Arranged Marriage

Here comes the bride, as per our arrangement.

There was a girl
And there was a man
And there was the girl's father
Who said, "You will marry this man."

— Through the Woods, "A Lady's Hands Are Cold"

In an arranged marriage, the two spouses do not choose each other. Instead, others, usually their parents or guardians, make the selection and arrange the date and any other conditions that might apply, such as the dowry, for them.

The way an arranged marriage is treated by the plot depends on place and time. For most of human history, arranged marriages were the norm because "marriage" was less about the union of two souls and more about the union of two families. The rise of the "Marry for Love" ideal didn't really start in Western culture until the 16th century, and there are places on Earth where arranged marriages continue to be the norm. Additionally, the "Marriage Before Romance" trope often goes hand-in-hand with arranged marriages. While the priority firmly is the union of two families, that union is dependent on the stability and comfort of the two people getting married, so the two families do try their best to come up with a Perfectly Arranged Marriage. The couple's happiness just isn't the main goal the way it is in cultures where marriage follows from love.

However, the one thing that is almost always present in an arranged marriage is tension. Most people don't really want to marry a total stranger (much less have sex with them), and if that total stranger turns out to be a complete rogue and a cad, it may be necessary for the heroes to spring into action and rescue the hapless member of their group who is being forced to walk down the aisle. (Of course, being Big Damn Heroes, they'll have to do so in the most overblown and dramatic way possible.) Sometimes, the person in the arranged marriage takes matters into their own hands and becomes a Runaway Fiancé. The "aggrieved" party may claim Breach of Promise of Marriage in response, as arranged marriages tend to be viewed as legally binding commitments by those who initiate it. Alternately, there's a Love Triangle. The character of the suitor is less likely to be important in those cases, but they generally won't look kindly on the outsider's interference.

It's worth noting that historically, an arranged marriage would not usually be to a complete stranger as far as most people were concerned. Most marriages took place between families that knew each other well—perhaps as vassal and liege, business partners, or (for the vast majority of the people that weren't merchants or noblemen) simply neighbors and friends. At least in the context of Europe, prospective spouses would have opportunities to interact socially and form an opinion of each other, and their feelings would naturally factor into their parents' thinking on the matter. The modern stereotype did, however, often apply to the political marriages of the royalty and high nobility, where the spouses might not even speak the same language in extreme cases.

Conversely, an Arranged Marriage can be used to lock the hero and heroine together so that their disputes can not end with one of them washing their hands of the other.

A common tactic is for the child of a wealthy but common family to be matched with the child of an impoverished family with a title: Nobility Marries Money. Families may even pledge infant children in marriage pacts that cannot be concluded until many years later.

Both in fiction and in Real Life, royal children (sons as well as daughters) were used as pawns in the political game cementing alliances and peace treaties with their marriages. You might say it was their job to take part in such Altar Diplomacy.

The Arranged Marriage is Not to Be Confused with: an Arranged Friendship (the platonic version); a Childhood Marriage Promise (whereby a prepubescent couple voluntarily pledges their own non-legally-binding, future troth); a marriage which may arise out of convenience; or a marriage that arises from some kind of cultural mistake. For clarity's sake, the Arranged Marriage trope will deal only with more binding, traditional types of unions.

See also Parental Marriage Veto, You Have Waited Long Enough, Old Man Marrying a Child, Homosocial Heterosexuality, Royal Inbreeding, and Marriage Before Romance. A Shotgun Wedding is a short-notice forced marriage. If someone agrees to an Arranged Marriage but loves someone else, Courtly Love may be involved. If the people doing the "arranging" in the marriage aren't the parents, that's a Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage.

Often involves Prince Charmless and Rebellious Princess. At least recently, one of the potential spouses was as likely as not to try to defy this. When the audience really doesn't want this marriage, expect the Big Damn Heroes to show up right at the Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace line.

To see the types of follies and foibles associated with modern dating services, see Dating Service Disaster. Supertrope to Perfectly Arranged Marriage. Can overlap with Marriage of Convenience. Contrast Marry for Love. Compare And Now You Must Marry Me. Compare and contrast Fourth-Date Marriage, where the couple likewise barely knows each other but it was Love at First Sight. Also see Wedlock Block.

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Example subpages:

• Anime & Manga
• Literature

Other examples:

Arts

• The Exchange of the Princesses at the Spanish Border from the Marie de' Medici Cycle depicts the marriages of Anna of Austria to Marie's son Louis, and Louis's sister Elisabeth to the Spanish king. Both were political marriages arranged for alliances.
• Marriage A-la-Mode, a series of six paintings by William Hogarth, depicts the arranged marriage between the son of the bankrupt Earl of Squanderfield and the daughter of a wealthy bourgeois alderman. The marriage is a disaster almost from the start; the couple are completely uninterested in each other, with Viscount (later Earl of) Squanderfield gambling and bedding a syphilitic young girl and the Countess carrying on an affair with the lawyer Silvertongue and neglecting their child. Ultimately, the Earl is killed in a duel with Silvertongue when he discovers the affair, while the Countess poisons herself after Silvertongue is hanged for her husband's murder.

Blogs

• Limyaael's Fantasy Rants: Limyaael's thoughts on the arranged marriage plot device.

Comic Books

• Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld: Prince Topaz initially has a politically-driven betrothal with Lady Sapphire, but backs out at the last minute.
• Captain Marvel: Captain Marvel 2014 #9 involved the planet Aladna, where women had the right to marry whomever they pleased, but men could be married off at will by their families, whether they liked it or not. Lila Cheney, a friend of Carol's, had inadvertently gotten engaged to Prince Yan, and while she had the ability to back out, Prince Yan told Carol that he couldn't ascend the throne without getting married and that making men able to marry freely would be one of his first official acts as a ruler. He asks her to marry him, but she already has a boyfriend, so she refuses. Ironically, she ends up essentially fighting a duel against another woman for his hand (she enters the duel to protect her friend). She wins, and now that she is essentially engaged to the prince, she uses her new authority to give him the right to marry whomever he wants and recommends that all men be allowed to do the same.
• Convergence: The Supergirl: Matrix tie-in establishes that Lord Volt and Lady Quark aren't happy together because they were forced to marry each other by their parents (and it's also implied that they're gay). This is contradictory towards how Crisis on Infinite Earths consistently depicted Lady Quark as genuinely loving her husband and being upset about his death when she became her world's sole survivor after it was wiped out by the Anti-Monitor.
• Extreme Justice: During Maxima of Almerac's time with Extreme Justice, it was revealed that part of the reason she'd been obsessed with finding a mate, preferably Superman, was that if she didn't, royal protocol dictated she'd have to mary a fellow Almaracian named Ultraa, whom she despised. The same applies to the Post-Flashpoint version of Maxima, who is even less interested in marrying Ultraa.
• Hound: King Connor tasks Cú Cullan to escort Emer to marry him. Neither the king nor Emer has seen each other and the bride-to-be is unhappy that she is promised to a man older than her own father, and not by her will. Connor annuls the wedding when he catches Cú Cullan staying late with Emer, who has developed feelings for Cú Cullan.
• The Inhumans: In a storyline set during Secret Invasion (2008), the Inhuman Queen Medusa needs an alliance with Ronan, the ruler of the Kree Empire. He demands Medusa's sister Crystal as his bride. Over Crystal's objections, Medusa agrees.
• Nikolai Dante: Jena Makarov is put in this position twice, once to Mikhail Deriabin, and once to Arkady/Dmitri. Both end in blood.
• Relative Heroes: Allure's hand in marriage on her 17th birthday was promised to the son of Posidon when she was still an infant by her mother in exchange for Allure having supernatural beauty and essentially being a Living Aphrodisiac, though she did at least get a Compelling Voice out of the nightmarish deal. She's able to finagle her way out of the engagement by finding a loophole in the wording.
• Runaways:
  • Karolina and Xavin are brought together by one of these. This might've been tricky to do as Karolina is a lesbian... but Xavin is a shapeshifting Skrull and can get around this problem.
  • A darker example from the same series was Klara Prast and her husband. Poor Klara was sold off to her husband at a young age because her parents found out she was a mutant. Mr. Prast beat her, sent her off to do dangerous work to earn money to buy booze, and then demanded that she perform... marital duties. Thankfully, she decided to leave him when the Runaways offered to take her back to the present, though, ironically, she almost declined because of her fear of the above-mentioned happy couple.
• Scion: King Dane arranges for his daughter Ylena to marry King Bron in order to end the war between the kingdoms. What no one knows, however, is that "Dane" is actually Mai Shen in disguise and the real Dane has been abducted.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): Princess Sally's parents were the result of an Arranged Marriage, but they're happy together. Sally's father, on the other hand, tried to set up an arranged marriage between Sally and her fellow Freedom Fighter Antoine D'Coolette. She wasn't thrilled about the idea but went through with it because she felt it was her duty. The groom turned out to actually be Antoine's Evil Twin, however, and the marriage was hastily annulled.
• Superman: In the Post-Flashpoint Krypton parents often choose their children's spouses via gene-matching, although this custom was being phased out by the time of Kal and Kara. A Supergirl story showed Alura wanting to get her daughter gene-matched, and Kara complaining she wanted to choose her partner freely.
• Tales of the Fennick: In the shortlived Furry series, the series began with a prologue story with a mother telling her story to her children about how as a girl she was being maneuvered for an arranged marriage by her parents who were losing patience with her continually and defiantly exercising her lawful right to refuse the beaus they are offering. Several suitors later, she found her last beau is actually no more enthusiastic at their meeting than herself. However, a combination of the boy showing that he is a genuinely kind and charming fellow and the chance meetings with gossipy friends who assume they are engaged puts them in an awkward position as they are both growing to like each other. In response, make a secret pact to stall any wedding plans by pretending to have a long engagement so their friends and family will leave them alone. As it is, the mother admits to her daughter that this was simply a mutual rationalization to allow them both to submit to social expectations while feeling that they have some free choice in the matter since they married in the long run. At this, the young daughter playfully declares she is not going to marry, but become a soldier like her father. The mother humors her about this in the prologue story, but in the series proper, the mother is shocked to learn that her now-adult daughter is now an even more strong-willed, if more quietly defiant, girl than herself who is still serious about following through on that intention and imitating her mother's self-deceptions is not going to be enough for her.
• Teen Titans: Starfire (Princess Koriand'r) has twice been married to men from her home planet and both times she went through with the marriages to satisfy family and political obligations. The first time this happened, Starfire was romantically involved with Robin (Dick Grayson) and she didn't understand why Grayson was so upset. She said that in her culture, marriage was merely a social obligation; she did not believe that her marriage to another man should interfere with her romantic relationship with Grayson.
• Through the Woods: "A Lady's Hands Are Cold" opens with the main character, a young woman, entering an arranged marriage with her husband, a wealthy man.
  There was a girl
  & there was a man
  And there was the girl's father
  Who said, "You will marry this man."
• Usagi Yojimbo: The series' premiere Action Girl, Tomoe Ame, is roped into an arranged marriage engagement by her young lord who gets talked into by a villainous adviser on the idea that she should be happy. Whether that kid will realize that he should have had the simple logic and decency to ask if she wanted it (she does not, but is too loyal a proper samurai to protest) is unanswered for now.
• Wonder Woman Vol. 1: Prince Gaston of Barania promises King Ersatz of Skizofrenia that he will get his nephew Philippe, heir to the Baranian throne, engaged to Ersatz's daughter. Philippe is completely uninterested and has already proposed to the woman he loves, which Gaston uses as his "proof" Philippe is losing his mind (as Philippe's fiancé is not royalty) in order for Gaston to imprison Philippe and take over Barania.
• X-Wing Rogue Squadron: Plourr was betrothed to her cousin, Count Rial Pernon, in childhood by her father. On assuming the throne of Eiattu, Plourr accepts this arrangement, partly as he's her strongest supporter.

Comic Strips

• Terry and the Pirates: Normandie Drake is an heiress and Pat's true love. They grew close when he worked for her father. Her high society aunt refused to see her marry a "commoner" and forced her into an arranged marriage to the weak-willed Tony Sandhurst. When She and Pat meet again, she is pregnant with Tony's child and is committed to the marriage. When they meet again during the War, Normandie's child Merilly is four years old. When she discovers that Tony is working with the Axis Powers, Normandie still refuses to divorce him.

Eastern Animation

• Gypsy Tales: In "Káló, the Gypsy Lad", the council of elders arranges for Káló and Gilze to marry. At first, Káló is unwilling but has a change of heart when Dimkárta reveals that Zurdána, the woman he falls in love with, "only toys with the lads of the dry land, making fools of them."

Fairy Tales

• In The Brothers Grimm's tale "Maid Maleen", both she and her prince have arranged marriages; she refuses hers and thus gets locked in a tower, and he goes through with his because he thinks she's lost to him forever.

Fan Works

Alice

• There's a complicated example in Through a Looking Glass, Darkly: Jack was genuinely in love with Grace. Then his parents brainwashed her into being someone more suitable. By the time we catch up to them, he's given up on getting the girl he fell in love with back, and considers his engagement with her to be purely political and arranged by his parents.

Amphibia

• Sasha and the Frogs: Much like the main series, Sprig and Maddie are part of an arranged marriage. However, it is broken much earlier.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

• Avatar Blood In The Air: Iroh has an arranged marriage to Huan Yu.
• Restraint: As kids, Zuko and Mai were arranged to be married. They did end up married, but for completely unrelated reasons. After Zuko was banished, Mai was engaged to Zuko's father Ozai. This is why Mai was so ready to die at Boiling Rock.

Azumanga Daioh

• Cold Nights: In the epilogue, Tomo's parents keep on trying to get her to marry, despite the fact she's been dating Yomi for five years.

The Caligula Effect

• The Caligula Effect: Placebo has Natsuki and Eli, both members of upper-class families, whose marriage was arranged... very close to birth. As Eli put it, "They realized a Yuasa and a Minobe were pregnant around the same time and ran to sign the papers". However, both of them have since found people to actually love, even if they can't annul the marriage in Mobius.

Code Geass

• Dauntless (Allora Gale):
  • Lelouch is forced into one with a noble girl named Abigail after being discovered and brought back into the Royal Family. Surprisingly, she ends up turning into quite the Ensemble Dark Horse.
  • Schneizel was also supposed to marry a European (what specifically, not noted) noble, but he keeps putting it off because he knew there would be no real point to it as Britannia was going to attack the EU eventually.

The DCU

• In If I Can't Be Everything To You, You'll Be Nothing To Me, Damian was first promised Cain's sister, Abele, as a bride, in an alliance between the Al Ghuls and Barnetts. After it was revealed that Damian was gay, Cain approached him and offered himself as a spouse instead. At first, Damian did not want anything to do with Cain, but after a series of events that make him feel alone, he agrees to marry Cain, hoping that he and the Barnetts will fill the holes in his heart left behind by Jon and Bruce and the other Batkids.

Death Note

• In the AU Dark Fic The Faceless (Disguise of Carnivorism), Light's parents arranged it so that he would marry Misa for her fortune.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

• Irreversible Damage: Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson's marriage was essentially this. Mrs. Jefferson had originally been dating Greg's father when they were in school, but their parents forced her to break up with him and marry her current husband, despite his being ten years older than her, because Greg's father wasn't well-off enough for their liking.
  Frank: I know I'm not as rich as Robert, but I love Linda and I know he doesn't!
  Linda's father: Come back when you're rich and we'll discuss this again!

Discworld

• Gap Year Adventures: Arranged marriages are a sub-theme. Rivka ben-Divorah has a Yenta pursuing her across a continent to keep reminding her it's now time to find a husband who should preferably be a good -m -fearing Cenotian boy in a profession. Klatchian graduate Assassin Miriam bint-Alhazred is sympathetic, explaining how the first thing that happened to her on graduating as an Assassin was to be trapped into an arranged marriage. ^note Miriam is now a Black Widow. Mariella Smith-Rhodes becomes horribly aware that her own mother has plans for her. Mother has graciously accepted she isn't that into Tim Bellamy. however, Horst Lensen is expressing an interest in you, and he's a good boy with a stake in a vineyard and winery. Then her brother Danie is sent to Ankh-Morpork to court a very acceptable young woman from a good Boer farming family, who is therefore a very good catch as a daughter-in-law.^note  The catch is that she's a graduate Assassin who on a visit Home took an interest in Danie As both his parents put it — Boer soek'n vrou! — the farmer needs a wife.

Encanto

• Sara in The Seer and His Butterfly only came to the encanto to escape her Tía and Tío's attempts at marrying her off to a significantly older man, her marriage to Bruno being a convenient way to ensure it doesn't happen.

