Introduction First Comes Marriage.Seriously? Are you sick of random dates that seem to go nowhere? Ready to move on to the next stage in your life? Wondering why you never seem to meet your Mr. Right or find the commitment you want? Or are you in a committed relationship and worried that your boyfriend or fiance may not be the perfect soul mate you always dreamed of ? If any of these sound like your current experience, then this book has some answers for you -- answers and insight that come from arranged marriages. When it comes to dating and relationships, the arranged-marriage approach has only one focus: fostering commitment and marriage. It's not about dating for fun or dating for the experience, or wasting months or years agonizing over the issues you need to overcome before you think you can get what you want out of both life and love. It's not about hotties, cuties, sexual chemistry, or soul mates. Instead, it's about finding the right partner, making the decision, and getting on with building a life of purpose and marital contentment together. That's pretty much what arranged marriages are all about.

And this book is all about sharing concepts, tips, and strategies from arranged marriages in a way that all of us can use to identify an ideal mate and maintain a happy relationship, not just for now but for life. These are life- changing lessons that will work for you, regardless of your age, culture, or past relationship experiences. And don't worry; it's not about convincing you to have an arranged marriage (I didn't!), but about understanding how you can make that approach work for you. But wait. Relationship advice from arranged marriages? I know, I know. The idea of dating or relationship advice based on -- or even in the same time zone as -- the arranged-marriage experience seems completely strange. Backward. Ancient.

If that's what you're thinking, I don't blame you at all. Until quite recently, I would have completely agreed with you. But keep reading and you'll see how and why the arranged-marriage approach is both a proven route to a stable and happy relationship and particularly insightful when it comes to many of our contemporary dating and love dilemmas. So if I didn't have an arranged marriage, how did I learn so much about this approach and how it can help us? I learned these lessons through five years of research and more than three hundred interviews with women in arranged marriages. And along the way, I found that arranged marriages have a lot to teach us about dating, love, and long-term happiness. From finding a great partner to falling in love, sharing a home, building a family and -- yes -- hot sex, arranged marriages offer amazingly practical and effective relationship strategies. And the best part is that you don't actually need to have an arranged marriage to feel the benefits. No matter how counterintuitive it may sound, the arranged-marriage approach to relationships offers lessons and guidelines that are increasingly relevant to the modern dating scene.

But until now, these lessons have been largely ignored and overlooked, even though they are lessons that many of us can benefit from tremendously. I firmly believe that there has never been a better time to be a woman than right now. Think about it: compared to any other moment in history, we have unlimited freedom for opportunity, fun, and sexual adventure. And then, when we decide we're ready, we can also have a stable, fulfilling marriage and family. But there's one catch: finding and sustaining andenjoyingmarriage seems to be getting harder and harder. That's one reason why women are increasingly taking lessons from alternative models from the past (rememberThe Rules, anyone?) and, as in this book, using these models to modify their approach to commitment and lasting love. According to Marian Salzman, coauthor ofNext Now: T.