Parents are interested in their child's personal happiness. However, subconsciously they feel that their child will be happy when subscribing to the socially constructed status quo (i.e. making society happy). While not necessarily intentional, parents still believe that only they have the mental and emotional capacity to choose the right person for their child. But the notion that "mother knows best" regarding her child's life partner requires confidence in the assumption that the parents have a thorough understanding of their child's identity. Being raised with South Asian values in the United States, I know that this is very often not the case (not only within the South Asian community, but in the greater sphere of family life). Second generation immigrants are obliged to lead dual lives; they uphold their parents' values when surrounded by a society that abides by such values and, in more amenable settings, they exhibit personalities that are usually different from those to which their parents have been exposed. The psychological result here is that parents project their own notions of what happiness is and what personal qualities will make their child "happy" Young adults are then persuaded to marry exactly those suiters who fit their equation for happiness, unconscious of the fact that their happiness equation may not "equal" that of their child's. The parents' input data is wrong because it's missing half of their child's personality, half of their essence.
I like this quote from the discussion thread of the story:
"Generally speaking, the better your relationship with your parents, the more likely it is that an arranged marriage could work. Ironically, the better your relationship with your parents is, the less likely they are to try and strip you of choice."
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