Frozen

• Darkness Burning: Anna ends up in an arranged marriage. Elsa is too scared to marry, so their parents have Anna get married instead. Both sisters are resistant at first but Anna goes along for Elsa's sake (and because her parents said that she only had a choice of a few suitors or else they'd stop trying to arrange a marriage). Anna ends up marrying Hans' brother Joachim with some nudging from her parents. They get along well and fall in love eventually, however they initially didn't get along and Anna admits to sometimes doubting whether they're a good match.
• Played for Laughs in What About Witch Queen? when Original Character Kai learns that his father, an Arendellan baron, wants to marry him off to Queen Elsa. Kai is rather terrified of the possibility, as he's convinced this would be just a great catastrophe and that Elsa doesn't even notice him. His father consoles him that he'll wait until the end of war before pushing for the marriage

Harry Potter

• This is also used as the backstory for pureblood/pureblood marriages like Lucius and Narcissa's. One example of this is Honour Amongst Snakes, which turns into a Perfectly Arranged Marriage.
• in If Them's the Rules, Marchosias Malfoy attempts to arrange a marriage between Harry Potter and his sister Madeleine to protect Harry from the attentions of Arcturus Black.
• In Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue, the Death Eaters within the Ministry force through a law to require unmarried witches and wizards to marry by a certain date, with many of the arranged pairings being blatant attempts to put those opposed to Voldemort under the power of his allies (eg, Hermione and Draco). Harry and Hermione put a stop to this by contacting Prime Minister John Major, who, with help from Tony Blair, confronts Rufus Scrimgeour on this issue and forces him to ensure the act is repealed by pointing out how many British laws it would violate.
• The plot of The Marriage Stone, where Harry has to marry Snape in order to avoid the machinations of the Ministry, but before long the marriage may determine the fate of the world.

Haruhi Suzumiya

• Heavily implied by Gratuitous Japanese and a conversation with a character's father in Kyon: Big Damn Hero. Between Kyon and Tsuruya. Confirmed later, and they're not too happy — though this is less because they dislike each other, but because they both realize what will happen when Haruhi finds out. Turns out, Haruhi isn't near as angry as they thought she would be and Kyon and Tsuruya come to terms with their engagement.

Hellaverse

• The Prince and the Thief: While it hasn't been finalized or anything, it's treated as a given that Moxxie will be paired off with Hellsa Von Eldritch, who treats Moxxie's one-night stand with Striker like it's infidelity.

Hetalia: Axis Powers

• Aside of the aforementioned cases, several real-life country unions/pacts/colonizations/etc. are seen as this in the fandom. The most popular cases are: the Auld Alliance between Scotland (an Original Character at the moment) and France, the Kalmar Union between Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, either the Iberian Union or the Anglo Portuguese Alliance for Portugal, etc.

Higurashi: When They Cry

• Surprising Butterflies: It's mentioned likely that Mion will likely be forced into an arranged marriage because she's her clan's heir. She realizes this but still wants to Marry for Love instead.

How to Train Your Dragon

• In Crash Courses in Marriage, Hiccup and Astrid are roped into an arranged marriage. To their parents' credit, they thought the kids wouldn't have any problem with this considering their big public smooch at the end of the first story. As it is, they are not enthusiastic at all at being forced but admit they are each other's best choice in better circumstances and decide to cooperate.

The Hunger Games

• Glimmer of Hope: Cato's Story: In the Career Tribute districts such as Districts 1 and 2, it is custom for victorious Tributes to marry the next available Victor from their district so better tributes can be born. Cato's parents Severus and Livia are one such pairing, as are his brother Ajax and Ajax's wife Drizella.

Invader Zim

• Witching Hour: Gaz's father King Membrane betroths her to Iggins, the son of Baron Jiggins, which she's not happy about since he cheated to beat her in a hunting competition, and is in general a chauvinistic Jerkass. However, before it can go through, Iggins mysteriously collapses and dies after Gaz punches him, making it look like she killed him and lending further credence to the rumors that she is a witch. In actuality, Zim killed him with an invisible death ray as part of his larger plan to frame Gaz.

Kill la Kill

• From Kiryuuin Chronicles, we apparently have this and a Shotgun Wedding with Ragyou's marriage to her abusive husband, while she was pregnant by someone else with Satsuki and she notes that her parents picked him for her, along with the fact that she wasn't really given a choice, aside from being disowned. Naturally, she hoped it'll work.
• Happens as part of Nonon's backstory in Natural Selection. She was originally forced into a loveless marriage by her father. When her fiancé said he was planning to force her to give up her band conductor dreams, it proved to be the final straw for her after a long life of acting as her father's business proxy, leading to her running away from home and eventually joining Satsuki's crusade against REVOCS.

Kung Fu Panda

• In Memoirs of a Master, Shifu's girlfriend, Yeying, is seemingly being pushed around by her parents to submit to an arranged marriage to an old creditor and only saved by the fact that she was made the student of Master Oogway, which means he has full In loco parentis authority of her, and the turtle would never allow a student of his to be treated like that. Much later, it is revealed that this was all part of a masterful plan by her parents to protect her from being forced into that marriage until she married someone she loved and was skilled enough to defend herself. The end result is that her parents and Shifu are merrily taking wagers of how and how fast Yeying would send the creditor packing.

The Legend of Zelda

• The Arrangement is a webcomic where Ganondorf and Princess Zelda are arranged to be married. This is done in hopes that Ganondorf won't be tainted by Demise. The arrangement starts when Ganondorf is five (and Zelda is only a few years older than him), but they aren't due to get married until Ganondorf comes of age.

The Lord of the Rings

• This is very popular, especially to get a purity-lover together with Legolas, or to give her something to spunkily run away from... straight into Legolas' arms. Some fans tend to believe that the higher class Hobbit families (mainly Brandybuck and Took) marry through arrangements, which is a good way of adding fanfic drama. This belief seems to come from the fact that Merry is an only child, Pippin has three older sisters and no brothers, and only one child of his own (a son), which could suggest that the parents simply get separate bedrooms once an heir has been born. There is, however, no indication in Tolkien's work that this is actually the case.
• In A Most Sensible Idea, Frodo is entered into an arranged marriage with Thorin in order to open up new trade routes with the Misty Mountain. At the end he doesn't go through with it - Bilbo, who has been chaperoning him, falls in love with Thorin and marries the dwarf himself.

Miraculous Ladybug

• The main conflict of Wed Locked is Marinette being forced into a marriage by her maternal family.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• An arranged marriage happens in Arranged Disaster, although, after thinking it over, Twilight is willing to go through with it because she understands the importance of leadership:
  “Oh! I get it!” She smiled suddenly, and Celestia stared nervously.
  “You do?” That wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting.
  “Of course! The parents put their brightest, most talented children together to keep their businesses strong and respect the honor of their families, as well as guide the non-nobles around them to a better future!” Twilight bobbed her head.
  Celestia stared down at her for a good while, working her jaw. Shoot. Luna was so much better at not getting embarrassed about this. “Y-yes, of course Twilight, that’s exactly it.” Celestia nodded. She would find a… better way to explain this. “The Bluebloods will be expecting you to lead those around you to a better future.” ‘And have lots and lots of super-powered babies.’ Celestia groaned at the thought.
  “Don’t worry Princess.” Twilight looked down at the street again, at the many citizens of Canterlot. “I promise I won’t let you down. Even… even if I don’t like this, I will fulfill my duties as a noble, and create a stronger next generation! Even if I have to dirty my own front hooves to do it!”
  Celestia hid a laugh with a tiny snort, and bobbed her head. “O-of course Twilight! You will be an excellent leader.”
  “And I will fulfill my duties no matter what. Even if it’s with Blueblood or any other pony.” Celestia did her very best to not grin. “I won’t take it lying down. I will be up on all four of my hooves fulfilling my duties, and not just in some fancy house! Blueblood and I shall strengthen the generation no matter where we are, in the castle, out on the streets, in the clouds- Princess?”
  Celestia had suddenly collapsed, shaking with laughter.
• Nav gets forced into one with Gilda in Diaries of a Madman, due to him causing a political scandal. Eventually, he finds a way out of it.
• Harmony Theory: The griffons and changelings have eugenics programs. The Solar King also has the power to arrange this. He uses this power to betroth Star Fall to his son.
• Maternal Instinct: Queen Chrysalis' daughter, Crown Princess Pupa, is arranged to be married to her first cousin, Prince Morphin. It is evidently a common practice in Changeling society, as well as marriage within the family, although the latter is particularly attributed to the royal family and other nobility.
• The Mixed-Up Life of Brad: Marriages like this are rather common among pony nobility. Thanks to the talents of Princess Cadence, who can make ponies fall in (or out of) love as needed, they are happier than human arranged marriages.
• The MLP Loops:
  • Were a thing in 177.21. Applejack was with someone she thought might have been a pony version of Thorin Oakenshield (but didn't know whether he was Awake or not), Fluttershy was with Caramel, Rainbow Dash with her old bully Hoops, Octavia with Prince Blueblood, and Twilight was with Flash Sentry.
  • In Loop 202.12, Filthy Rich's marriage to Spoiled Milk was an arranged one, but Filthy wound up having a one-night stand with Applejack, whom he admitted was the one he really wanted to marry, after being told. She got pregnant, and Diamond Tiara - who was subsequently raised by Filthy and Spoiled, though with the promise that if she found out about her birth mom and wanted to rejoin her, she could - was the result.
• Yet another example involving Prince Blueblood happens in This Platinum Crown, due to Princess Celestia promising to reunite the Terre Rare and Blueblood family lines. As a result, Blueblood becomes engaged to Lady Antimony. This being the sequel to The Best Night Ever, he and Rarity have become an item after his Character Development in that fic, so she's understandably distraught upon finding out, and Antimony tries to soften the blow by saying she'd make a fine first mistress for the prince in question. Ultimately, since Antimony wanted to marry Blueblood for the sole purpose of gaining political power, it's Rarity who wins out in the end, due to her own desired marriage with him being one of genuine love.
• RealityCheck's Nyxverse:
  • Attempted in Alicornundrum, wherein Prince Blueblood's father gets Night Light, the father of Twilight Sparkle (who recently became an alicorn and was coronated as a Princess a few chapters earlier), drunk enough to sign a marriage contract between Twilight and Blueblood (in an attempt to sire a new unicorn heir to the throne) without Night Light realizing it until the next day. Twilight and her parents, of course, are understandably outraged over this, and Twilight convinces Lord Blueblood to sign an annulment immediately afterward. Upon reviewing the marriage contract, Celestia declares it invalid, only for Lord Blueblood to attempt to take it to court... which enrages Celestia so much that she immediately proceeds to verbally lay it onto him as to just how illegal the contract is, including such charges as statutory rape, pony trafficking, blackmail, and treason - to say nothing of the fact that Celestia herself imposed all of the laws against the above charges, thereby preventing such contracts from being implemented legally. Understandably, the terrified Lord Blueblood immediately accepts the annulment. (Word of God was that this scene was intended as a rebuttal to another fanfic involving Twilight being married off to Blueblood, which the author hated due to everypony from Celestia to Twilight carrying a massive Idiot Ball throughout the entire story.)
  Celestia: "I could not keep parents from bullying their children into agreeing, but I could hinder them from damning their children to a fate they never wanted before they were old enough to even object. In the end, thank the Maker, that little bit I did was more than enough to choke the practice out. DID YOU IMAGINE FOR A SECOND THAT I WOULD REFRAIN FROM BRINGING MY FULL POWER AND WRATH TO BEAR AGAINST ANYONE WHO TRIED SUCH A THING WITH MY MOST BELOVED STUDENT?"
  • A later chapter reveals that the above incident was neither Celestia's nor Duke Blueblood's first rodeo as far as this trope was concerned. While being roped into his father's latest scheme, Prince Blueblood recalls a time when, to make an example of one of his cousins, his father convinced the mare's father, successfully, to marry her off to a wealthy but abusive stallion. In response, Celestia arranged for a fatal "accident" to befall the new groom during their honeymoon, allowing said cousin to inherit his estate. The mare in question is heavily implied to be A.K. Yearling, a.k.a. Daring Do.
• Zig-Zagged in What Hath Joined Together. Since marriage options depend on your social class, one can either marry a few ponies or not marry at all, and as an alicorn, Twilight Sparkle only has the high-ranking unicorn Captain Ironhoof as a legitimate suitor. After being narrowed down, regular dating occurs, and ponies like Princess Cadance play matchmaker to help those relationships go smoothly (though, Cadance doesn't exactly like the idea, even though she was fortunate enough to get a husband she adored).

Naruto

• A Growing Affection:
  • Even though it is frowned upon and cannot be enforced in the Leaf Village, Hinata's grandfather seems to enjoy doing this. Hyouta arranges a groom for Hinata and hand-picked Hiashi's second wife.
  • Nyoko tries (and fails) to arrange her own marriage to Naruto, knowing her father will accept it and afraid she will get forced into a bad arrangement otherwise.
• In War of the Biju, Fugaku Uchiha intended to arrange one between his youngest son Sasuke and the Hyuuga Clan's heiress, Hinata — most likely to ensure the Hyuuga Clan's loyalty under the new regime should Uchiha Clan's coup succeed. He died before anything came of it.

One Piece

• In One Piece: Parallel Works, Aki is in an arranged marriage, which fuels the events of the Noblesse Oblige Saga.
• In This Bites!, to deal with the influx of strong pirates in their shared territory, the Accino family arrange a marriage between their youngest daughter Lil and the same-age Buratto of the Hiruno family, a far more ruthless and sadistic group of bounty hunters. It's clear that none of the Accino family are happy about it, with Don Accino only accepting it as a means of protecting his family, his children (sans Lil) asking the Straw Hats to sabotage the wedding while helping to set it up to get their flag back, and Lil admitting to Robin that while she likes Buratto as a childhood friend she can't bare her family working with their sadistic counterparts. Thankfully, a third choice is brought to the Accinos by Vivi: disregard the wedding and join Alabasta as one of its guardians, defending the coast from both pirates and marines.

Persona 4

• In One Year, Hitomi, one of Yu's old friends, is engaged to a somewhat older man, and will marry after she graduates from high school. Hitomi's fairly conflicted about this, since she knows that since her grades are mediocre at best, her job prospects aren't much better, but she also knows that she'll have little freedom and will most likely be strongly discouraged from seeing her friends again. As for the man himself, Hitomi knows that he is a kind person at heart, but also that he's subservient to his family like she is to hers, and as such, does not love or fully trust him.

Pokémon

• In a sidestory of Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, the elders of the Blackthorn Dragon Clan attempt to pressure Clair into one, on the grounds that they need to secure an heir for the future of the clan. Some of the candidates include fellow Gym Leaders Falkner and Morty, as well as a couple of Drayden's grandsons, but they all fall through due to various reasons.
• According to the artist of Rebuild of Pocket Monsters: The Animation, both Professor Oak and his son were in arranged marriages. However, arranged marriages aren't common in Ash's time.

RWBY

• Camellias (based on a series of fanart) is a RWBY Alternate Universe Fic where Blake and Weiss are in an arranged marriage. Upon meeting at age ten, Weiss has a fit because Blake is a faunus girl, but things go along much smoother when they meet again several years later.
• In RWBY: Scars, Jacques tries to marry off his daughter Weiss to Cardin's father Maximus. Not only is Weiss not into men, but she's also not interested in marrying a man old enough to be her father.
• White Sheep (RWBY): Jacques Schnee tries to arrange a marriage between his daughter Weiss and Jaune. When Jaune points out that he's already getting married, Jacques says that multiple wives are an option, as are mistresses and concubines. Weiss is sitting there the entire time, and not amused. Especially since she's one of the only girls in the story without any romantic interest in him.

The Smurfs

• In Empath: The Luckiest Smurf, Psyches are bonded to members of the same sex with the Psyche Master choosing the partners. Empath, as it turns out, has been bonded to Polaris Psyche.

A Song of Ice and Fire

• A Dragon's Roar:
  • Jaime is betrothed to Elia Martell, both to forge an alliance between the Westerlands and Dorne, and to spite Aerys for refusing to wed Rhaegar to Cersei (as he wanted Rhaegar to marry Elia instead). The fact that the pair are already interested in each other helps.
  • Rhaegar tries to arrange a marriage between Daeron and Ashara Dayne, but the Lannisters are ultimately more successful in managing to tie him to Cersei, while Ashara gets married to Ned Stark.
  • Brandon is arranged to marry Catelyn Tully, but he breaks the betrothal to elope with Barbrey Ryswell, causing trouble with House Tully, while Rickard Stark considers betrothing Lyanna to Edmure Tully. This ultimately doesn't happen, however, as Lyanna instead ends up betrothed to Robert.
  • To secure the Greyjoys' loyalty to Daeron's faction, an agreement is made to wed Asha to Jaime and Elia's firstborn son.
  • Daeron arranges for Viserys' betrothal to Arianne Martell.
  • After the Civil War, Cersei arranges for Tyrion to marry Ellyn Rowan when they're both of age in order to secure Tyrion's control of Goldengrove, which is given to him as a means of punishing the Rowans for siding with Rhaegar.
  • Also after the war, Catelyn is betrothed to Stannis.
• Avoiding one is the main motivation for Alys Boleyn's actions in the early story of Forum of Thrones. After her father betrothed her to Dante Karstark against her will, she ran away from home, leaving her father and her fiancé to try and follow her.
  • Alisa Karstark's backstory holds a remarkable similarity, only that she ran away from home to avoid being married to a member of House Forrester.
  • The marriage between Darren and Mileena Reyne is one of these. At least from her side, it is also a Perfectly Arranged Marriage.
• Since A Man of Iron is based in Westeros, marriage is more about political gain than love.
  • As in the source material, Robb ends up engaged to a Frey girl. Contrary to canon, Ned Stark intends to honour the betrothal, only asking to screen Lord Frey's daughters and granddaughters to find the most suitable one for his son. Walder Frey is ecstatic about it.
  • In the past, Houses Martell and Stark sought to bring their families together via a marital pact, but it didn't go anywhere since Horard Stark's only offspring was male - Antony Stark. When Tony adopts and legitimizes Jon Snow as his heir, Oberyn Martell remembers the pact and presents his eldest daughter as a bride for the teen.
• A Northern Dragoness revolves about fulfilling the Pact of Ice and Fire, which is giving a royal princess to marry the heir to the North. On Daena's side, this is a Perfectly Arranged Marriage - because she's so desperate to escape her brother's madness she would marry anyone. Jonnel has many more reservations about the matter.
• Robb Returns features a number of arranged marriages that weren't present in canon.
  • After Domeric and Sansa fall in love, Ned and Roose sit down to discuss a marriage contract.
  • As in canon, Robert plans to marry Sansa to his eldest son Joffrey. However, he finds out that Sansa is already betrothed to Domeric Bolton. Ned argues that such marriage is key in ensuring House Bolton's loyalty, and cancelling it would cause a huge rift between the Starks and Boltons, and the current situation with the Others demands a unified North. Fortunately, Robert decides to let the issue go without much fuss.
  • King Robert suggests two other marriages between their respective children: Bran and Myrcella, and Arya and Tommen. Ned doesn't oppose these but warns Robert that for a Kindhearted Cat Lover like Tommen, a tomboy wild girl like Arya might be too much to handle.
• Wearing Robert's Crown: Unsurprisingly, very few of the marriages in the fic are anything but politically arranged. Cersei, in particular, protested hers loudly. Most of them seem to work out though.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

• The Fanon has an arrangement called j'fallen in the Trill culture. The Symbiosis Board itself occasionally sets up two Joined Trills for marriage on the justification that their children will be of better stock and more likely to be among the Joined elite of the society. How well it works depends on the author.

