools to provide this help.  And relying on this seemingly useful tradition is exactly what they appear to be doing.

In the end, there is little to be surprised about.  Traditions tend to persist when they continue to serve a purpose.  Every once and a while, we adapt to them, persisting in behaviors that do not serve us well only because our parents did so.  Usually, however, they adapt to us.  As even Lee Kuan Yew recognized, traditions operate in a marketplace where they are faced with constant competition.  Only those that serve their customers can survive that kind of competition. 
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Unless, of course, they are forced down customers' throats by repressive political regimes.  But take note, Lee Kuan Yew: those "traditional" authoritarian regimes usually don't last forever either.  In Asia, or anywhere else.