Basic Trope: An Arranged Marriage set up by a government and/or religious leader.
- Straight: Alice and Bob, two strangers, each receive a letter in the mail stating that they are to be married, per order of the People's Republic of Ruritania, and the date and time the wedding is to take place.
- Exaggerated:
- Several couples are married en masse, all by order of the People's Republic of Ruritania.
- Alice and Bob are brother and sister, and the People's Republic of Ruritania explicitly legalized their incestuous union, among many others.
- Everybody in the People's Republic of Ruritania has a bureaucratically arranged marriage.
- Downplayed: Princess Alice is married off to King Bob the Nth, in order to seal a political alliance between Tropestan and Wikistan.
- Justified:
- It's part of a Bread and Circuses plot on the part of the PRT.
- Alice and Bob are part of a Breeding Cult.
- The People's Republic of Ruritania is trying to create Super Soldiers, and Alice and Bob has been selected for its Super Breeding Program.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob date, and eventually they get engaged, and go down to the courthouse or city hall to get a marriage license.
- Alice and Bob, a couple, are forcibly divorced under orders of the People's Republic of Ruritania.
- Subverted:
- The marriage between Alice and Bob is actually arranged by their parents.
- Alice is only marrying Bob because he got her pregnant.
- Alice and Bob are engaged but are not married.
- Alice and Bob Marry for Love despite the forced marriage ordered by the People's Republic of Ruritania.
- Double Subverted:
- In their society, the family functions as a mini-state unto itself. Marriages are used as a way to keep wealth and status within the family, seal alliances with other clans, resolve disputes
between Feuding Families, save face in the event of illicit hanky-panky, and produce legitimate heirs. Breaking the engagement, refusing the marriage, or getting a divorce may be punishable by death. - Ruritanian law states that if an unmarried man and woman have sex and are found out, they have to get married or else one or both of them will be executed.
- The engagement was set up by government or religious leaders, with no input from Alice and Bob. And the only reason it's being held off is because Alice is not of legal age yet.
- The government of the People's Republic of Ruritania's computer is excellent at matching people up; Alice and Bob's marriage is no different than any other Perfectly Arranged Marriage.
- In their society, the family functions as a mini-state unto itself. Marriages are used as a way to keep wealth and status within the family, seal alliances with other clans, resolve disputes
- Parodied:
- Adam and Steve get matched up due to a computer glitch, and argue over who's the Seme and who's the Uke
- Bob awkwardly asks Alice if she's into watching television, right before the forced wedding.
- Zig-Zagged: Some marriages are arranged by the government, some by religious leaders, some by parents or other relatives of the couple, sometimes by a couple that chooses to Marry for Love.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob do not get married.
- The government has little to no say in who gets married, or when, apart from a few rules concerning legal age or how closely related a couple can/cannot be.
- The institution of marriage as we know it does not exist in this setting, in either a civil or religious sense. Instead, couples either hook up and go their separate ways or else move in together with little or no fanfare. No one has to sign any paperwork, get a blood test, present a divorce decree or death certificate if it's not a first marriage, exchange rings or make vows, or anything like that, and there's no reception, Fairy Tale Wedding Dress, flowers, cake, tux, gift registry, etc.
- Alice and Bob decide to marry.
- Enforced:
- "Let's create a Dystopia!"
- "We want to create a Utopia where everyone gets to be married and happy."
- The creators wanted some Rule of Drama for a story about a Breeding Cult.
- Lampshaded:
- "Dear Citizen Number 12345, you are at this moment ordered to report to the Palace of Ruritania for your marriage to Citizen Number 246810..."
- "What?! I'm getting married to a stranger?!"
- Invoked: Charles, the tyrannical dictator of Ruritania, is bribed by an unknown source to engage Alice with a man named Bob. He does it without question
- Exploited:
- Leaders of a Breeding Cult copy in an attempt to create a master race.
- Charles tries to use a joyful event to distract people from the fact that it's, well, a dictatorship, and to control every aspect of its citizens' lives.
- Defied:
- Alice leaves the country, and seeks asylum in Tropestan, rather than being married off to some man twice her age that she's never met.
- The People's Republic of Ruritania decides not to meddle in its citizens' marriages.
- Discussed: "Look at these two people. I bet the government's going to try to force them to marry."
- Conversed: "So these two strangers who never even met are now getting married by the government? Surely many citizens would have tried to escape by now considering their government's questionable methods."
Back to Bureaucratically Arranged Marriage