Star Trek Online

• Discussed in "To Absent Friends". Vulcans usually do arranged marriages but T'Var's parents thought it more logical to let her seek her own mate.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil

• A few of the Queens of Mewni end up in these, which is natural, since they are princesses living in a dimension where society resembles medieval-to-Victorian times.
  • Averted with Festivia the Fun. Gold Stone offered to arrange a marriage between his nephew Quartz and Princess Festivia, but her mother refused, not wanting to force her daughter. However, Queen Febe had Quartz accompany young Festivia in hiding in the Silvan Kingdom during the Mud Dweller Rebellion, in the hope that they might fall in love naturally. It worked, but not right away.
  • After a STD rendered her infertile after the birth of her first and only child Etheria, Queen Asteria took it upon herself to match her daughter with a noble son without any serious issues in his family medical history. She chose Germain Fields. At first, they hated each other, but over time, they developed a sort of friendship, which eventually gave way to affection.
  • Etheria continued the tradition of arranged marriages by betrothing her daughter Skywynne to Filbric Flowers. Luckily, it was a Perfectly Arranged Marriage, as the two had met beforehand and become instantly smitten without knowing the other’s identity.
  • Averted again with Skywynne’s daughter, Soupina the Strange. She was betrothed to Persian Waterson, who she actually liked a lot, but he died due to the sickness plaguing Mewni at the time. Soupina was devastated, but eventually found Second Love with friend and commoner Osmond Cross.
  • Zig-Zagged with her daughters, Galaxia and Pulsaria. They were engaged to two Redbird brothers, Galaxia to the older Heron and Pulsaria to the younger Condor. However, each sister ended up falling for the other’s fiancé, and vice versa. So technically they both had a marriage with a Redbird as intended… just not the ones they were originally promised to.
  • One day, Queen Meteora the First walked in on her daughter Hekatia to give her supper. It’s never explicitly said what she saw Hekatia doing, but it was drastic enough that Meteora forbid her to choose her own husband and promised her to Edmund Cross. They would end up Platonic Life-Partners.
  • Eclipsa was given some agency over her arranged marriage, by being given three options and choosing one. She chooses Edric Flowers after he saved her from a Pie Folk assassin (who had also been one of Eclipsa's options, and the one she nearly chose until he tried to kill her), and they would become a Perfectly Arranged Marriage. After the supposed death of her first husband and their only child, Eclipsa was forced to marry Spiderbite Prince Shastacan (who had been the last option) in the hopes of producing a new heir to replace the dead princess. Eclipsa hated Shastacan and mourned her husband and daughter. This is when she met and fell in love with Globgor.
  • Heaven the Scared was betrothed to Sir Arthur McKnight, partly to further strengthen the recently ennobled House McKnight, but also because Arthur and his father were two of the few people Heaven actually trusted.
  • Diana tried to betroth her second oldest daughter Etheria to Lancel McKnight, but Lancel's mother would accept no less than the heiress, Sky. This match was also a Perfectly Arranged Marriage to the point that Sky died from Death by Childbirth exacerbated by despair after Lancel died.

Story of Seasons

• Storm Clouds And Grey Skies: Leia's grandmother wants her to marry a merman of her choosing because she's worried about Leia's love life. Leia doesn't want to, but she also doesn't want to disrespect her grandmother by declining. Claire convinces her to speak up for herself.

Sweeney Todd

• In fanfiction, Benjamin and Lucy Barker are sometimes said to have had an arranged marriage, which is odd as (a) arranged marriages were nearly kaput by the nineteenth century, (b) it seems unlikely that Lucy's parents would aim no higher than a barber, and (c) the way the man who used to be Benjamin remembers Lucy gives every indication of it having been a love match. The arranged marriage is often used to undermine their marriage in a case of Die for Our Ship.

Transformers

• In the Bright Spots, Megatron is arranged to marry Crown Prince Starscream in order to strengthen the political bond between Vos and the Decepticons.
• In "Just to be clear, I don't like you", Ratchet is arranged to marry Optimus by the Senate in an attempt to keep tabs on him. It fails when Ratchet finds himself genuinely falling in love with his new mate.

Crossovers

• In the Kingdom Hearts/Game of Thrones fanfic A Songof Ice Fire And Heart, Robert Baratheon forcibly engages Roxas to his daughter, Myrcella. This is because he believes Roxas to be the son of Ventus, who happened to be one of Robert's best friends before the latter grew angry with him because his rebellion caused the deaths of innocents and ended their friendship. Despite what happened, Robert still saw Ventus as his friend and regrets the day he left, so he wants to make Roxas a prince because Robert believes he'll be making it up to Ventus.
• In the backstory of A Strange Engagement, Stan Pines entered a High Stakes Poker Game involving Bill Cipher, Him, Aku, Danny Phantom, Morrigan, Grim, and Sirzechs Lucifer. During the game, the topic of families came up, which eventually led to all of the drunken players betting marriage contacts involving their respective kids (and in Stan's case, his newly born great-niece and nephew). Stan won the contracts (among other riches), which force Dipper and Mabel in the present to enter a magically bound arranged marriage with several children of the Underworld.

Other

• Khaos Omega pulls a Heads I Win, Tails You Lose variant in "Fairy's Eclipse":
  • Before meeting a reporter friend Anise visits Jude to arrange a marriage between her and Lucy. She specifically tells Jude she knows the identity of the woman who impregnated Lucy (it's Anise herself, forced by Inextinguibili Raptus Mark III to do so), and will only reveal it if Jude agrees, otherwise any potential partners Jude comes up with will only see Lucy as "damaged goods" because of her earlier rape. Jude agrees after correctly identifying her as the owner of the multiversal superstore 'Sky Relic Central', allowing him to keep his fortune should his current choice of industry focus suffer a total economic collapse.
  • Another Lucy-and-Anise example happens during the second installment of the "Rogue Genesis" subset. This time around it's Lucy's punishment for allegedly setting three Celestial Spirits to butcher Bora and his crew. In actuality, though, the Spirits in question (Aquarius and Taurus, which Lucy did have at the time, and Aquarius' boyfriend Scorpio, then contracted with someone else) are actually from another multiverse (specifically that of the subset's first installment, where Erza was convicted for her part in building the Tower of Heaven - she had avoided a Sadistic Choice that made up plans A and B for Sho and Simon to let Rogue Genesis get her, and an accidental murder that would've been plan C was outright negated in a Shout-Out to what allowed Anise to punish Fontina Evans and Michaela Martin at the end of her Los Santos vacation). On top of that, they had arrived on their own, not to mention being far more powerful - the power boosts a corrupt Rogue Genesis court blamed on Virgo, still under contract with Everlue at the time, for which Leo's punishment via the Celestial Spirit King was transferred to her and her contract with Everlue transferred to Anise. To put the final nail in Lucy's proverbial coffin, Jude says four words (which is a Shout-Out to Super RWBY Sisters) that not only enables the Meme Storm tangent named "Fairy Gear" to realize its full multiversal potential, but also evolve Anise's Inextinguibili Raptus Mark III curse into Mark IV. Oh, and part of the situation for Lucy is that she has to wear long, formal dresses at all times (as part of why Virgo got dragged into the mess).
    
    To further the above Shout-Out, when Rogue Genesis caught up to Weiss she too ended up on the receiving end of an arranged marriage to Anise as her punishment. Jacques made sure that Anise couldn't bring Weiss with her when she visits her teammate Natsume's own lesbian harem by invoking a limiter that made Weiss' businesswoman outfit require her Vale bolero in place of the outfit's usual blazer (which also makes Weiss unable to wear the bolero's associated wedge boots, noted to be a heel Anise especially loves with a heel type other than her normally-preferred stilettos, because a businesswoman's normal heels are pumps).

Films — Animated

• In Alpha and Omega, Kate is to be married to Garth, to prevent war between rival packs. That plan is disrupted when she and her omega friend, Humphrey, are darted and relocated to a distant American park. As the pair struggle to get back to Jasper, Garth inadvertently falls for Kate's omega sister Lily and thus both are in an awkward situation when Kate returns. Even though both confess their true feelings with Lily perfectly willing to substitute for Kate, the packs don't accept this and go to war that sparks a caribou stampede that threatens the pack leaders, but Kate and Humphrey's rescue of them convince them to change their minds.
• In The Book of Life, although there's no official agreement, General Posada is clearly planning to have Maria marry Joaquin. Joaquin genuinely did want to marry Maria, but not if she had to be forced; and they end up not marrying after all.
• Brave:
  • The firstborn sons of the three lords compete to the Highland Games to win Merida's hand for marriage. Merida does not want to be married right now and wants her freedom so she actively sabotages their chances by entering the archery contest (As she was "the firstborn of a Lord", she was technically perfectly allowed to compete). And at the end of the movie, the three sons reveal they weren't exactly thrilled either at the idea of getting married just yet, only keeping quiet out of loyalty or respect for their fathers.
  • This is also true for Merida parents who are still in love.
• Corpse Bride's main character Victor was engaged to Victoria Everglot by their parents, because she's the daughter of a poor nobleman and he's the son of a nouveau riche fishmonger. It's an ideal match in that respect, but they both feel nervous about whether they're going to get along. As it turns out, it's a Perfectly Arranged Marriage and they're attracted from the first meeting. Of course, he then runs out of the wedding rehearsal in a wretched fit of anxiety and accidentally gets engaged to a zombie, but it works out eventually.
• Disney Animated Canon:
  • In Aladdin, the Sultan desperately tries to get Jasmine to marry. However, he does give her the option of choosing her husband herself and refuses to choose anyone she hates. Later, Jafar enspells him into arranging her marriage to him, without her consent. This doesn't last. He even allows her to marry Aladdin, a commoner.
  • Made the subject of a brief gag at the start of The Emperor's New Groove: Emperor Kuzco is shown a lineup of potential bride-candidates, whom he casually insults and dismisses. After he has turned away, one of the gals can be seen being physically restrained from attacking him.
  • Encanto: Downplayed in that Isabela and Mariano are not presented in a traditional arranged marriage, but Alma strongly favoring Mariano as a potential husband, which puts a lot of pressure on Isabela to agree to the proposal to make the family proud regardless of her own feelings. The film ends with Isabela breaking off the would-be engagement, and both she and Mirabel setting Mariano up with their cousin, Dolores, who does have feelings for him.
  • In The Lion King (1994), Simba and Nala are betrothed, much to their confusion ("I can't marry her — she's my friend!" "Yeah, it'd be so weird.."). They eventually get their own Falling-in-Love Montage as adults.
  • Mulan (Disney):
    • Mulan begins with her trip to a matchmaker in hopeful preparation for an advantageous marriage. Naturally, this ends in disaster, setting Mulan up nicely for The Call which comes a few hours later (and for the love match that eventually results).
    • In the direct-to-video sequel, Mulan II, she and her friends are given an Escort Mission to conduct three princesses to their intendeds. At odds with Western ideals, the girls don't object to their arranged marriages, though they all end up in conventional romances and (presumably) marry for love.
  • In Pocahontas, Kocoum asks for Pocahontas' hand and her father betroths her to him - she has no say in it. It doesn't go through since Kocoum is later shot to death by Thomas.
  • Sleeping Beauty had an Arranged Marriage between Princess Aurora and Prince Philip from different kingdoms. In contrast to the prevailing modern view of Arranged Marriages as loveless, Aurora falls in love with Philip before she discovers that he's her betrothed husband, making the Arranged Marriage one of true love. The main drama comes from Aurora telling Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather that she's fallen in love with Phillip and Phillip telling his father that he's fallen in love with Aurora. In both cases, however, neither of them know who it is that they've fallen in love with, leaving all adult parties to believe that they've fallen in love with a peasant.
• Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights: The Prince in the gender-flipped version of Aladdin was supposed to marry the Princess of Serendibe but she disappeared back when she was a little girl. Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Aliyah-Din was revealed in the end to be the Princess of Serendibe.
• In Shrek 2: It's heavily implied that this was the case for Princess Fiona and Prince Charming. But rather than being about politics, it was how the king was going to pay back the Fairy Godmother for turning him into a human so he can marry Lillian, by having Charming marry Fiona and eventually become king of Far Far Away. However, their plans are foiled when Fiona falls in love with Shrek and marries him instead. Harold attempts to break them up (even putting a hit on Shrek) but eventually he changes his mind when he sees how genuine Fiona's feelings are for Shrek and how much she despises Charming, though it costs him greatly.
• In The Swan Princess, Derek and Odette are betrothed as children by their parents and forced to spend every summer together. This leads to a musical montage of them growing up hating each other, until one summer (having grown up), they realize that they've actually fallen in love.

