Men running away from arranged marriages

[Jabrosky]

We've all heard of the cliche about feisty heroines running away from arranged marriages, but what if it was the man who ran away from the arranged marriage instead? How come that apparently isn't as common in fiction as women running away?

[Argentum]

I think that in fiction, women always want to get married, so the part where they all of a sudden change their minds is what makes the story interesting. As I understand it, the guy never really wants to get married, so the challenge is to get him to go to the alter. She wants to get married, then turns around and runs away (unless it's an arranged marriage in which case she'll run away to escape). But he doesn't want to get married in the first place, then finally submits. I don't know why these two scenarios are more popular, but it would be nice to see them reversed.

[Will]

So, we picturing Tyrion Lannister running away from an arranged marriage with Brienne of Tarth? Something like that? Depends on the circumstances I suppose, could work. I always felt that arranged marriage's are quite sexist, in the times/places of female oppression, you're more likely to have a woman forced into it unwillingly than a man. Think you could often get the male family shopping round for the best bet, whereas the female never gets that privelage.

[ThinkerX]

I have a male character in an arranged political marriage who takes a very long trip in large part to get away from his wife. In the initial draft, he wasn't shy about the odd fling or two while away from home. (In the ongoing rewrite, at tales end, he finds out his wife had him declared legally dead so she could claim his titles and marry her true love interest).

[Jabrosky]

I have a male character in an arranged political marriage who takes a very long trip in large part to get away from his wife. In the initial draft, he wasn't shy about the odd fling or two while away from home. (In the ongoing rewrite, at tales end, he finds out his wife had him declared legally dead so she could claim his titles and marry her true love interest).

This has a few similarities to the idea bubbling in my own head right now. My male MC is forced to marry an overbearing, spoiled brat of a woman, but when she proves too much he runs away to another country where he finds his true love. This doesn't go over well with the MC's wife, who starts a war between the two countries.

[Mindfire]

I think this has a lot to do with how our culture views marriage in relation to gender. A woman running away from (or cheating in) an undesirable or unhappy marriage is likely to be seen as brave and adventurous, while a man doing exactly the same thing is considered to be a selfish coward. Go figure.

I'm not condoning this of course, I think it's a horrendous double standard. But for whatever reason, it exists.

[Devor]

It's because the men are usually assumed to have a lot more say in arranging the marriage. Men are more aggressive, so they'd be prone to confront the arrangement in other ways than by running off. They're more likely to bully their way out of it.

[Jabrosky]

It's because the men are usually assumed to have a lot more say in arranging the marriage. Men are more aggressive, so they'd be prone to confront the arrangement in other ways than by running off. They're more likely to bully their way out of it.

This may be true as a general rule, but what if the woman's family had more power (in whatever sense of the word) than the man's? I would think that could complicate any effort on the man's part to bully his way out of relationship (and my male MC isn't the bullying kind anyway).

I've started an outline for a story based on the OP question. The hero is a prince from Kingdom A who has to marry the princess of Empire B to prevent Empire B from blowing up Kingdom A (Empire B is the only civilization in the story's world with gunpowder technology). When the princess proves to be an overbearing and spoiled brat, the hero runs away to Kingdom C, where he falls in love with their queen. When the hero's wife finds out about her husband running away and having an affair, she has Empire B invade Kingdom C.

[Caged Maiden]

Historically, all people expected to marry. Also, men and women of middle class or lower class had quite a lot of say in the matter, often being wed by their parents to a neighbor or child of a friend. It was only the upper classes which had what we think about as an arranged marriage (for political reasons), and in those arrangements, more than one son was disappointed. True enough once the deal was signed, the woman might be locked away while the man cavorted with other women, but there were many wives in the renaissance who found their own happiness in life even when they hated their husbands. But for the vast majority of people, happiness and love were secondary to duty and respect, and often love grew between strangers who mutually respected each other and did their duties as partners. Many men even spoke out about laws which allowed a man to beat his wife (of course women were still technically the property of their husbands even if they had careers or owned property in their own right).

In fantasy, of course we can write whatever we want, and I have included unhappy arranged marriages where people show up at the altar begrudgingly. But I also have written some sort of hand-fasting weddings, where people basically turn up, make a gesture, and are married. In the feudal system, if you wanted to marry, you had to ask permission from your lord. But I swear I've read of instances where country weddings happened without church sanctions and such. So I don't know whether that gives you any inspiration or whatever. I love the idea of adventuring to get away from a spouse you don't like.

[Chilari]

You know what else isn't seen often as far as arranged marriages are concerned: both parties being perfectly happy with the situation. Of if this is ever the case, it's the parents of the bride as they try to tell her that arranged marriages aren't so bad. In my WIP, my protagonist and her co-leader and best friend negotiate an alliance which includes arranged marriages for themselves and some other elite women, and marriages where the courtship is of very short duration for the common folk, because all the marriage ceremonies of the common folk are to happen on a set day, a few days after the arranged marriages.

I'm treating all the elite-class marriages in my WIP as political in their inception.