Stefan Schaefer’s Arranged (2007) is a beautiful presentation of the ordinary life of women in patriarchal religions, and gently portrays the way that they find choice in their religious adherence. Based on the real-life story of Yuta Silverman, Rochel Meshenberg (Zoe Lister-Jones) portrays a young woman living with her parents in the Orthodox Jewish community of Borough Park, Brooklyn. Set across the backdrop of gossipy school teachers talking about their juicy weekend conquests, fellow teachers Rochel and Nasira Khaldi (Francis Benhamou), a devout Muslim, are both set to enter arranged marriages.
For Rochel, an arranged marriage means choosing an Orthodox Jewish man from among those picked out by her mother, her aunt, and the Shadchan (matchmaker). Each young man visits the Meshenberg home, introduces himself to Rochel’s father, and then takes Rochel to a nearby coffeeshop on a date. In contrast, Nasira is not given the advantage of dates out of eye and earshot of her parents. Young Muslim men come to her home and have dinner with the family. In both cases, it is stressed that those who know the girls best are well-suited to choose a mate that she can love in the long term, and not just for a year or two.
Is he Jewish?
What I found most interesting about this film was the frequent similarities between Islam, Orthodox Judaism, and other insular religions (including Mormonism), in terms of community, clothing, and marriage. While at the park, Rochel encourages her young brother to play with Nasira’s cousin. “But is he Jewish?” the brother asks, in the same unselfconscious way that I have heard many Mormon moms express concern about their neighbors. In another scene, Rochel’s mom demands that Nasira leave her home, threatening Rochel with what will happen if the neighbors see her. “You’re ruining your prospects!” she tells her, in reference to her marital chances.
Of course, the animosity between the two religions in the film is much more intense than that between Mormonism and mainline Christianity. However, similar, albeit less intense, scenarios play out in Mormon homes, over issues of whether daughters are surrounding themselves with friends of “similar values.”
I choose to wear it [the hijab]. It’s my choice. As an expression of my beliefs, and my adherence to what’s written in the Koran about feminine modesty.
I took out my endowments in 2002. I was not dating anyone, and had been a member of the LDS Church for about 2 years. The decision was a conscious one — I wanted to own my spirituality, and to have the covenants be about me, not about my future spouse or children. The Initiatory ritual was beautiful, and I found great joy in wearing the garment. It was my covering and it symbolized a promise I had personally made with God.
The day I took off my garments — that choice was also conscious, but it was motivated as a reaction rather than an action. My husband exerted light pressure for me to continue wearing them, prompting me take off the garment for good. I was not willing to let my choice of covering be motivated by someone else’s wishes. If I wear the cover — it is for me. Not because anyone else tells me that I should.
So he have wife, my great-great-grandmother, and she give him 20 childrens. . . She working to cleaning house, to cooking meals, yes? She does not sleep. She making knitting mittens. This is beautiful woman, and she satisfying biggest commandment God sending to woman, because Jewish woman is luckiest woman in world because her job is to serve Jewish man.
In a series of humorous sketches, a montage of Rochel’s various arranged dates is shown, with the men being universally “self-absorbed or [unable to] hold a normal conversation.” As Rochel asserts her unwillingness to settle, her mother uses every argument she can think of to force her to settle down: her father’s high blood pressure, her sister’s blighted marital hopes, the accomplishments that she was allotted time to pursue.
The scene reminds me strikingly of my first time in a single’s ward, as a 21-year-old PhD student and, I learned, an old maid by Utah standards. I am reminded of various friends: one who married a woman that his mother set him up with, a mere 6 weeks after returning from his mission; one who attended BYU to get her MRS, and graduated after 8 months; one who boasted of a fiancé from “fine Mormon stock”.
Ultimately, most Mormon marriages are not arranged in the same fashion as those portrayed in the film. But – I feel – the stress, the pressure, and the expectations may be similar. An oft-repeated quote from Spencer W. Kimball (1977) describes the mentality that I am trying to convey, which is that “[A]ny good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price.”
The issue of choice is one that comes up again and again in the film — Principal Jacoby (Marcia Jean Kurtz) is presented as the feminist voice, demanding that the girls consider the choices they have given away to their parents or their religion: choices in their careers, who they marry, and how they adorn their bodies. But the film is sympathetic to religion and so we are shown Rochel’s and Nasira’s responses to these accusations, both publically and privately. In the climactic scene of the movie, Rochel is confronted by Jacoby yet again over her religious choices, and responds, “Why is getting drunk and sleeping with some guy you don’t even know a better way of finding love? I mean, how is it more liberated than how we do it? I have a choice! The community has a choice. It’s different, yes, but I have a say.”