Films — Live-Action

• Aquaman (2018):
  • Arthur's mother Atlanna is in an arranged marriage with King Orvax, which was the reason why she escaped to the surface many years ago. She conceived Orm from this relationship, although it's worth noting that she had him after she was forced to go home.
  • Mera is betrothed to Orm as a further incentive to seal Atlantis and Xebel's alliance. The two do not have affection for each other otherwise, and when Mera betrays him by saving Arthur from the Ring of Fire, he orders her execution.
• The movie Arranged is about two school teachers, one Jewish and other Muslim, who become friends by sharing the highs and lows as their families arrange their marriages.
• In Atlantics, Ada has been arranged to marry Omar. Though her friends say she is lucky for the opportunity to rise in status by marrying a wealthy man, she is bitterly unhappy about it and only complies because her parents force her to, as she loves Souleiman.
• In An Autumn Afternoon, Shuhei tries to find a suitable husband for his daughter Michiko. He worries that if he doesn't, she'll end up an Old Maid.
• In Avatar, Neytiri is the daughter of the chief and the priestess. She is to be the next priestess and must bond with the next chief, who is supposed to be Tsu'tey. Naturally, when he finds out she slept with Jake Sully, he's not pleased. They do mend fences later, though, and Tsu'tey names Jake his successor as chief before dying, preserving the tradition.
• The Bare-footed Kid uses this as a plot point. The owner of the Four Seasons Weaver, Madam Pak Siu-kwan, was bethrothed to a boy from a neighbouring rich family when she was still a child, but as luck would have it, the boy she was engaged to died before reaching adulthood. In order to preserve family honour, she is forced to remain single for the rest of her life.
• In Beyond Sherwood Forest, Marian's father and Prince John plan to marry her to Leopold of Austria in order to cement a political union between John and Leopold that will end in Richard's assassination.
• Bonnie & Bonnie: Yara is facing this while she falls for Kiki, to her dismay.
• Carmen y Lola: Both the title characters are facing these, as its the custom in the Roma community. However, they have the final word on whether to accept a match or not.
• In Cinderella (2015), the Duke tries to get Kit to marry the princess of a neighboring kingdom. The King wishes this, too, but eventually concedes to Kit's desire to marry someone he loves, regardless of class. Lady Tremaine, in exchange for helping the Duke prevent Ella and Kit from meeting again and marrying, tells him she would like Drisella and Anastasia to have arranged marriages to wealthy men, and a higher position for herself.
• The Classic: Ji-hye's parents, Joo-hee and Tae-soo, were made to be married due to Joo-hee's father being a congressman and thus an influential prospect. Despite this, Joo-hee was in love with Tae-soo's best friend Joon-ha and exchanged love letters with him.
• In The Cocoanuts, Mrs. Potter arranges for her daughter Polly to marry another man after Polly's beau is arrested under suspicion of stealing a valuable necklace.
• Coming to America: This trope is the entire driving force behind the plot. Finding that his parents have arranged for him to marry a hopelessly servile young woman who has been trained all her life to mindlessly obey him, Prince Akeem devises a scheme to travel to the United States (under the pretense of "sowing his royal oats") and find a bride who will love him for who he is and not for his royal status.
• Comin' Round the Mountain: Granny tries to arrange a marriage to another member of the clan for Wilbert. Unfortunately, she's much younger, and he's more interested in Dorothy.
• In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Jen was in one of these, much to her dissatisfaction and her lover's.
• Cruz Diablo: The plot kicks on after Diego de la Barrera accepts Marquis Pedro of Florida's proposal to marry his daughter, Marcela. Marcela, who is in love with Captain Carlos, is unamused and tries to convince his father to take his word back, to no avail. She then plans to elope with Carlos and when that fails, to kill herself (in front of the Marquiss!) rather than being married to an old man she doesn't love. She doesn't have to after the Marquiss is killed by Cruz Diablo for being implicated in the murder of the Count of Luna.
• In Double Wedding, Margit has set up Irene and Waldo because they both are made for each other in her eyes. But Waldo’s lack of initiative has led to a four-year engagement between the two.
• In East is East, it's George's repeated attempts to arrange marriages for his British-born sons that finally causes their Culture Clash relationship to boil over.
• Ever After involves an arranged marriage between Prince Henry and a Spanish princess chosen by his parents. Both Henry and the bride are in love with other people; the bride sobs loudly and begs "no, no, no, please don't, please don't..." throughout the ceremony, ultimately prompting Henry to call off the wedding so they can both be happy.
• In Faithful Heart, Marie's abusive foster parents force her to marry Petit Paul. Why are they so keen on their adoptive daughter marrying an unemployed drunken lout? For the Evulz, apparently. If they just wanted to get rid of her, they could have let her marry Jean.
• Between Julio and Belinha in Flying Down to Rio, which Roger (who falls quickly in love with Belinha) swears to break up as she also fell for Roger.
• The Gamers: Hands of Fate has the heroine Myriad enter one of these to seal a political alliance. She and her groom were both involved in other romances beforehand, and don't even bother to pretend they aren't continuing them. He even gives Myriad a vital clue for her quest to get her lover resurrected as a wedding gift.
• Get Your Man starts with the betrothal of a young boy and an infant girl. It's Played for Laughs because the boy is obviously annoyed and the girl is, well, just a baby. The movie then timeskips to the two being reunited again as adults.
• In The Grand Duel, Elizabeth has traveled to Saxon City to marry Adam Saxon, whom she has never met.
• India Sweets And Spices: These are common in the Indian community. It turns out that Alia's mother married her father because her family wanted her far away because she'd "disgraced" them with her activism, and he was going to the US. They married and left very quickly when her father arranged it.
• Jug Face: Ada's parents arrange her to be married to Bodey after he asks them for her hand.
• In The Karate Kid Part II, it's revealed that Mr. Miyagi left Okinawa so he wouldn't have to fight his best friend over his friend's bride-to-be Yukie, with whom he'd fallen in love. Miyagi discovers that Yukie has refused her family's arrangement and remained single, awaiting his return and refusing to be a Trophy Wife. Now if he'd just left an address, she could have written and told him so saving them both a lot of time. (Of course, one scene in the first movie indicates that Miyagi was a widower, so that might not have worked...)
• In The Lady Vanishes, Iris is arranged to get married as soon as she returns to England. It's Defied, however, when she chooses to marry Gilbert instead.
• Lady with a Sword: The titular lady, Feng Fei-fei, was betrothed to her childhood best friend, the only son of the Jin family as a child... who turns out to be Jin Lian Bai, the same villain who killed her sister. In fact, Fei-fei was quite close to killing him... until she noticed the jade amulet he's wearing and recognizes him to be her long-lost childhood friend, now an irredeemable, unspeakably evil piece of filth.
• Wu Luan and Qing were engaged in Legend of the Black Scorpion until her father decided to call it off due to shifts in politics. It was a Perfectly Arranged Marriage on her side, but he barely seemed to notice her.
• The Lodgers: A sinister example in which twins Rachel and Edward have been groomed since birth to become sexual partners and concieve the next generation of incestuous twins. A hereditary curse mandates their compliance, and resistance is punished by the eponymous Lodgers.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail features an attempted arranged marriage between a noble's son and a maiden with "huge... tracts of land." When the son protests he'd "rather...just...sing," his father attempts to substitute Sir Lancelot, who arrives on the scene believing he's rescuing a beautiful girl instead of the son.
• In Mustang, four arranged marriages are planned. Only one will happen.
• Given measured historical treatment in Perfume. Nobleman Antoine Richis arranges the marriage of his daughter to a wealthy, handsome, and good-natured nobleman he knows well. His daughter protests that she doesn't know if she loves him, but ultimately bends to her father's wishes.
• In The Prince of Thieves, Lady Christabel is being forcibly wed to Baron Tristan to bring all of Nottinghamshire under Norman rule, enrich the coffers of Baron Tristan, and grant Sir Fitz-Alwin a family connection to Prince John.
• The Princess: The princess was engaged to Julius without consent by her father, but she flatly refuses to go along with it. A good thing too, as Julius turns out to be a horrible man.
• In The Princess Bride, after the supposed death of her true love, Buttercup is forced to marry Prince Humperdinck. At first, she's resigned to go along with it, but she eventually plans to kill herself after the ceremony. That is, assuming her groom doesn't do her in first.
• In Rogues of Sherwood Forest, King John promises his ward Lady Marianne in marriage to the Count of Flanders in order to secure access to Flanders' army.
• Caroline and Christian have one at the beginning of A Royal Affair, as they did in real life. It turns out to be a disaster from day one. They have nothing in common and Christian's mental illness contributes to him behaving erratically and frequently humiliating Caroline. He finds her boring and much prefers the company of prostitutes, while Caroline finds him to be an insufferable manchild who is either oblivious or callous towards her unhappiness. To make matters worse, Caroline feels extremely out-of-place at the repressive and power-hungry Danish court, and has few friends and allies until Struensee comes along, with Caroline beginning an affair with him.
• In Sallah Shabati, Sallah wants to sell his daughter to a bus driver for 350 Israeli shekels. Then, a kibbutznik (who has no money) falls in love with her.
• In Masaki Kobayashi's Samurai Rebellion, the son of a prominent samurai is ordered by his daimyo to marry a concubine who has fallen from favor. At first, he objects, but as in some of the other examples on this page, the couple eventually finds happiness. Later, the daimyo's primary heir dies and he demands the concubine back. The samurai (played by Toshiro Mifune) refuses, as he wants his son to have the happiness he was denied in his own loveless Arranged Marriage. This ends about as well as you'd expect.
• In Santa Girl, Cassandra Claus, the daughter of Santa Claus, is engaged to marry the son of Jack Frost to merge the family businesses. She hasn't actually even seen Jack Jr. since she was a baby, and would much rather go to college in the real world than be forced to run the business. When Cassie complains to her dad, he points out that he and her late mother were also arranged to be married: his family owned the only flying reindeer farm in the world, and she was the daughter of Chris Kringle.
• The Slipper and the Rose: The king and queen of Euphrania have one. They're trying to arrange it for their son as well.
• In Spaceballs, Princess Vespa of Druidia is arranged to marry Prince Valium for the simple reason that as a princess she has to marry a prince, and Valium is the only unattached prince left in the known galaxy. At least until Lone Starr discovers his true heritage.
  Minister: Excuse me, I'm trying to conduct a wedding here, which has nothing to do with love!
• Stealing Heaven: Fulbert has this planned out for Héloïse with some rich young man in Paris.
• In The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, crown prince Karl Heinrich is forced to marry a foreign princess, which means he must give up the simple barmaid that he's fallen in love with.
• Drives the plot of Tanna. Wawa's tribe offers her in marriage to a hostile neighboring tribe as a peacemaking gesture, but Wawa is in love with a fellow tribesman and refuses to go through with it. The tribe must then consider whether the custom of arranged marriage is still appropriate.
• Veer-Zaara: Zaara Hayaat Khan has been betrothed by her father Jahangir to Raza Sharazi, scion of Lahore's influential Sharazi family, in order to aid his political aspirations. While Zaara does not seem to mind this too much at the start, she starts pining for Veer after her return from India, causing Shabbo to beg him to come to Lahore. When Zaara tearfully embraces him at her engagement in front of her family and Raza, Jahangir collapses; to prevent any further, potentially fatal shocks, Veer convinces Zaara (after her mother Mariyam's pleas) to proceed with the marriage. What follows is a Sad Bollywood Wedding as Zaara weds Raza, with garlands framed in front of her face like prison bars, while Veer has been arrested by Raza's lackeys and is forced to falsely confess to being an Indian spy. In the end, after receiving news of Veer's supposed death, Zaara divorces Raza with her father's support.
• The 2004 Czech film, Želary, puts an interesting spin on this trope. The main character, Eliska, works for an underground resistance movement in the Nazi-occupied city of Prague, Czechoslovakia. When her conspirators are captured, the resistance sends her to a remote mountain village with a new identity to hide from the Gestapo. To keep her under the radar, she is ordered to marry one of the local farmers to avoid attracting attention. She is understandably pissed off about this arrangement and acts coldly towards her intended. Of course, the man she marries is quiet, kind, and chivalrous, so there's only so many directions that their relationship could go.

