Before you carry the tangent too far please remember that ideas like these were the standard in lots of different cultures for centuries, perhaps even millenia in some places, and there still may be places where it is practiced to greater or lesser degrees, and Japan is one such place where remnants of different ways of going about marriages is still practiced.
I would venture, though, that practices of arranged marriages or what not in and of themselves are simply another means to an end, just as the conscious act of going out and searching for a spouse on one's own is a different practice as well. There have been plenty of cases where whichever means to the end were utilized the result has been very good or very bad. Getting there is only part of the struggle, and perhaps even a part of lesser (not of no) importance - the main work is after the marriage takes place.
There is nothing inherently wrong, I think, with feeling a particular means to the end of beginning the marriage, family, home or what not is not to one's personal liking or taste.... But when all is said and done it is just a means and not an end.
Hmm. I am having trouble expressing myself on this, somehow.
