Date: Friday, July 2, 2016

Participants (from 9 countries):

Teams

Panel PRO (Team A): Noorola, Hanieh, George, Elham, Jami

Panel CON (Team B): Djamila, Grace, Rick, Rose, Marina, Leilani (Special Guest)

Audience (Team C): Behnam, Masato, Amina.

Team A summary:

Noorola: When you marry for love there is an understanding between the two people. Money is just a tool to do some things. If they don’t have money but have love they can manage the other things. In north of Tehran, there are prosperous families, but a high percentage of marriages end by divorce even if they have money.
Hanieh: it’s better to marry for love. Marry for money the first marriage and the other ones for love. We need love in our lives. You can create financial security but not love. Love gives more pleasure and happiness. Financial security can be created by everyone; we don’t need to marry for money to have that.
George: you can’t share your body, your mind and your life with someone you don’t love. When you love someone, you share many things and you feel harmony. There is this feeling of attachment and it’s also normal to have needs that only money can provide. Nowadays, it’s not easy and people obviously have needs and we can’t blame people that choose marriage for money but love should come first, always.
Elham: It depends on ones’ personality and the purpose of marriage. Marry to love OR marry to money. It’s rather loving love or loving money. I do love money and it makes life easier but to marry I need love. Marrying for money and financial support is like using someone as a tool. I want to marry because I enjoy sharing my life with someone else, be part of someone and vice versa and you will treasure this person not his money. When you chose someone for money and you go on in life and realize they don’t have other essential things like, care, affection, understanding...etc. Money can’t guarantee that. When you introduce someone to your family, you don’t introduce them his purse but his personality.
Jami: when you marry for love you know that you’ll always have someone by your side. Money doesn’t have anything to do with marriage. Love is definitely more important than money. Love makes a marriage last longer.

Team B summary:

Djamila: People who don’t marry for love are considered unlucky, suspect, manipulative, and bad, from my perspective, they are just realistic and pragmatic. To me there are three reasons you should not marry only for love. Love is a changeable emotion, it’s not stable and not something I would trust. Love does not make for a strong enough foundation. Love is far from “all you need”

If we think about it, love is a luxury. When you marry for love, it generally means you have all of your other needs met (like food, shelter, warmth, etc.). I think things have changed through decades. Nowadays, in our attempt to make marriage stronger by raising the bar to meet our higher needs, and now that marriage is based on love and romance, we have seriously weakened the institution. People can marry for other reasons than love — such as to have children with someone they believed would be a good co-parent or in this case to have financial security or just for companionship and to me all the reasons are valid and we can make a good marriage with all of them.

I strongly believe that these kinds of marriages generally last longer and perhaps they are better marriages because their choices were made with a purpose. Their spouse wasn’t expected to be “The One.” They merely needed to be Mr. or Mrs. “Good Enough.”

Grace: before, when I was 19, I might have said that marrying for love is the most important things, but now, with the experience I have, I would choose financial security. Couples fight for money problems and it’s a fact. Love can come after marriage; I didn’t meet my husband before marriage but now I love him and I respect him because he takes care of us. Sacrifices are part of marriage and sometimes you need to sacrifice love in the beginning, it can come after. You will go through crisis and without money, it will be hard because you can’t live with love and feed with love.
Rick: you have two kinds for relationships in life. Business relationship, contract on a piece of paper or emotional relationship that’s based upon love and a contract between hearts. I believe that marrying for love is the foundation. The strongest foundation is the heart. It’s one of the major factors there is. The most important thing in a relationship is how you feel about each other. When you start to look at the money part of it, it becomes dangerous. Marriage should be an emotional partnership.
Leilani: love is important. If you find the true love that is worth fighting for. But you also need to pay attention because love can be blind sometimes and you see people the way you want them to be not who they really are.

Team C summary:

Votes:

Team A Team B Team A

Team A won this debate. Thanks everyone for participating. Below are the links to listen to this discussion.

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