Live-Action TV

• All My Children: An Li's mother wanted to take her back to their native China to force her into one of these. Her friend Brian offered to marry her himself so that she wouldn't have to leave the place she'd known for most of her life to marry a man she'd never met.
• The Americans has the two protagonists Philip and Elizabeth, who are KGB Agents living in America as a married couple.
• Andor: The planet Chandrila has a tradition of citizens entering arranged marriages as teenagers. Mon Mothma and her husband Perrin Fertha were married off at 16 because of this, and neither one of them is happy about it. Possibly the only thing they agree on is being reluctant to have their daughter go through the same tradition, but Leida is such a traditionalist that she actually wants to do it.
• The Arrangement (2017): Megan is offered a marriage contract to Hollywood star Kyle right after they first start dating, in "order to protect his brand". How this affects their lives is one of the main themes in the series, and it's also Zig-Zagged in that it's justified due to invoked (In-Universe) Executive Meddling acting as Shipper on Deck; deconstructed in that it's a fairly political marriage, a la The White Queen and Played for Drama as well in that the question is whether Megan will have a Sanity Slippage because of it.
• Arrow: Ra's al Ghul forces his daughter Nyssa and Oliver Queen into one, much to the Nyssa's disdain (Oliver also flinched when it was announced, implying his discomfort). At the end of the next episode, Nyssa attempts to stab Oliver during the wedding. Although later events make it clear that they got the marriage annulled (if it was even valid in the first place), Nyssa occasionally snarks about it, such as greeting Oliver's sister as her sister-in-law.
• In Babylon 5, the Centauri have Arranged Marriages of the forced variety. This results in a culture that believes weddings should be somber affairs with tears and recrimination, while funerals are joyous affairs. To celebrate a wedding is seen as bad luck.
  • In fact, when Londo's service pleases The Emperor, the latter offers to grant Londo any request. Londo asks for a divorce from his three wives (one of whom hates his guts, one of whom tries to suck up to him, and one of whom is The Vamp). The Emperor agrees, but requests that Londo keep one wife to appear at functions and such. In the end, Londo chooses his first wife, the one who hates him and doesn't hide it. Why? Because he knows exactly where he stands with her, while the other two are manipulative liars. What he doesn't realize is that she's the most faithful of them all, having given her blood for a much-needed transfusion that saved his life on the condition that Dr. Franklin keep her identity secret.
  • A first season episode had Vir's cousin and his girlfriend running away to escape arranged marriages. Londo wants to send them back to their families but eventually he breaks down and has his family foster them so they can decide who they marry.
  • Vir himself has an appointed fiancée who is beautiful and willing - and expresses pretty much every thought Adolf Hitler ever had about Jews about the Narn, up to an including actively participating in genocide. And she considers Vir to be strange and troubled because he disagrees with her. The engagement is put on hold by their families when it's revealed Vir has been using an alias to smuggle Narns out of danger.
• Best Friends Whenever: Daisy was promised in marriage to Sebastian following the deaths of her parents, although she doesn't want to go through with it.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • Raj, upset with being the only member of the group still single and feeling increasingly alone (especially with his heterosexual life partner getting married), decided to have his parents select an arranged marriage candidate for him (in the first of two instances). The date goes well, the girl is pretty, charming, has chemistry with him...and is also a lesbian who wanted to use him as her beard (although in a twist she thought he was gay as well and it would be a mutual thing). The poor guy was feeling so lonely he actually considered going through with it, before his friends intervened and bought him a puppy.
    • In Season 12, Raj again asks his dad to give him an arranged fiancée. But this time, he only agrees to an arranged marriage after he had gotten rid of his selective mutism and thus got to play the field but failed to find true love. And this is still in reaction to his male friends having wives or girlfriends, notably Sheldon getting married and Stuart dating his coworker.
  • At one point, Raj tells his parents that he wants to marry for love, and his father tells him that only idiots do that—you'll end up unhappy either way; at least if it's arranged you'll end up in a beneficial arrangement. His wife points out that they married for love. Raj's father quickly claims that they're the exception. Also they divorced later on.
• An episode in the first season of Blackadder spoofed the "royals using marriages to form alliances" phenomenon. In one scene, the king calls his elder son Harry to inform him of a marriage he wants to arrange for him. Harry then pulls out a scroll and recites a long list of the women (and one man) he's already engaged to. This episode also spoofed the young ages at which said marriages took place when, in the end of the episode, Edmund is married to a 9 year old princess. The final episode of the third season involved King George III announcing that he wished his son to marry a rosebush. Not just any rosebush; a specific rosebush.
• The Blacklist had an episode that dealt with arranged marriages, where the girls are school-age and much too young to be wives and mothers. The Blacklister they're going after is someone who helps the girls by killing their husbands so they can leave.
• Practically all marriages featured on The Borgias are based on political alliances (this is Truth in Television for the time period, of course), with poor Lucrezia being saddled with a violent rapist, and thirteen-year-old Gioffre having to marry Sancia of Naples - a woman about twice his age, who sees nothing wrong with screwing Gioffre's older brother Juan mere minutes before consummating her marriage with Gioffre himself.
• In the first episode of Chinese Paladin, Xiaoyao is asked to marry and protect Ling'er as the price for the medicine he's after. It is, fortunately, a Perfectly Arranged Marriage.
• An episode of Chuck includes a sub-plot where Lester (an Indian Jew) is pressured to marry a girl from his hometown. When he tells it to Big Mike, Big Mike assumes this is because he is Indian. However, Lester's parents are from Saskatchewan, Canada. Apparently, their culture is a mix of Canadian, Jewish, and Indian culture, which is shown when Lester sets up a "traditional" den at the Buy More, which is a mix of both cultures, with Lester himself wearing an Indian robe and a fur hat. The girl is also from a Canadian-Jewish-Indian "Hinjew" family, whose parents are pressuring her to marry Lester. She is initially put off by his "traditional" exhibit, but he reveals that he just did this to impress her. She warms to him a little... until he puts her on the spot and sings to her. Embarrassed, she leaves, calling off the wedding.
• Season 9 of Degrassi: The Next Generation introduced an Arranged Marriage plot for Sav Bhandari. His traditional Indian parents arrange a girl to come meet him from India, who competes with his white-Canadian girlfriend Anya. Anya has sex with Sav in the limo to try and keep him, resulting in a teen-pregnancy-scare plot.
• Downton Abbey:
  • When the series began, the eldest daughter Mary Crawley had been engaged for years to her second cousin Patrick Crawley despite it not being a love match (indeed, the middle sister Edith was more into him). This was because her father Robert, the Earl of Grantham, had no sons and Patrick would be his heir as the next male Crawley in line given the practice of Heir Club for Men among the British aristocracy, so the arranged marriage between Mary and Patrick would ensure the title and Downton Abbey stayed with Robert's descendants. This was also meant to appease a sense of fairness, given that the considerable dowry of Mary's mother Cora (an American heiress), which kept Downton Abbey afloat, had been bound up in the estate and if Patrick married someone else, it would essentially mean that Cora's money would go to a stranger instead of her own daughter. Unfortunately, the series opens with the news that Patrick drowned on the Titanic.
  • With Patrick's death, the next male Crawley in line becomes a much more distant cousin, Matthew Crawley, who is merely upper middle-class and works as a lawyer. Several of Mary's relatives suggest that she and Matthew should enter into this arrangement for the same reasons she was engaged to Patrick, but both resist the idea because of their clashing personalities and backgrounds. Eventually they marry each other for love, but only after most of the pressure from people playing matchmaker has eased off.
• On Farscape, John is forced to marry a Sebacean princess because her DNA has been intentionally poisoned and she can't have children with anyone else. Eventually he just leaves her pregnant, frozen as a statue for 80 cycles with the man she loves. It Makes Sense in Context. He fully intended to go through with it to avoid death by Scorpius, though Aeryn is not amused.
• In one episode of Father Brown Joan is the bookworm daughter of a millionaire, being pushed into an arranged marriage with a handsome but impoverished Upper-Class Twit. At the start the engagement is treated very much like a business, with Robert casually giving Joan his grandmother's engagement ring saying that she can have it resized. As the story goes on we see Robert becoming impressed by Joan's intelligence, and later he is shown to be quite kindhearted. It doesn't hurt that the couple can commiserate about not meeting their parents' expectations. By the end, with the scandal that follows the affair at the center of the episode, Lady Malmort is resigned to the fact that the deal is dead but Joan clearly isn't going anywhere.
• First Kill: These are common among Legacy vampire families. Margot in the past rejected one to marry the human man she loved. Her daughter Elinor in contrast willingly enters one, though she pulls out over the issue of being expected to keep getting pregnant until the union produces a daughter.
• These are a common political tool in Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon among the nobility of Westeros. Some are happy, such as Ned Stark and Catelyn Tully, and others are not, such as Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister. Many are against the will of one or both parties, such as Daenerys Targaryen and Drogo of the Dothraki or Tyrion Lannister and Sansa Stark. The political consequences also make breaking a marriage pact Serious Business.
  • In fact, breaking a marriage pact is what gets Robb Stark murdered as he had an agreement with Lord Frey to marry one of his daughters and breaks the betrothal in "Valar Morghulis" by marrying Talisa Maegyr.
  • Arranged marriages happen to Sansa Stark so often that she's basically pimped out to unconsummated marriages. First, there is Joffrey Baratheon, which she views as a Perfectly Arranged Marriage until he shows his true colours. After Joffrey repudiates her, the Tyrells plan to marry Sansa to Loras Tyrell for her claim to Winterfell. When Tywin Lannister finds out, he declares that she shall marry his son Tyrion instead, which they both do, as mentioned above, unwillingly. Tywin orders Tyrion to impregnate Sansa. He chooses not to impregnate her yet, but when she is ready. Seeing as the both of them are soon on the run because they've been framed for Joffrey's murder and neither had bothered to consummate the marriage, no one in Westeros seems to really acknowledge or care as to whether or not she is still married to him. When Tyrion is in serious danger of being executed, Sansa's aunt Lysa Tully begins to plan a marriage for her with Lysa's son Robin Arryn. Later, Lord Petyr Baelish and Lord Roose Bolton marry her to Bolton's son Ramsay after the bastard is made heir to Winterfell. It goes exactly as one would expect, with him treating her cruelly until she finally snaps and escapes with Theon's help.
  • Fat Walda Frey with Roose Bolton, although he did get to choose which wife he wanted. It was more 'arranged' from her point of view than his. In the books, Fat Walda was actually ecstatic about the arranged marriage, and fully aware that he chose her from among Walder Frey's daughters and granddaughters because he was offered the chosen girl's weight in silver as a dowry - she was outright proud that being overweight actually helped her for once. She knows it wasn't a marriage for love, but few marriages are in Westeros, not even Eddard and Catelyn. The arranged marriage meant that she went from being an overweight and put-upon minor granddaughter of Walder Frey to being the wife of the new ruler of the North, head lady of a new Great House. As a result she is very grateful to Roose. For his part, Roose seems to like her - at least as much as he's capable of "liking" anyone.
  • Cersei with Robert, as mentioned above. She initially saw it as a Perfectly Arranged Marriage up until Robert came to her drunk and called her by his late betrothed's name on their wedding night.
  • Tywin commands Cersei to marry Ser Loras Tyrell. She's not amused, but this one falls through as Tywin is not there to enforce it, what with his terminal bowel problems.
  • Tommen Baratheon is betrothed to Margaery Tyrell after his brother Joffrey dies at Joffrey and Margaery's wedding ceremony, and she quickly sneaks into his bedroom to suss him out before his mother Cersei has the chance to alienate the relationship. Tommen ends up falling for her hard, though with Margaery it's always unclear how sincere she is on her part given that she's definitely an ambitious political actor, though not a malicious one like several others in the series.
  • Daenerys to Drogo, a powerful Dothraki khal, as mentioned above, to secure an army for her brother Viserys. Later, she arranges her own second marriage to Hizdahr zo Loraq in Meereen, showing how much she and her circumstances have changed.
  • Stannis Baratheon is in an Arranged Marriage to Selyse of House Florent.
  • Renly Baratheon was in an Arranged Marriage to Margaery Tyrell before he died and she became betrothed to first Joffrey and then Tommen. An amiable one, although largely sexless for obvious reasons.
  • As part of the negotiations that produced the arranged marriage Robb failed to actually have, Catelyn also promised her younger daughter Arya to Walder Frey's youngest son. However, Arya never finds out about this arrangement and with everyone who was aware now dead, it's a moot point.
  • Like Ned Stark, Lord Selwyn Tarth originally planned to marry off his daughter for political advantage. Unlike Ned, he eventually relented and taught her to fight like she wanted.
  • Viserys I Targaryen accepts an arrangement to marry Alicent Hightower, the daughter of his Hand, Otto Hightower. Alicent is far younger than he is (she is the same age as Rhaenyra, Viserys' daughter with his first wife), but the prospect is brighter compared to a previous proposal for him to marry Laena Velaryon, who is literally still a child. Alicent is shown to be displeased by the marriage, but carries on because she is a Proper Lady, giving Viserys four more children.
  • After the birth of his grandson Prince Aegon, Otto Hightower advises Viserys I to marry him off to Rhaenyra, therefore solving the issue regarding her controversial status as a crown princess, as she will be able to reign as queen without the sexist baggage of being a queen regnant. Viserys rejects the proposal because Aegon is only two years old at the time. Later, Rhaenyra is betrothed to her second cousin Laenor Velaryon, to make up for Laena's spurned candidacy as queen, while Aegon is married off to his sister, Helaena. While Rhaenyra and Laenor are amiable to each other (albeit with no romantic love involved, considering Laenor is gay), the same cannot be said to Aegon and Helaena, the latter of whom outright states that Aegon ignores her except when he is drunk.
  • Rhaenyra's children Jacaerys and Lucerys Velaryon are betrothed to their stepsisters Baela and Rhaena Targaryen to seal an alliance with the Velaryons. Lady Rhaenys Targaryen clearly favors her granddaughters over her supposed grandsons, so matching them together will not only bring Rhaenys to her camp, but also legitimize Lucerys' shaky claim to Driftmark.
  • Aemond Targaryen secures the Baratheons' support towards his brother Aegon II by offering to marry Floris, one of Lord Borros Baratheon's four daughters.
• Goodbye My Princess: Almost all of the marriages in the series are arranged, which is Truth in Television for Imperial China. The arranged marriage between Xiao Feng and Cheng Ji (later changed to an arranged marriage between her and Cheng Yin) sets everything else in motion.
• Parodied in Goodness Gracious Me: parents compromise with their westernised Punjabi son by setting him up with an arranged shag.
  We put an advert in the paper .. We've had a lot of responses, but we think this girl is the easiest.
• One Heroes, it's implied that Noah and Sandra Bennet's marriage started as this when he first started to work for the Company. Thompson, his former partner, suggested that a wife would be a good anchor for Bennet in order to keep him from being completely Married to the Job. He then comments that the kindly waitress serving them would be a good fit once she was out of earshot. It turns out from her name tag that it's Sandra.
• The British miniseries I, Claudius has the hapless title character, a 48-year-old man, being forced to marry his teenage relative, Messalina. (This is at the behest of Claudius's Evil Nephew, the insane Emperor Caligula, who thought it would make for a funny joke.) The marriage seemed happy at first, until Messalina started showing her true gold-digging, nymphomaniac colors. She was eventually executed after a failed plot to depose Claudius and make one of her lovers ruler of Rome. As the show is actually based on the real-life Claudius, this is an example of Truth in Television.
• The reality show Indian Matchmaking follows profesional matchmaker Seema Taparia in the process of arranging marriages for her clients. Several episodes open or close with interviews of long-term, Happily Married couples whose marriages were arranged, including Taparia herself. The show strongly averts any sort of forced marriage however, as none of the couples matched by Seema actually end up getting married, despite some like Akshay facing strong social or family pressure to marry. Most clients turn down the matches Seema makes for them. They give her a list of traits they want in a spouse, but invariably the most important one is someone I'm attracted to — a reasonable request, but not something Seema can predict or screen for. It's clearly frustrating and exhausting for her to endlessly play "bring me another rock" with her clients.
• Kamen Rider Saber: The plot of the Sabela and Durendal mini-series takes a page from the aforementioned Gundam SEED Destiny episode "Flight to Tomorrow". Reika is set to get married with the son of a powerful family within the Sword of Logos named Rui Mitarai. On the other hand, just before the wedding, Ryoga learns that Rui murdered his own uncle to become the head of his clan from Ren. That said, Ryoga crashes the wedding and saves Reika, at the same time exposing Rui transforming into a Megid.
• The Last Kingdom: Uhtred enters into one with Mildrith purely to gain lands and a title in Wessex. Despite this, it proves a happy match until their son is born and cultural and religious differences take their toll.
• The Law According to Lidia Poët: Lidia resisted one when she was younger, wanting only to marry a man who she'd chosen, though her mother rebuked her for her defiance. It's revealed her father had done this not for her benefit but a need for money as he was in debt. Enrico, her older brother, didn't know and is very upset to learn what he'd done. Her niece Marianna is having her marriage arranged too, but secretly wants another young man, and Lidia encourages her to pursue him.
• In Leonardo, Lisa's backstory is escaping an arranged marriage. Lorenzo de'Medici is expected to marry the Duke of Pisa's daughter, Angelica. Since he's a He-Man Woman Hater and she's an Ice Queen who only defrosts with Lovable Rogue Mac, he tries to tell his father that it's not going to happen.
  Piero: That's fine. I'll just explain to the Duke of Pisa that the wedding is cancelled. That the treaty between Pisa and Florence is to be abandoned because my son and his daughter don't love each other.
  Lorenzo: Are you being sarcastic?
• Rayyan of Little Mosque on the Prairie ends up in a traditional arranged marriage by her father. She doesn't mind, though, as she has time to get to know her prospective groom before he proposes, and has the power to call it off at any time. It ends badly, but not because of the arranged part.
• The Reality TV series Married At First Sight plays this straight, pairing couples who have never met before the bride walks down the aisle. The pairs are matched by experts, who are available throughout the experiment, and at the end of each season couples are given the option to divorce. Seeing as this is Reality TV, in the first season all three pairs have some good chemistry but also some issues (a pair who have great sexual chemistry but poor emotional intelligence; an Ugly Guy, Hot Wife match who are Birds of a Feather under the hood; a couple with a wife from a huge loving family and a husband who has walls up and an ailing mother). At the end of five weeks, the decisions were as follows: get a divorce, stay together and stay together.
• Season 3 of Merlin, when Uther attempts to coerce Arthur into marrying Princess Elena for political betterment.
• Motherland: Fort Salem:
  • In High Atlantic society, it is common for witches to make five-year marriage contracts between the major families in order to mix witch bloodlines.
  • Later, due to falling witch birth rates and the increasing deaths among them, the Imperatrix or Matriarch of the Imperative gets introduced. She's the head of the organization which arranges marriages, and won't listen even to Genderal Alder. She tells young witches it's their duty to marry and have children (only with other witches-no muggles), including Raelle, a lesbian, who's naturally uninterested and flatly refuses (it doesn't help that she's the child of a mixed marriage herself, with the Imperatrix telling her to make a "better choice" then her mother had done).
• Never Have I Ever: Kamala's family is trying to set her up with a husband. At first she's secretly very reluctant, as she has a boyfriend (who's not Indian, and they're also having sex, neither of which they'd like). However, after she meets her would-be groom, she's smitten by his good lucks and charm, dumping her boyfriend. After her past relationship is revealed, he actually expresses approval since it makes her more interesting. They both agree to not rush into marriage however.
• In New Girl, Cece (who is Indian) decides to let her parents arrange a marriage for her after she finds out from a gynecologist she might not have long to conceive a child. She and Schmidt still have feelings for each other, and Schmidt and Winston work together to sabotage the wedding through pranks. When they go too big with the pranks and release a badger into the air vents, it stops the wedding right before the couple is declared man and wife. Luckily for Cece and Schmidt, it turns out her arranged fiancé Shivrang is also in love with someone else, takes this opportunity to run off with her, and the arrangement is called off.
• In Night and Day, Natalie Harper and Rachel Culgrin plot and scheme to bring about a marriage between Jane and Sam, their daughter and nephew respectively.
• In one episode of Night Court, a young, beautiful woman is brought in, who turns out to be a princess of a small island nation, who is desperately trying to get out of an arranged marriage. As she tells Harry, her fiancé is a hulking, ugly, violent brute who is known to eat children. (He thinks she's exaggerating, until she shows him a photograph of the guy; unfortunately, the viewers never see it, and we have to take her word for it.) Unfortunately, Harry isn't able to do anything as far as legalities are concerned, but when he finds out how superstitious their culture is, he's able to teach her a few tricks that make her convince them to annul the arranged marriage herself (and possibly even make advances for women's lib there in the process).
• The pilot of NUMB3RS reveals that Amita's parents tried to set her up in one of these. Her "fiancé" is back in India, while Amita moved to the US when she was little. When asked if she plans to marry him, she replies that she won't, as she doesn't like the guy at all. In a later season, Amita and Charlie start dating. However, Amita admits to Charlie that the fact that he's not Indian will be a problem for her parents. At a dinner with her parents, an old friend of Amita's shows up at the invitation from her parents in an obvious attempt to set them up. Only one problem - the guy is gay. Also, they reveal that, after meeting Charlie face-to-face, they have warmed up to him.
• Prince James and Princess Abigail in Once Upon a Time. James (when he was a humble Farm Boy) had previously vowed that he would marry for love, not money (and his mother approved, even when it seemed like the only way to save the farm).
• Our Flag Means Death: Mary and Stede were in an arranged marriage, eventually leading to Stede running off years later due to his discomfort with the relationship. After his return, the two of them work together to fake his death so they can be with who they truly love.
• In the Power Rangers RPM two-parter "Ranger Yellow," the Yellow Ranger is coerced into an arranged marriage by her filthy-rich parents. The marriage was decided on when she was five, and they probably would've let her decline had the Venjix computer virus not nearly wiped out humanity, leaving her parents with only enough money to pretend to be filthy rich until she married someone who was still rich.
• The Practice: "Victim's Rights" has a Roma girl from Romania seek political asylum in the US to avoid arranged marriage with a boy chosen by her parents (she's twelve at the time). She loses.
• In one episode of Pushing Daisies, a man offers his daughter's hand in marriage as a bet in a dim sum poker game.
  • And loses. Of course, his opponent was cheating...
• The Rise of Phoenixes: Zhi Wei gets two. First to Ning Yi, which is quickly called off, and then to Helian Zheng.
• Rome:
  • Vorenus and Niobe have a discussion with their eldest daughter about arranging a marriage between her and a senator, and she doesn't seem to object. The parents point to themselves as an example of loving married couples, with Niobe adding "strange marriage it would be if you loved them from the start" as if the idea was completely foreign to her.
  • Season two also has Posca marrying Jocasta, courtesy of Atia's arrangements. Jocasta isn't happy about this, as she's Nouveau Riche and Tosca is a freed slave, but since she's been raped and her entire family massacred in The Purge, she's not in a position to object. When we next see them however, they've gotten used to each other and get along fine.
• Divya of Royal Pains is drifting towards accepting her arranged marriage to a childhood friend. At the beginning, she tried to call it off, but when the engagement ceremony came around, she couldn't bring herself to do it. However, it's not like she couldn't call it off or she hates the guy (he's kind of clueless and cheerful, actually); she's simply not certain she should be married to him. Meanwhile, Evan keeps hoping....
• Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace: Hongli's marriage in the first episode. He's presented with a group of women chosen by his adopted mother and is told to choose an official wife and a concubine from among them.
• On Salem, Anne's parents plan to marry her off to Cotton Mather.
• Sense8: Subverted. Kala's marriage to a young, wealthy man who she is not in love with is not an arranged marriage. He genuinely loves her, and everyone thinks she loves him back. But it still carries most of the Arranged Marriage tropes, as she's only going through with it because she knows he's a perfect match and doesn't want to disappoint her family.
• In Shadowhunters, Shadowhunter families have been known to do this and the Lightwoods are planning one for Alec as a means of restoring the family power and honor. He gets to the altar before he decides he can't go through with it, instead making it publicly known that he's gay and in love with warlock Magnus Bane.
• Special Ops: Lioness: Aaliyah is having her marriage arranged, which she doesn't want, though her father doesn't care. Cruz also pretends that she's getting a marriage arranged too while infiltrating Aaliyah's social circle.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series:
    • Vulcans have a quite complicated marriage arrangement process. This often involves telepathically bonding the intended spouses in childhood, and breaking one's marriage commitment carries dire consequences (especially when one or both of them are in their pon farr mating cycle).
    • In "The Paradise Syndrome", Miramanee, the daughter of the tribal chief, is betrothed to the medicine man of the tribe. When Kirk saves the life of a boy who nearly drowns, he is given the position, angering the previous holder Salish.
  • Explored with T'Pol in Star Trek: Enterprise, who had to debate whether to enter an arranged marriage which would entail her leaving the ship and returning to Vulcan. Although she refuses, the fourth season episode "Home" shows that her suitor has not given up and T'Pol is required to go through with it, even though she has fallen in love with Trip Tucker by that stage. Her husband divorces her voluntarily however when he realises the marriage is not working - after having already pulled strings to help her overthrow the Vulcan government.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Betazoids also have arranged marriages, referred to as "genetic bonding". This is explored in the episode "Haven", where it's revealed that Deanna is betrothed to the son of long-time friends of her parents; although it's a bit of an odd example given that the other family in question is human. The arrangement gets called off since Deanna's intended turns out to be in love with another woman he met in his dreams. It Makes Sense in Context.
  • Star Trek: Picard revealed that like their Vulcan cousins, Romulans have arranged marriages in which children are promised to each other at a young age.
• Sunset Beach's Rae's parents also wanted to do this. Though she tried to stand her ground, especially since she'd genuinely fallen in love with someone else, she caved in when they threatened to disown her, breaking her boyfriend's heart and nixing one of the show's first storylines.
• Supergirl (2015): Rhea tries to force Mon-El and Lena into one of these to create an heir and legitimize her invasion of Earth. They both refuse initially, but go along with it once Rhea starts threatening hospitals. Fortunately, the ceremony gets interrupted and they team up to escape.
• Used in Super Sentai by Juken Sentai Gekiranger'. Ran/GekiYellow is taken to an omiai'' of the modern variety. Not wanting to break up the team (or lose the only female member in Ken's case) the guys attempt several plans that backfire rather spectacularly. The situation is eventually resolved when Ran convinces her mother that her responsibility as GekiYellow is more important.
• The second season of Timeless had an episode where the team went back to 1981. They initially think they're there to prevent Rittenhouse from interfering in the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, but they then meet a young Agent Christopher (their boss in 2018), who is just a Washington police officer at this time. When she is wounded during the assassination attempt, her family tries to get her to give up law enforcement and settle down to a marriage they arranged. She initially agrees, but Lucy and Jiya convince her not to, showing her pictures of her with her future wife (Agent Christopher is a lesbian) and children.
• In Victoria, attempts are made both before and after her ascension to the throne to marry Victoria to various foreign or distantly related princes. One such suitor, her cousin Albert, actually does end up marrying Victoria, but it is a love match as well.
• The White Queen:
  • Lord Warwick arranges a match between his first daughter Isabel Neville and George of Clarence without King Edward IV's consent.
  • He later does the same with his second daughter Anne Neville, who marries Edward of Lancaster against her will.
  • His own marriage to his wife was also a planned union.
    Countess Warwick: Do you think I married for love? No, it was an agreement, a contract.
  • Margaret Beaufort is very bitter at her mother Lady Beauchamp for forcing her to marry Edmund Tudor, and later Henry Stafford.
  • The Duke of Buckingham and Catherine Woodville are around 10 and 8 years old, respectively, when they have to walk down the wedding aisle. The boy groom is visibly grumpy during the ceremony, and Queen Elizabeth states that he's sulky.
  • Elizabeth of York and Henry Tudor are betrothed by their mothers, and Elizabeth hates it (at first).
• Very much parodied on The Windsors, where Prince Harry almost has an arranged marriage with the Australian Prime Minister's daughter Ashley. This is because Australia wants to leave the Commonwealth, and apparently marriage with Harry, who's not just a royal but also the closest thing the entirety of Great Britain has to an Australian, will convince them to stay. However, Harry backs out of it at the last minute because he's in love with Pippa, and it's unclear if Australia went through on leaving.
• The Witcher (2019): Queen Calanthe planned on arranging a husband for Pavetta, despite her objection.
• Young Blades: An arranged political marriage between King Louis XIV and the princess of a newly rich kingdom drives the plot of "The Girl from Upper Gaborski". The princess whines and complains about it for the whole episode, leading to this bit of marital advice:
  Queen Anne: A state marriage is like a state dinner: you might not like the menu, but it's impolite to show it.
  Cardinal Mazarin: If you would, think of Louis as... asparagus.
  Queen Anne: Eat your vegetables in public, dear, but have your dessert in private.