NEXT WEEK: Chris ponders the sacred and the profane in Quentin Tarantino’s brilliant ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994). For a more extended schedule, check in here.
I found the principal rather irritating. She wasn’t a voice of feminism. She was a voice of mocking. Had she been my supervisor, I’d consider getting a lawyer–something I think the Muslim woman even jokes about.
I was raised in, for purposes of this discussion, an orthodox LDS home. Went to BYU and experienced intense culture shock. Went to grad school. Married a non-LDS man at 28. Two years ago (I’m 41) I took out my endowments. My husband had to give “permission”, in writing, to express his awareness of the garment, etc.
I just went VT this AM, and the message for this month is about temples. One of the women I visited commented about how it is so nice how supportive my husband is of my temple/church attendance. It always floors me when people say these things. Honestly–like I’d marry someone who is controlling? Are that many LDS men so controlling? I really don’t think so.
Rachel, I had no idea that husbands of women who are endowed have to give such ‘permission’! Surely this policy won’t last long…
You’d be surprised how subtle their control is. I don’t even think the men that do controlling things are always aware of it, so no, most people wouldn’t knowingly marry a controlling personality. I think the church culture sets up and forms controlling situations that don’t look controlling from the inside, but from an outside perspective? Hoo boy.
I just had my VTs visit, and one of them is a young mother that is always making strange comments alluding to how many things she has to ask permission for to do, even in the way she parents her children! I haven’t met her husband, so I’m not sure what he’s really like, but she has had to defer to him about which school their daughter goes to (she disagreed) and whether it was okay for her to go talk to her daughter about an incident that he had already dealt with. And she doesn’t seem bothered by this! It is weird and a bit disturbing, but she doesn’t seem abnormally timid or anything. In fact, she seems very typical LDS in some ways and acts as though everyone has this type of relationship with their spouse. I wonder what she would think if she heard someone else talk about the things she does.
I also wonder if that goes back to asking permission to go to the temple. I’ve only ever heard about it in regards to wives needing permission. I wonder if it goes both ways? I would hope so, but I also don’t think it should matter. Educating the spouse, yes. Asking for consent? No.
And this is yet another movie that I am going to have to put on my list to see! Great review.
This.
I haven’t seen this film, but I’m anxious to do so. I am glad it looks at faith in a complex, sympathetic way. When you are raised with a certain set of expectations and beliefs, it doesn’t feel odd, it just feels like the way things are supposed to be. And, in tightknit insular cultures, there are rewards for participating in the system and sometimes devestating consequences for straying outside the norm. Great review, Kate!
Like Heidi, I also agree with this assessment.
I agree that Principal Jacoby was annoying and out of line, but I still contend that from a plot perspective, she played an necessary voice in the movie. I’ve had similar comments given to me in the past when I had made decisions for religious reasons, and I admit to thinking them from time to time as well. She speaks verbally and succinctly for the audience the things that many female religious adherents hear subtly and consistently from the non-religious world.
I’m pretty appalled that you had to obtain “permission” from your husband to take out your endowments. I might be able to see him needing a special session to make sure he was aware of them, or to ascertain whether he would be supportive. Wearing the garment is a huge life change for both the person taking out the endowment and their spouse. However, it seems like the ultimate decision would entirely be yours, and not require “permission” of any other party.
I should go see this film. How religion dictates your relationship and especially your most personal relationship is interesting.
I will note being an avid genealogist that inter-faith marriage does lead to cousins marrying cousins when you encourage to marry within a faith that is comparatively not that large. In the early Mormon church, there weren’t that many people who were told to stay within a certain area and marry within the faith. Of course the church has really moved past actually dictating marriages – but 4 generations ago it would not have been surprising to have the prophet visit your house and seal the man in the household to another wife. Some of these polygamous wives were handed from man to man to have them taken care of when one died. It seems to have created a caste system of sorts in the early church with some families being more able to have younger and pretty wives – or older wives of a prophet or apostle or person of status. This happened to most of my ancestors- except my ancestors received fat wives and sent to colonize remote locations or missions far off. When a Mormon with pioneer heritage meets another Mormon who has a pioneer heritage – you are almost certainly cousins because 100’s of children from one man lead to a massive heritage with the same gene pool.
