Catherine McKenzie: I blame fairy tales

Catherine McKenzie, author of Arranged, explores the idea (and appeal) of marrying a complete stranger.

Catherine: About a year ago, I got a message on Facebook from a book blogger asking me if I was watching a reality show called Married at First Sight. It was about three couples who would be matched to each other by "experts," meet for the first time at their wedding and then spend the next six weeks deciding if they were going to stay married.

Could I believe it?

Well, yes, actually, I could. Because, minus the reality television aspect of it — though we'll get back to that — I'd written a book about a woman who discovers an arranged marriage service and decides to use it. She's matched to a man by a — wait for it — "expert," and then meets and marries him in a 24-hour period. I wrote that book in 2006/2007. It's called Arranged, and it was published in Canada in 2010 and in the U.S. in 2012.

After I got her message, I tried to watch an episode of Married at First Sight, but it wasn't available on any Canadian channel I subscribe to (my husband calls this the Canadian television ghetto), and so I kind of forgot about it. Until a couple weeks ago, when the second season of the show — which I gather has quite a following now — began and I started getting several messages a day about it. And then that same book blogger (bless her heart) told me about another reality show with essentially the same premise (only this time they've deliberately put people together from radically different backgrounds, presumably because compatible couples are less compatible with good TV) called … Arranged.

And then I read an article in Entertainment Weekly that said CBS is developing a reality show about frustrated singles who let their friends and family hook them up with someone who they'll marry (presumably without meeting first). Tentative title: Arranged Marriage.

Now this is not the first time, of course, that something in the zeitgeist (oh, how I always wanted to use that word!) has produced similar shows or movies or books at the same time. There was that whole Wyatt Earp vs. Tombstone thing that happened in the 1990s. Or how Capote and Infamous got made at the same time. And last year, Katherine Howe's Conversion and Megan Abbott's The Fever covered similar territory regarding a rash of hysterical behavior among teenage girls.

All this to say that while it's not surprising that the idea central to a book I wrote years ago is now the premise of three television shows, it does make one wonder: How does that happen? (It can also make an author wonder: How does that happen without me getting compensated, but that's another conversation.)

So what is going on right now that the idea of marrying a complete stranger is so appealing? Are we really that desperate for commitment? With all the ways available to meet people these days — eHarmony and Tinder and a zillion online dating services, not to mention all the usual ways of school and work and bars and friends — are we really turning back the clocks to how kings used to find their queens? (Is it also a complete coincidence that Wolf Hall, the excellent adaptation of Hilary Mantel's novel about Henry VIII's struggle to be in charge of who he married, and divorced, is also on right now?)

I got the idea for Arranged through a confluence of events. I actually know two people (both men whose families are originally from India) who've had arranged marriages. Though they grew up in Canada and dated Canadian women, in their late 20s, both of them turned to their families and asked them to find them a wife. Traditional matchmakers in India were used, and six months later, each of them flew there to meet and marry the woman they would spend the rest of their lives with.

I was fascinated by this, especially by the women. Somehow I could understand why a man might agree to it, but not why the women would. My fascination only grew when I met these women, who were smart and educated and beautiful — the kind of women who would have absolutely no trouble finding many men to marry them on their own. I clearly had a biased idea of why someone might use an arranged-marriage service and I wanted to explore that bias. But even as they explained to me why they did it — they both believed that love came after marriage, and that shared backgrounds and goals were more important — I still didn't really get it.

Then The Bachelor started (and there was a spate of similar shows that have fallen by the wayside. Anyone remember Simon Cowell's version, Cupid?) and I really didn't get why 25 talented and beautiful women would decide to date one man at the same time (this of course being before being on The Bachelor became a route to a sort of D-level fame).

As I watched the show one night, I wondered aloud why they didn't just get married to a total stranger. And then I thought: That would make a great idea for a … book.

Alas, alas.

But this still left me with the central question: Why? Why, why, why would anyone do this?

So I thought about what kind of woman would do such a thing. What would make you turn away from societal norms about first comes love, then comes marriage, something that's been burned into our brains beginning with nursery rhymes. And then I realized that it was those very nursery rhymes, the fairy tales we tell our children, especially our girl children, that makes it all possible.

You see, growing up we read books like Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie and Twilight and The Hunger Games, and even though those books all show girls kicking ass in one form or another, they also have this fairy tale at their core: There is a right man for you. And that man will magically show up in your life someday. He might shine like a diamond in the sun, but more likely, he's the guy who was pulling your pigtails in class. And one day, you'll do something or he'll do something and you'll just know: He's yours. Your soul mate. The person you're supposed to be with for the rest of your life.

And maybe you do end up together. But in real life, the more likely outcome is that he ends up breaking your heart. And then what are you left with? If you can't make it work with the person the universe set you up to be with, then what?

Why not let someone else choose for you?

Why not have an arranged marriage?

And if a television crew comes along with the package, well … I guess that could work too.

And maybe I'm wrong about this, but you know what the most highlighted passage in Arranged is?

"You don't want to work to fall in love, you want to be in love. Like in a fairy tale."

I mean, who doesn't?

Find out more about Catherine and her books at catherinemckenzie.com.