Music

• The folk song "Annachie Gordon":
  Down came her father and he's standing on the floor
  Saying, Jeannie, you're trying the tricks of a whore
  You care nothing for a man who cares so very much for thee
  You must marry with Lord Saltan and leave young Annachie
• Emilie Autumn's "Marry Me":
  "Marry me", he said, through his rotten teeth, bad breath, and then: "Marry me instead of that strapping young goatherd", but when I was in his bed and my father had sold me I knew I hadn't any choice, hushed my voice, did what any girl would do."
• "Alice Childress" by Ben Folds Five. The couple has broken up because they have different ideas about how life works. Includes the line "An arranged marriage is not so good."
• "Jock o'Hazeldean" is about a bride eloping from an arranged marriage with the eponymous hero.
• "The Pocket Knife" by PJ Harvey from Uh Huh Her is about a bride who waits to be married against her will and keeps a pocket knife with her, just in case:
  Please don't make my wedding dress
  I'm too young to marry yet
  Can you see my pocket knife?
  You can't make me be a wife
  How the world just turns & turns
  How does anybody learn?
• In the English folk ballad "The Tree They Grow So High", the young woman protagonist blames her father for marrying her to a mere boy half her age. She comes to love the boy afterward and bears his child, just before fate snatches her dear young husband from her.

Myths & Religion

• Fairly common in The Bible, often perfectly. Isaac and Rebecca, for example, were arranged when Isaac's father, Abraham, sent his servant Eliezer to find a suitable wife in the family's homeland. Jacob also arranged Rachel and got a couple of other wives (one of them being Rachel's big sister Leah) in the process.
• The Book of Mormon: At God's direction, Lehi sends his sons back to Jerusalem to bring Ishmael's family along, including at least five daughters, specifically for the stated purpose of marrying and raising children. Technically, the boys and girls might still have had a choice of exactly how they paired off, but it doesn't seem to have taken them long; after returning to Lehi, all four sons plus Zoram were married before breaking camp.
• According to Christian martyrology, in order to escape an arranged marriage to a pagan king, a Rebellious Princess named Wilgefortis pleaded to God to make her repulsive in appearance so she could remain unmarried and keep her vow of virginity. Soon she grew a beard, utterly repulsing the suitor who called the arrangement off, and for this her evil father had her crucified. With time, Wilgefortis was canonized and became the patron saint for women trapped in abusive marriages.
• Classical Mythology:
  • Zeus arranged the marriage between Aphrodite, the Goddess of love and beauty to the deformed Hephaestus-apparently to stop the other gods from squabbling about her. Although that did not stop Aphrodite from dallying around in any way...
  • For that matter, Aphrodite arranged for Helen of Troy to fall in love with Paris, as reward for Paris giving a golden apple to her instead of to Hera or Pallas Athena. Of course, since Helen already was married, this led directly to the Trojan War (at which point Paris learned why it's generally a bad idea to slight Hera). This indicates how little Aphrodite cared about the idea of marriage in the first place.
  • Aphrodite and Ares' (illegitimate) daughter Harmonia ^note (who in other versions is the daughter of Zeus and Electra, one of the Pleiades) was given away in an arranged marriage to the mortal nobleman Cadmus, a distant descendant of Poseidon and founder of the Kingdom of Thebes. Apparently they were happy, but what happened to their kids...!

Podcasts

• In The Adventure Zone: Balance, Merle was formerly in one of these with his ex-wife, Hekuba.
• In Trials & Trebuchets, Serinepth finds to her horror that she has been arranged to marry the bumbling Prince Frederick. While she does manage to break off her engagement with the prince, doing so results in the prince declaring her and her family traitors to the crown.

Roleplay

• There is no GATE; we did not fight there:
  • Betrothals and arranged marriage are perfectly common and expected amongst the nobles of the Empire. Kytheus is expected to eventually be married to a Lady of another province to secure supplies and an alliance for Rhavenfell.
  • The choice of Kytheus' eventual main wife was left to the players of the quest in a poll that listed each of the advantages that would come with them. The Quest GM also wrote a number of interludes from the perspectives of each possible spouse in order to showcase their personalities. The resulting arguments and deliberations were... heated to say the least.

Theatre

• An American in Paris: Although Henri seems relatively happy to comply, at least at first, it is very clear that Lise and Henri's marriage was arranged by Madame Baurel to protect Henri's reputation.
• While the Commedia dell'Arte had no fixed plot (it was rather a set of stock characters), generally whatever the day's plot was involved this. The parents were generally Pantalone, a rich old merchant, and Il Dottore, an old doctor; usually Il Dottore's daughter was engaged to Pantalone but in love with his son, but they occasionally swapped parents. The plots were made up mostly of these four and a variety of servants and acquaintances that could work for any of them trying to unite the lovers and either get rich or laid.
• Cyrano de Bergerac:
  • It's implied Count De Guiche married Cardenal Richelieu’s niece only to improve his connections at the Court.
  • De Guiche tries to set up one for Roxane, as she says in Act II Scene VI:
    Roxane: [who has unmasked] That dandy count,
    Whom you checkmated in brave sword-play
    Last night... he is the man whom a great lord,
    Desirous of my favor...
    Cyrano: Ha, De Guiche?
    Roxane: [casting down her eyes] Sought to impose on me... for husband...
• Fiddler on the Roof:
  • Taking place in an early 20th-century Slavic Jewish community where Old Traditions (Arranged Marriage) were rapidly clashing with New Ideas (marrying for love), discusses this as a tradition; the original books suggested that it was a good idea, while the musical adaptation was more neutral on the subject. Each of Tevye's teenage daughters ultimately ended up with the man she wanted, but each suffered the consequences: Tzeitel lives in abject poverty with Motel, rather than the relative comfort she would have had with Lazar Wolf; Hodel winds up in Siberia and Chava is disowned. The practice was to keep marriages within the Jewish community, but the musical points out that this is why the system fails.
  • Tevye and Golde's duet "Do You Love Me?" addresses the belief that an arranged marriage can ripen into love, while "Matchmaker", sung by the daughters, addresses both the pros and cons of arranged marriages.
• Gilbert and Sullivan use this as a plot device several times:
  • In The Grand Duke, Grand Duke Rudolph was betrothed in infancy to the Princess of Monte Carlo, but the arrangement has a sunset provision he hopes to exploit.
  • In The Gondoliers, Casilda and the Crown Prince of Barataria were not merely betrothed, but actually married as infants. This is news to the bride.
    Duke: When you were a prattling babe of six months old you were married by proxy to no less a personage than the infant son and heir of His Majesty the immeasurably wealthy King of Barataria!
    Casilda: Married to the infant son of the King of Barataria? Was I consulted? [Duke shakes his head.] It was a most unpardonable liberty!
    Duke. Consider his extreme youth and forgive him.
  • The Mikado has as its background Nanki-Poo running away and posing as a wandering minstrel to get away from an arranged marriage with Katisha.
  • In Princess Ida, Hiliarion was two years old and Ida one when they were betrothed. Straw Feminist Ida, now 21, wants no part of this arrangement; but if her father Gama fails to deliver his daughter as agreed, it will mean war.
• In Knickerbocker Holiday, Mynheer Tienhoven arranges for his daughter Tina to marry Governor Stuyvesant, though she remains in love with The Hero, Brom.
• In The Lady's Not for Burning, Alizon's parents have arranged for her to marry Humphrey, the mayor's nephew. When she arrives at the beginning of the play to prepare for the wedding, she mentions that she's only met Humphrey once. She finds a kindred spirit in Richard, the mayor's clerk, and she and Richard elope at the end of the play.
• The Mrs. Hawking play series: In part one, Mrs. Hawking, the titular protagonist declares that her father "sold her like a sheep" to her husband the Colonel. In part four: Gilded Cages, it's revealed that her father, Governor Stanton, agreed to spare a starving village in Singapore from some oppressive policies if she consented to the wedding.
• Naughty Marietta: The motivation for the heroine being in The Big Easy.
• On a Clear Day You Can See Forever has Melinda Welles' family making elaborate preparations for her to marry Sir Hubert Insdale. She quashes the proposal simply by saying "no" to him.
• Parodied in The Rivals. Sir Anthony Absolute announces to his son Jack that he's arranged for him to be married to a wealthy heiress. Jack refuses to go along with the arrangement since he already loves Lydia. Then he finds out that Lydia is the wealthy heiress in question, and makes a show of allowing himself to be reluctantly persuaded.
• Shakespearean examples:
  • In All's Well That Ends Well, the king arranges a marriage between his ward Bertram and Helena. That ends better, once Bertram has been persuaded to accept it.
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream features Hermia, who is betrothed to Demetrius despite being in love with another man, Lysander; matters are further complicated by the fact that Hermia's friend Helena is in love with Demetrius. He used to love and court her but dropped her for a better marriage to Hermia. The matter is finally resolved when Oberon and Puck enchant Demetrius to go back to Helena; when he cancels the previous arrangement, Hermia's father allows her to marry Lysander instead.
  • Shakespeare's most poignant use of this trope may have occurred in Romeo and Juliet, whereby Juliet finds herself forcibly betrothed to Count Paris (by this point, she's already married to Romeo, but her parents don't know that). His steady, mature love may actually have made him a better match for Juliet than the Hot-Blooded Romeo. (But how dramatic would that have been?). Romeo and Juliet was published in 1597.
    Juliet: Is there no pity sitting in the clouds
    That sees into the bottom of my grief?
    O sweet my mother, cast me not away!
  • In Two Gentlemen of Verona, Sylvia's father insists that she marry Tyrio, when in fact she's in love with Valentine.
• Westeros: An American Musical: The play takes place in a medieval setting during a war and focuses on the alliances made by various members of the nobility. Sealing alliances via arranged marriages comes up a lot.
• Which Witch The Musical: Maria is to marry German banker Anton Fugger, despite being in love with bishop Daniel.

Tabletop Games

• The wedding between Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner was one of these in BattleTech, having been negotiated in a secret treaty between the Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns at the very end of the Third Succession War. By all accounts, it was a very happy marriage (even though the wedding day also saw Hanse launch the Fourth Succession War) both politically — merging the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth into the Federated Commonwealth (though the Commonwealth itself ended badly after both Hanse and Melissa had died) and personally, with both falling in love with each other, even despite the significant age difference between them — Hanse was 45 at the time of the wedding, Melissa was 18.
• This is common practice for samurai in Legend of the Five Rings. The Advantage "Imperial Spouse" makes it a positive, as your clan has managed to wrangle a marriage between you and a member of one of the imperial families, giving you a reliable foothold in court politics. On the other hand, the Flaw "Bitter Betrothal" indicates that your spouse hates you (and the feeling is probably mutual) and will work to undercut your efforts.

Toys

• At least two of the girls in Little Apple Dolls have backstories of being betrothed to men. It never ends up well. In one of the cases he locked the girl in a cage, apparently was going to steal her soul, and planned to turn her into a demon. She opted to kill herself instead. Mind you, she was seven when she died.