Not being of Mormon “stock” myself, I don’t have these kinds of cosanguinous relationships in my direct family line. However, my husband’s dad is of polygamous ancestry. We have several times met with someone in our ward or at a social function and soon realized that they are “related” to my husband through that polygamous line. My husband jokes that he is part of the Church’s “out-breeding” program: his dad married a convert, he married a convert, his brother married a convert from the Philippines, etc.
It is interesting as well to note that there are some genetic diseases that are enriched in the Utah Mormon background, including hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and Alport’s disease.
I wanted to also speak to your personal experience of feeling like an “old maid” and pressured to marry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your experience. I’m sorry for my own. I’ve struggled and seen my wonderful powerful, educated sisters struggle with this most important impossible task the church assigns to women at 12 years of age or younger.
I’m glad now to be free to fall in love with a wonderful man – that is NOTHING like anything I learned in church. In fact everything about the church tells me – he isn’t the one for me. I love him -he’s the ONE.
I’m not faulting my parents temple sealing or denying that my sisters are both very happily living ultra-super-BYU-Mormon-sealed-procreating lives. I see people running the gauntlet the church throws down that I never seemed to be able to navigate and be truly happy – more power to them. But . . . my truth is that it doesn’t work for me, it never did. It took me a long time to realize, God gave me a gift and a love and if I need to leave the church to have a life. . . that is how it is. When I fall asleep at night after talking about my day with the man I want to talk to the most in the world, I don’t remember one lesson from Young Woman’s that even approaches describing how happy I am inside with the most WRONG person in the world – according to someone else’s paradigm.
I don’t have to wait to have a life . . . in this life or the next.
This is beautiful… thanks so much for sharing your experience.
Although mine is different in circumstances and details, I absolutely relate to the joy you describe, and your determination that God will give his children love in this life.
This is wonderful, Angie! I do wish there could be more understanding in the world that not everyone’s life is going to meet someone else’s paradigm. Life is far too complex and beautiful for that.
I think all these issues stray outside of religion as well. There are controlling men and women who allow themselves to be controlled in all cultures and faiths. Often religion becomes the “excuse” for why this type of behavior is acceptable, but even without it these dynamics will exist.
Yep.
I apologize for not getting around to answering comments before now – we were traveling through Monday and I have been trying to catch up on work since getting home. I’ll respond directly to each person’s comment, but I first wanted to thank everyone who responded! This movie was wonderful, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has even the slightest interest in comparative religion.
One other topic of conversation that I didn’t cover in my original post, but that is particularly relevant to the Mormon connection with this movie, is: What happens in an arranged marriage if one or the other spouse loses faith in the original religious tradition that motivated the marriage? Are such marriages more motivated by cultural and nationalistic ties, or by religious ties? How common is it for someone in these marriages to lose faith, or is this something that is unique to Christian religions?
Discuss!
Great question! I think it’s not uncommon but in some cultures there appears to me to be more opportunity, more room for moving outside one’s religious-related community and norms. I don’t really know but imagine it. I think moving away from SLC definitely influenced my personal sense of freedom, both in terms of gaining access to much more diverse world-views and how the increased intimacy with those world-views eased any fears of isolation.
Kate, thanks for this really insightful post and for encouraging me to see this film. I watched it last right with Laurie, my wife, and we both loved it. It was a rare opportunity to see a film covering a religious topic and feel like it was bringing us closer together. And that seems to be the film’s primary message. I loved the circle of inclusion scene in contrast to the previous day’s “Muslim’s want to kill Jews” scene. So poignant. And the whole thing was beautifully written, designed, acted and filmed. Just beautiful.
I found myself thinking again and again about how much we humans have in common and how much the differences are driven as wedges between us.
And the best thrills this film had to offer were those around revealing the courtships of each woman. It’s a deep, profound, and cheerful film all in one. Very rare and memorable.
So glad you enjoyed the movie! I agree that the “unity circle” was extremely well-done. I wasn’t quite sure what they were going to do with the kid who picked “Nasty,” but I was glad with the way it was handled. Makes me sometimes wish we could just have a unity circle in our wards, communities, and countries.