Video Games

• Both Crusader Kings games feature arranged marriages, as would be appropriate for a game based in the Middle Ages. The second one particularly focuses on the "contract between two families" aspect; since alliances are between relatives, the only way to ally with people outside your own dynasty is through intermarriage — yourself or one of your close relatives to them or one of their relatives.
• The fourth licensed CSI: Crime Scene Investigation game has this as part of the overall mystery of the murder of an Indian doctor in his bed while his blind wife was sitting downstairs. In fact, preventing it was the motive. The doctor was forcing his daughter into marrying a scumbag from the family's homeland - specifically the son of the doctor's old friend. The daughter kept refusing, even (rightfully) getting her fiancé charged for stealing her father's credit card and supplies from their surgery. Her father was insistent on the marriage and even had the charges dropped (again, the fiancé stole from him). She also tried to get her father's medical license revoked for malpractice (also justified as he performed a surgery he wasn't trained for on his own wife and blinded her more out of a sense of pride than anything), but the charges never stuck because the mother was willing to take the abuse to protect her daughter and her family's honor. Near the end, he made an ultimatum to the daughter: go through with the marriage or be cut off from her mother. Then it turns out that the mother isn't completely blind...
• Dragon Age:
  • Dragon Age: Origins:
    • In the City Elf origin, you have an arranged marriage to another city elf. It's out of necessity or perhaps tradition rather than politics (elves are treated as second-class and relegated to slums). How your character views the situation is up to you - it's entirely possible that you're happy with the situation and so is your spouse. Of course, it still doesn't end well when the local nobility decides to have some fun.
    • Arl Howe tries to set one up between the Human Male Warden and his daughter Delilah (or a Human Female Warden and his son Thomas) in the Noble Origin, but seeing how the story turns out, it never comes to pass. Then, in Awakening, you actually meet Delilah, who wasn't at all pleased about being set up with the Male Warden and has since married a commoner in Amaranthine, with a child on the way.
      Delilah: He's so much better than that stuck-up Cousland boy that father kept trying to set me up with.
      Warden: I'm right here.
      Delilah: Oh. Er. That was you, wasn't it? Awkward!
    • It's possible to arrange a political marriage during the Landsmeet when resolving the question of who will rule Ferelden. This can be established either between Alistair and Anora, between Anora and Male Cousland, or between Alistair and Female Cousland, even if they are not in a romance.
    • Anora herself states that her marriage to Calian was an arranged one, though they grew to love each other. The World of Thedas, vol. 2 more or less corroborates this, as the two were raised as close friends and went on adventures together.
  • Dragon Age II:
    • Leandra Amell, the player character's mother, was facing one when she met and fell in love with the apostate mage Malcolm Hawke. She eloped with him rather than spend her life in a loveless marriage. However, supplemental material indicates that she didn't really mind the arrangement until she met the dashing mage; as of the time of the game, she and her former betrothed, the Comte de Launcet, are still on friendly terms.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition
    • During Josephine's romance arc, her family betroth her to a young nobleman, whom the Inquisitor can challenge to a duel for her hand in marriage. However, after seeing that the two are legitimately in love rather than just being a fling, the lord in question calls off the duel and is happy for them. (Oddly, this never comes up if Josephine is not romanced, in which situation the betrothal would work out just fine; presumably it still takes place and she simply never brings it up since it's not a problem.)
    • Dorian's conflict with his family centers on his refusal to enter an arranged marriage partly due to being gay and partly because he and his betrothed just plain don't like each other. He ended up fleeing altogether when his father tried something very, very ugly. Dorian's parents themselves were arranged in a loveless political marriage for the sole purpose of breeding a strong mage. The fact that they otherwise hate each other neatly explains both Dorian's determination not to end up in the same situation and why they have no other children who could have kept the line going.
    • As it turns out, one of these factors into Varric's romantic history - not for him, but for the girl he wanted to marry. They were going to elope, but she left him at the altar and went through with the arrangement her parents put together instead.
• In Dragon Quest VIII, Princess Medea and Prince Charmles have an arranged marriage. When the heroes (with Medea transformed into a horse pulling their cart) go on a mission with Charmles, she sees firsthand that his name may as well have an extra "S" at the end. In the end, with her own father's blessing (and even Charmles's father going along with it, though how strongly depends on which ending you earned), Medea runs off with the hero instead. If the true ending is obtained, she is able to marry the hero with no obstacles, because the agreement was for her to marry a prince of Argonia, not Charmles specifically. Turns out the hero's father was the king of Argonia's older brother.
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Optional follower Borgakh the Steel Heart is the daughter of the chieftain of the orc stronghold Mor Khazgur, and joins up with the Dragonborn to escape an eventual arranged marriage to another stronghold. This is accomplished either with a Speechcraft check, in which case she runs away with you, or by paying off her bride-price so the stronghold doesn't lose out on what they'd get for her.
• Final Fantasy
  • In Final Fantasy Legend II, the New God Venus arranges the marriage between Nills (Julius in Japan) and Flora (Olivia), despite the latter's relationship with Leon (Anthony) whom Venus has banished from her city due to his damaged leg. It's up to the protagonists to stop the marriage from taking place.
  • In Final Fantasy XII, the Princess Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca has an arranged marriage to Lord Rasler of Nabradia intended to promote an alliance. He dies soon after (not a spoiler since it happens in the opening tutorial). Also note that unlike most examples of this trope, they were actually quite happy with each other after a little bit of friction.
    Rasler: A marriage of convenience. A symbol of the alliance between Nabradia and Dalmasca. This is how they see our match.
    Ashe: They do, do they?
    Rasler: These roles we play. I must admit I find it... wearying.
  • In Final Fantasy XV, Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum, heir to the Lucian throne, is betrothed to Lady Lunafreya Nox Fleuret of Tenebrae. While there is insufficient information to conclude that they actually want to marry each other, there is likely no friction due to them being Childhood Friends. Despite having been estranged due to Niflheim's invasion of Tenebrae and Lunafreya being held captive, both are said to cherish their childhood memories of each other.
• Arranged marriages in Fire Emblem only lead to problems with irrevocable consequences:
  • Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem: This is what happened to Prince Hardin of Aurelis and Princess Nyna of Archanea, for lineage-preservation and political reasons. While Hardin loved Nyna, she thought well of him but didn't romantically love him and actually was in love with Camus, and she agreed to marry Hardin because of her counselors' pressure on her and the desperate need to save Archanea. It's easy to guess who exploits Hardin's bad feelings over the whole matter and turns him into a major villain in Mystery of the Emblem... It's Gharnef. At the end Nyna goes to one horribly Break the Cutie process, Hardin only comes to his senses as he dies in Marth's arms, and after briefly seeing that Camus was Not Quite Dead (under the identity of Sirius), Nyna hands Archanea to Marth and Caeda, then gets the Hell away of everything.
    • The Macedon noblewoman Lena and the Archanean nobleman Jeorge were supposed to marry Prince Michalis and Midia respectively. Lena got the Hell out of Macedon and ultimately got together with Julian, whereas Midia defied her and Jeorge's families by choosing Astram (much to Jeorge's relief).
  • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: This is what happened to King Desmond and Queen Hellene for financial and political reasons. Desmond was embittered by not being able to choose the woman he wanted to marry - who ends up as his mistress bearing his daughter instead - and his just as embittered wife venomously taunts him over the fact that their son will be King of Bern and that his daughter will be nothing. This is what led to him conspiring to take his son out of the picture by any means, culminating with attempting to assassinate him and having it backfire (and Hellene also unintentionally neglected her own son's well being for being overly ambitious). And who is their son? It's Zephiel.
  • Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance: This is what was going to happen to Astrid for financial and political reasons. Astrid hated her family's decision of arranging a wedding consisting of her and a noble from Begnion, and she greatly despised the man in question. This is what led to her running away from her family to have a life that wasn't run by other people. Who she was supposed to marry? Lekain. Ashera knows what could have happened to poor Astrid if she ended up going through it.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the A-Support of Bernadetta and Ferdinand reveals that they were arranged to be wed but the latter called it off after hearing some frightening rumors about the former. However, after getting to know her better, he says he would've been happy to go through with it. In their paired ending, they do end up marrying.
• Galaxy Angel II: A plot point for Lily's route in Mugen Kairou no Kagi is that her father wants to marry her to a nobleman of Seldar, to increase their family's prestige. Lily is torn between her love for Kazuya and her father's wishes, but in the end, and with some help from the rest of the Rune Angel Wing, she chooses the former.
• Harvest Moon:
  • In Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, Celia is engaged to a man from outside of town. She is ambivalent and later outright throws it off, in part due to her feelings for you. She'll marry Marlin if you don't marry her. If you get all of Celia's heart events but marry another woman, Celia will appear at your house and call you about about how you broke her heart and how she threw off her arranged marriage because of you only for you to betray her.
  • In the Japanese version of Harvest Moon DS, Muffy's parents try to arrange a marriage for their Old Maid of a daughter. Muffy refuses. The English version changes it into a blind date.
  • In Harvest Moon 2, the mayor wants his daughter Maria to marry an unspecified man. Maria, however, doesn't want to. This leads to her staying at Sara's until her father convinces her to come home.
• Haven (2020): One of the reasons that Kay and Yu left the Apiary is because Kay was set up with a "Mate". He didn't even glance at her profile before they ran away, but Yu convinces him to at least take a look.
• Two seasons into a new round of King of the Castle, the King is told (by the Queen Mother if they are at the beginning of a dynasty, by the Chancellor if they usurped the throne) that they must get married to secure their position on the throne. They are given a choice between the scions of noble families from each of the three regions, with political alliances emphasised over personal feelings, although the King can take a fourth option by refusing to marry any of them in favour of either not getting married at all or getting married for love to a commoner or one of several NPCs (at risk of raising all three regions' Defiance).
• For what little the lore has, League of Legends gives us how the Queen of Freljord, Ashe, arranged it herself that she's married with Tryndamere the Barbarian King in order to represent Freljord as a nation and stabilize politics. Their marriage seems steady despite how any romantic feelings between the two are unknown (although Fanon would depict them as Happily Married).
  • And then the Freljord event happened and proved the marriage had the exact opposite effect. The union was all Ashe's rival Sejuani needed to convince every other clan to rebel in a concerted show of contempt for trying to use a coward's game of politics to take power over a land where the strong survive. And this happened just in time for the evil Ice Queen sealed in the coldest, least-habitable corner of the land to rear her head just when any chance of uniting against a common foe was completely off the table. Great move, Ashe.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Link becomes engaged to Princess Ruto when he accepts the Zora Sapphire from her, as it is only meant to be given to Ruto's future husband. After the Time Skip, Ruto still holds Link to this "promise", though ultimately the marriage must be put on indefinite hold because of Link's duty as the Hero of Time and Ruto's as the Sage of Water.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Princess Mipha intended to propose to Link with the Zora Armor before she was killed, horrifying the royal advisor Muzu. In the alternate timeline game Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity the player can choose to accept the Zora Armor from her on Link's behalf by completing the Heart's Escort quest.
• Channing and Gloria of Lunarosse are caught in one since the beginning of the game due to business purposes. They don't like each other at all to start with, but the two can develop a genuine relationship depending on how the game plays out.
• In Might and Magic: Heroes VI, Emperor Liam Falcon attempts to end the feud between the Wolf and Griffin Duchies by organising a wedding between Irina, daughter of Griffin Duke Slava, and Wolf Duke Gerhart.
• In Miitopia, the Princess of Greenhorne is in love with her childhood friend, the son of a besmirched noble, but she is meant to be married to the Prince of Nekdsor, who is a cowardly, disdainful and insufferable douchebag. Though, when her face is stolen by the Dark Lord, the Prince runs away sobbing with fear while her friend bravely goes to save her without any hesitation, despite being hopelessly outmatched. The Princess's father saw it all, and realized that he was far better than the Prince of Neksdor, cancelling the engagement.
• In Odin Sphere, the fate of valkyries too wounded in battle to continue their careers as warriors is to be married off and serve as housewives and child-bearers. They consider it a Fate Worse than Death.
• Oracle of Askigaga: The princess of Hachisuka is set by her father to marry the prince of Askigaga to bring peace, but she doesn't like it, wanting to personally mow down the opposing army instead.
• Persona:
  • Go through Mitsuru's Social Link for enough time in Persona 3 and you'll discover that, to stabilize the Kirijo Group after her father's death, the board of directors has arranged for her to marry a much older man. She seems to have accepted it, but (judging by the proper answers to the dialogue prompts) the main character isn't fooled.
  • In Persona 5, Haru, a party member and, like Mitsuru, representative of the Empress arcana, is forced into another such marriage and is somewhat more open about her dislike of it.
• Nagamasa and Oichi in all Samurai Warriors which was forged to create an alliance between Nagamasa and Oichi, but does not end well.
• The Spirit Engine 2 has Ferwin, caught in the traditional business-pact-marriage. It's complicated further by the fact that there's another woman who he does love and wants to marry her instead. This causes him to become a Runaway Fiancé.
• In Star Ocean: The Second Story, the prince of Krosse and the princess of Lacuer have an arranged marriage. If you trigger a certain series of Private Actions in Krosse, however, you can stop the wedding so that one of them can be with their true love. However, it's implied that the other royal did actually have feelings for their arranged partner.
• In Super Paper Mario, The Chaos Heart can only be awakened to its full, reality-sundering power by the marriage of two individuals never meant to be together. Count Bleck invades Mario's reality to abduct Peach and Bowser for his attempt to engender a Reality-Breaking Paradox, and Nastasia is forced to take control of Peach to get the doom train out of the station (Peach, naturally, would never agree to wed Bowser).
• Discussed in Tales of Graces by Malik, Asbel, Richard, and Hubert. While Malik plays observer to it, the other three show disdain for it. Hubert mostly dislikes it because he thinks the person you marry should be your choice. Asbel and Richard agree and bemoan the marriage proposals they get.
  Asbel: I don't think someone should pick their wife like something out of a catalogue.
• Tears to Tiara 2 has an interesting twist. Hanno, the Governor-General of Qart Hadast, arranges a marriage between his daughter Elissa and Hamil to cement an alliance with Hispania. She agrees and sets out for Hispania. She's taken by slavers. When she and her bodyguard Daphnis were about to die fighting, Hamil and the party pulls a Big Damn Hero moment. The result is that Elissa rejects the proposal because of her Love Epiphany. Hamil himself is much relieved as well.
• Yes, Your Grace: The Player Character's two oldest daughters are just old enough to marry and a year away from usual marriage age respectively. Marrying off the oldest of the two is a non-negociable element of the game's plot, but things are more open with the younger one: two different offers for her show up over the course of the game, and the player can choose to take neither and let her run off with her lover instead.

Visual Novels

• In Akatsuki no Goei this was mostly a thing with the previous generation. Genzou was engaged to a woman named Yuri until Masaki eloped with her and took her to the prohibited district and Akiko married some random guy despite having a thing for Kaito's dad as well. He died, though, so she likes flirting with her daughter's boyfriend.
• Kaori in Crescendo (JP) intended to go through with an omiai arranged marriage (and presumably does so offscreen on the occasions when the player fails to achieve her good ending or chooses a different path).
• Leanna of Crystalline is nearly coerced into one by her father, but he backs down when she threatens to give up her family name.
• Guenevere:
  • The game opens on the day of Guenevere's arranged marriage to King Arthur - player choice can determine whether it is to be a Perfectly Arranged Marriage or a nightmare.
  • Morgana also had an arranged marriage to King Lot of Orkney prior to the beginning of the plot.
• Long Live the Queen:
  • Played very straight with the twist that you, the Crown Princess, get to arrange your own marriage. Nearly all of these marriages are purely political in nature, although you and your spouse may or may not end up developing mutual respect at the very least, depending on who you choose. However, if you do manage to make it to the end of the game without getting engaged, you have the option to instead wait for love, and this causes you to end up with an unnamed Earl who's good at baking. It's also possible to marry a guy and end up with a lovely lady on the side, or to outright refuse marriage and instead cycle through a bunch of lovers, discarding them whenever you get bored.
  • The player also has an opportunity to arrange someone else's marriage in order to end a war. This can either go as well as can be hoped for or end up very badly, depending on whether or not you pass the appropriate skill check.
• Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem takes place during a political summit which is held every seven years to strengthen diplomatic ties between the eponymous Seven Kingdoms. One of the main goals of the summit (and the game) is to form a politically advantageous marriage arrangement that will not make the participants miserable.
• Ai and Forbesii in Tick! Tack! are arranged to be married. Ai likes the idea, but Forbesii doesn't really care. He doesn't hate her, but he's fallen for his maid in the last year instead.
• In Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane, William Frega arranged the marriage of his middle daughter Laefe and Jaiden von Sanctus. House von Sanctus would be absorbed, but Jaiden would inherit all of the Frega estate and be the new head. Laefe never wanted to marry Jaiden, and after William's death she's no longer obligated to do it.
• Hatsuhime from Yo-Jin-Bo was intended to be married to a ten-year-old by her retainer Yahei, because said ten-year-old was the only "suitable" match for a princess to be found in the entire clan.

Web Animation

• ATTACK on MIKA: Sayuki's father forces Sayuki into one with the CEO of one of his client companies, seemingly shooting down her hopes of marrying her adopted brother Eiji. Much to her surprise and the man's dismay, it turns out to be Eiji.
• Etra chan saw it!:
  • Yuri is arranged to get married with Akamatsu, who is 41-years old due to her family owing his family a favor. Yuri decides to become fat to make Akamatsu reject her for her appearance.
  • Azami arranges her niece Yuzuriha, who is 15-years old to get married with a 39-years old Tokusa so she can get a new way to leech off of money from them. Obviously, the marriage didn't go through as Tokusa opted to help Yuzuriha and her mother to escape from Azami's selfishness.
• Helluva Boss:
  • The very reason Stella and Stolas were coerced into marrying each other in the first place was to bear an heir for the Goetia Family.
  • In "Exes and Oohs", Moxxie's father Crimson attempts to do this with Moxxie and Chaz, as the latter is apparently very rich and Crimson intends to acquire that wealth by using his son. The fact that Moxxie is already Happily Married to Millie means nothing to Crimson. The plan falls to shambles when not only do Millie and Blitzo crash the wedding, but Crimson realizes that Chaz is flat broke.
• As kids, Isis and Horitio from Lilium -Sims 2 were arranged to marry another set of siblings named Estella and Baltazar. The plot revolves around Iris having feelings for her brother, not her husband.
• Manga Soprano:
  • In If the bride gets into a bathing suit, will the groom pledge his love (sic), when Kairi stays adamant in his decision to marry Ram despite her attending the wedding wearing only a swimsuit, his parents tell him they already prepared a fiancee for him, who is from another rich family.
  • In the episode My sister plundered my fiancé! Now my arranged marriage partner is also plundered (sic), Ram and Nonoka's parents try to arrange a marriage between the former and the businessman Ikki-san. This is subverted when they find him with Nonoka, who demands to marry him instead of Ram. Their parents cave in and let her have him, to which Ram thanks her.
• Mani Mani People: Kazuya's parents decide to make him marry Tsubaki so he'll stop being a playboy. It later turned out that the woman who he thought was Tsubaki was actually one of Tsubaki's conjoined sisters, Sumire. He decided to marry the twins anyway since he's spent so much time with them.
• Reina's room: Kouichi was engaged to Love, an idol by his parents. He does love her and the only reason he's hesitant is because he didn't think he was good enough for her.

Webcomics

• 8-Bit Theater: In Elven society pre-marital courtship consists of an elaborate system of blackmail and counter-blackmail. And that's mild compared to what went on a few centuries earlier.
• Cirque Royale has Penelope explains to her niece, Red, that the royal line has always had the parents set up the next in line with an "appropriate" partner with wanted qualities for the kingdom—such as strength, beauty, or wisdom. Red's mother Quinn Mills was Clown Princess and engaged to Leo Cashworthy due to the Cashworthys' wealth in part because the kingdom was broke and needed the money the Cashworthys would bring to the kingdom, but she ran away from home and married the half-mime Kingston while she was missing. Multiple kingdoms have these kinds of marriages internally and externally in order to form alliances; Flower Queen and Cactus Queen are part of an arraigned marriage for the Plant Kingdom, and happen to have fallen in love over the course of the marriage. (Toothpaste Queen and Orange King, not so much.)
• The Cyantian Chronicles: Tira and Caite. Twice.
• Wildy of Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures is due to be married to one of five possible candidates, they seem relatively okay with this.
• In Ebin and May, Emperor Houman's strategy for taking over neighboring kingdoms seems to be to marry into the royal family on the pretext of forming an alliance, then invading and using his marriage to legitimize his rule, later killing off the wife when she's no longer useful.
• In Eons Ago, Starscream was involved in one long ago on Cybertron. It was called off when his fiancé died.
• Erstwhile:
  • “Maid Maleen”: The king persuades the prince to agree to one of these. After all, it's been seven years. He agrees and hopes the bride will manage to make him forget his lost love.
  • Prince Aster’s last promise to his father on his deathbed is that he will marry the Lady Iris. This promise means he must break off his engagement to his True Love, Princess Poppy.
• Freefall: It's revealed that Mr. Kornada is related to Ecosystems Unlimited's CFO Mr. Ishiguro by way of an arranged marriage to Ishiguro's aunt, intended as a framework for the merger of their respective families' companies. Mr. Ishiguro himself was also set up for arranged marriage, but showing his parents what a disaster bringing Kornada into the fold turned out to give him enough leverage to talk his way out of it.
• Girl Genius:
  • Sleipnir O'Hara had a political marriage waiting for her back home until she decided to run away with Theopholous DuMedd.
  • This trope is discussed between Baron Klaus Wulfenbach and his son Gilgamesh. Gil isn’t too keen on the idea and quickly proposes to the girl he likes instead.
  • Jiminez Hoffmann accidentally arranges his own marriage when he proposes a way to end a generations-long war by arranging a marriage between the Talpini prince and the Arguron princess. Of course, there's a species barrier - the Argurons are more or less human, but the Talpinis look like giant moles - but that's easily fixed. The Talpini king has adopted Hoffman as his son, so he can get married to the princess instead!
  • Seffie acknowledges that she is doomed to an arranged marriage, and is doing her best to arrange one with Gil.
• The Goddess's Guide to Farming: Seol is so desperate for the resort to push through to prove her worth because her father has threatened to marry her off into a political family. She had argued that it was obsolete, but he responded that it was her duty as a chaebol daughter.
• Robrecht and Fleurie, in Harbourmaster, were set up in a marriage which, being dutiful members of their households, they acknowledged and went along with. Unlike many, though, it's not a Perfectly Arranged Marriage or a Masochism Tango — instead, they just get along with each other, show mutual respect, laugh at each others' jokes and politely take interest in their respective hobbies, no matter how dull or ridiculous they think those are.
  Robrecht: We wouldn't have picked each other if we had a choice, but we could choose to do our best to be good partners.
• Hooky: Monica and William have one of these, due to being a princess and prince. However, things get complicated after the time skip and Monica has developed feelings for Dorian, while William is torn between his duty as a future king and the possibility of his reciprocating Damian's feelings.
• In Housepets!, it's not actually a marriage, but Spirit Dragon had her avatar, Tarot, take Peanut for a boyfriend in order to block Pete from taking him as an avatar. His potential character class could not power up quickly if in a relationship.
• The first story arc of The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob! involved a Squicky forced political marriage between Green-Skinned Space Babe Princess Voluptua and Starfish Alien Ahem.
• Rabbit society in Kevin & Kell is fond of this trope:
  • The concept was introduced not long after Coney's first word when rabbits started trying to arrange a marriage between their sons and Coney. Even considering Coney's freakish in their eyes because she's half-wolf, they still want to do so because they know she doesn't attack her own family. Kell refuses and says Coney will marry for love.
  • Kevin was supposed to have married who would be his rival in the school board elections, Fran Caudal, but Fran's parents called it off because Kevin had no fear (and therefore abnormal in their eyes).
  • Angelique had arranged a marriage between Lindesfarne and a hedgehog without telling Kevin, only bringing it up — and that it hasn't been broken off — when she got engaged to Fenton. Turns out though that the hedgehog, Quinn, was dating Lindesfarne's best friend Rhonda, and they got married so Lindesfarne was free to break the contract and marry Fenton.
    • And Quinn's parents, who were very enthusiastic about the marriage (to the point of putting in quill-proof rubber walls in anticipation of children) vowed to force a divorce between Quinn and Rhonda until Rhonda defended them against her jilted ex-boyfriend.
  • Long ago, the marriage of George and Martha Fennec had been one of these, done to add some diversity to their respective gene pools. Except they hated each other and eventually divorced when they caught each other cheating.
• The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal begins this way, when Amal calls off the marriage his parents set up for him and comes out to them, prompting them to disown him. His ending up drunkenly agreeing to drive cross-country with a total stranger is what sets the plot rolling.
• The Severin family in Muted make their living off these. The daughter of the Head Matriarch must summon a demon on their 21st birthday with the explicit purpose of wishing for a rich husband.
• No Rest for the Wicked: The backstory of the comic is that (Princess) November ran away from home in order to escape a Standard Hero Reward with the unnamed "Boy", a naive Fearless Fool peasant who managed to rescue a huge treasure from a haunted castle. The Boy seems genuinely smitten with her, however; between November's own story arcs, the comic features him traveling around the world with an upbeat spirit, hoping to find her. Well, she is the youngest, if you catch my drift.
• And for a modern Western example? Ozy and Millie has Ozy betrothed to one of his more distant cousins, Isolde. There is a notable age difference, as only one of them is physically mature. Ozy 'talks' his way out of it: after an exceptional performance at a family sporting event, he breathes fire on the betrothal papers. His father objects to the idea; it's described by a matriarch-like figure that it'd be the best way for Ozy to really do good for his family, given the species gap.
• Princess Princess (2012): Amira's parents were trying to set her up with various princes whom she found boring (and, since she's only shown as attracted to Sadie, probably wouldn't work out regardless). She ran away to become a hero again.
• It's the central plot for the two main characters, Miharu and Kazuo, in Red String. It's also the center of the subplot for Miharu's cousin Karen and her betrothed, Makoto.
  • Miharu and Kazuo turns out to be a subversion: Their mothers arranged the marriage in an attempt to give Kazuo an actual life away from his abusive father.
• Royal Blue: Bel was going to be forced into an arranged marriage against her will before she ran away.
• Suitor Armor: Princess Kirsi is betrothed to a prince. She's (initially) excited and has romantic notions about it, but her husband-to-be does not seem interested in her, barely willing to even chat.
• Mose in Templar Arizona is betrothed to an 11-year-old girl back in Egypt that he's never met in the flesh. His current friend-with-benefits, Tuesday is not happy about it.
• To Love Your Enemy: Yikyung's wealthy father wants his son to marry a girl of his choosing for the sake of the business. Also discussed; Yeonhee can't believe her life is now a chaebol drama.
• In Tsunami Channel, Yamato Nadeshiko Haruna arrives and stays because she has promised with the protagonist, or so she claims. It's eventually discovered that she was in a tightly arranged promise before, made when she was still a child. However, she and her fiancé eventually fell in genuine love with each other, but the boy got a mortal disease and dissolved the promise a couple of days before his death. Obviously, she was devastated, until the professor Hasegawa showed her a photo of the protagonist who, coincidentally, was too similar to her dead fiancé. This reveal is done by her new arranged fiancé who was a friend of the dead one.
• Whale Star: The Gyeongseong Mermaid: To further ingratiate themselves with the Japanese, Geunhyeong Kang arranges a marriage between his son Uihyeon and Haruko Ijuin, the daughter of his close business associate. Haruko adores Uihyeon, who does not reciprocate her feelings.
• Unsounded: In Alderode if a person hasn't gotten married by a certain age—which age depends on their caste—the elders of their gher push for their marriage and find them a partner as everyone but Third Options is expected to have children.
• Introduced in strip 27 of Xawu.
• In Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic, Glon has to marry three orc ladies for political reasons when his mother is crowned Queen of Black Mountain. At first, he loathes the idea, but he soon grows to like them. The situation is not quite Perfectly Arranged Marriages, but Glon does enjoy their company, turning to them for advice and taking one of his wives along on at least one adventure.

Web Original

• Imperium Nova allows you to arrange marriages between members of your house and those from others. The lower status house gains status from the marriage and the higher status house often loses status but dowries can be offered to soften the blow. It also decreases feud score.
• In May Xnocens, Princess May's marriage was going to be one of these. She doesn't object. July does, but only because he thinks the union will release Idius March. He tries to keep the whole thing from going through by stabbing her.

Western Animation

• Amphibia:
  • Played for Laughs in an early episode, where Sprig is betrothed to the local baker's daughter in exchange for pizza dough. Everyone is fairly nonchalant about "selling" Sprig, including Sprig himself (he's creeped out by who he's marrying, sure, but doesn't protest the deal at all and expresses optimism that they can learn to love each other).
  • Happens again with Sprig and his childhood friend Ivy. When Sprig's grandfather and Ivy's mother realize they're close, they immediately decide to start them courting as part of a profitable business arrangement for both sides. Sprig points out that he's already engaged to someone else, but everyone ignores him.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • In the final episodes of the first season, Sokka falls for Princess Yue, who is very unhappy to be headed for an arranged marriage to Hahn. She gets out of it by becoming the moon spirit, and by Hahn having a played-for-laughs death (Come on, thrown off a boat into Arctic waters? Dude is dead).
  • Fire Lord Ozai and Princess Ursa were also an arranged marriage. Since she is Avatar Roku’s granddaughter, Ozai and his father wanted to marry the two bloodlines. Ursa was actually engaged to another man when he proposed. This might hint that Zuko and Mai may have been arranged for each other early on as well, although they're so genuinely in love with each other (even blushing around each other as children) that it doesn't really matter anyway.
  • Sokka and Katara's grandmother, Kanna, was once arranged to be married to Waterbending Master Pakku, who saw her as the "love of his life". She ran away from the Northern to the Southern Tribe to avoid him and the Northern Tribe's traditions, and Pakku grew incredibly bitter and misogynistic as a result. It appears to have been the traditions were the problem rather than Pakku's person, however, because months after Pakku - having had a change of heart after meeting Katara and realising Kanna's actual reasons to leave - travelled to the Southern Tribe, he and Kanna properly got married, this time in mutual love.
• BoJack Horseman: Happened with Beatrice Horseman in her youth when father heavily pushed her to accept Corbin Creamerman since their families could profit from a sugar-cream alliance to make a profitable ice cream empire. It's implied that it would've been a Perfectly Arranged Marriage when they started to get to know each other better. Then she got pregnant with BoJack from Butterscotch.
• Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: Just in case you forgot that Mira Nova was a princess (and considering how Action Girl she is, it's pretty easy), one episode has Mira finding out about an arranged marriage that has been set up for her. She tries to issue an Engagement Challenge—her foppish fiancé has to complete Star Command Basic Training—but to her horror, he passes with flying colors. Fortunately for her, he decides to become a Space Ranger rather than settle down.
• Danny Phantom has an episode in which Sam is stuck in an arranged marriage with the ghostly Prince Aragon, after his sister spent half the episode finding the perfect human bride.
• In The Fairly Oddparents, Mark did a Heel–Face Turn to avoid an arranged marriage to Princess Mandie.
• In Harley Quinn (2019), King Shark returns to his home in the ocean so he can marry Tabitha of the hammerheads to prevent a war between the kingdoms. Neither of them want to go through with it, so King Shark confronts his father and makes a big show of decline. When he returns to the surface, he reveals that he changed his mind minutes later and went through with it because he couldn't refuse his father. However, King Shark and Tabitha both decide to resume their own, separate lives, making their marriage an open relationship, so the effect this has on them is minimal.
• An episode of Jimmy Two-Shoes has Lucius arranging for Beezy to marry the Weavil Princess in order to get a large amount of treasure from them (which they were willing to sacrifice in order to get rid of her).
• The Simpsons:
  • "The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons" followed Apu attempting to dodge an arranged marriage by claiming to already be married. After sufficient hilarity ensues, the ruse is discovered and the wedding goes forward over Apu's objections. However, his bride Manjula turns out to be a good match for him, and they remained happily married... until they had octuplets. Their marriage pretty much derailed from there.
  • In a later episode, Bart is forced to marry one of Cletus's daughters to save a bull he has befriended.
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • (Princess) Starfire almost went through with one of these; she'd been told it would end a war but in fact it was a ruse by her big sister Blackfire.
  • Based on a story in the original comics, in which she actually does go through with it. The husband would later die.
• An episode of Timon & Pumbaa had Timon help Pumbaa escape an arranged warthog wedding. Since only the bride can call it off, Pumbaa was made to be as disgusting as possible to be unappealing. The bride is instead in love with him because she loved his bad boy look, only to cancel the wedding when Pumbaa confesses that he is actually a nice guy.
• Winx Club:
  • There was one between Prince Sky and Princess Diaspro but Sky doesn't love her, so he calls off the wedding. Lucky Bloom.
  • Early in season 2, Brandon almost married Amentia, princess of the Underealm, who had a crush on him, much to his and Stella's horror. Fortunately for both, Amentia made up her mind in the last moment thanks to Amore (Stella's bonded pixie) and marries a fellow underealmer who doubles as her childhood friend, who does love her a lot.
  • One that actually worked out was between Princess Aisha and Nabu. The circumstances are similar to that in the Sleeping Beauty example: When Aisha sees Nabu for the first time, she doesn't know it's him, and he doesn't tell her that he is either. Both were hostile to the idea, but they fell in love anyway. After their parents call off their wedding, Nabu proposed to Aisha, who accepted. Only to get Killed Off for Real.
  • In Magical Adventure when Sky seemingly breaks off his wedding with Bloom just after proposing to her, Oritel tries to set Bloom up with several other guys (including but not limited to the nerdiest character in the show, an Elvis Impersonator and a supposed Specialist who managed to cut his own hair and pants while showing his prowess with the sword), but Bloom manages to blow them all off.
• On The Proud Family, Penny had a budding romance with a Chinese-American boy, only to discover that his parents had arranged for him to marry some girl whom he'd never met. The boy thinks it's no big deal since they wouldn't get married for years anyway, but Penny refuses to be "the other woman." The issue is resolved when the boy meets his fiancée; the two immediately hate each other so much that the whole thing gets called off.

Real Life

• There's a reason that royalty is often involved in Arranged Marriage plotlines: For Western historical examples, you need only read up on European royal houses from the last few centuries. Such tight inbreeding often resulted in diseases like schizophrenia becoming commonplace in such families, not to mention the horror that was known as the Hapsburg Chin.
  • It's also the reason infidelity was so tolerated among men. You had to marry the princess to pump out the required legitimate heirs. What you did outside of business hours wasn't your wife's concern. On the other hand, any woman, even one with no enemies, could find herself on the wrong side of an executioner's axe (or could doom her lover to that fate) by having an affair - in some cases, even a merely emotional affair. The logic behind that Double Standard is simple to understand: if the woman had an affair, there could easily be an illegitimate heir, which could have caused problems in theory. In reality, though, an illegitimate heir was often the healthiest thing the queen could provide her husband, and often there was no way to know.
• Arranged marriages were fairly common right up to the 20th century in many western countries and still fairly common in African, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries even today. As much as 90% of Indian marriages are still arranged. Expect societal disapproval if you choose your spouse yourself.
  • If you're rich, then you'll probably be under the most pressure to marry well. A rich person wanting to marry someone poor or even relatively poor would face tremendous amounts of resistance from family. This is true of Indians, but it's also an age-old story that you see across many cultures and time periods, including present-day white Americans. And it may well be true that 90% of Indian marriages are arranged, but that doesn't mean they're all forced. Many arranged marriages are consenting relationships. They're just done for more practical reasons than love because it's expected that you can grow to love just about anyone, so you may as well pick someone suitable and reliable.
  • It has been described as a process by which parents vet the prospects and make a shortlist and leave the final choice to the child. This general practice is common in India across religious and caste lines, and is also common throughout the Muslim World and in parts of East Asia (where similar practices fall under the broader categories of xiangqin in China and omiai in Japan).
• Among certain segments of society, they're still common even in Western countries. For example, Orthodox Jewish couples still largely meet via the services of a matchmaker, though websites such as Saw You At Sinai are trying to streamline the process. However, only the most conservative Hasidic families still practice the most extreme version of this trope; most will meet via a matchmaker but date for a month or two before deciding whether or not to marry. The combination of formality and desire to marry someone "compatible" has resulted in the infamous "shidduch problem" amongst Western Orthodox families whereby many singles remain single out of the inability to really find someone they connect to using this system.
• For members of the Unification Church, "Moonies," all marriages amongst the flock are arranged by Reverend Moon himself (or were, until his death in 2012) or the couples' parents.
• Some very conservative Christian groups practice "betrothal," meaning that they believe fathers have the authority to determine whom their adult children marry via Arranged Marriage or Parental Marriage Veto.
• It's also pretty common for good friends who have opposite gender children to refer to them as a future husband and wife, although they're usually joking.
• Arranged Marriage: Roman style is described by Pliny in one of his letters. He's been asked to look for a suitable husband for a friend's daughter and lists his candidate's qualifications in this order: family background; personal character; career prospects, appearance, and finally fortune which is probably placed last out of piety rather than its real importance. The physical description, interestingly, is clearly included for the girl's benefit.
• Arranged Marriages are still practiced in South Korea as well, though they are becoming increasingly rare. Matchmakers and parents are usually very careful, though. They will scrutinize and vet a potential suitor for a period (a few weeks to a few years) before allowing the marriage to happen, allowing the couple to date and get to know each other during that period. That way they avoid most of the issues that could happen in arranged marriages of other cultures. Marrying for money is also discouraged.

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