Marriage myths – American style:

The things we can learn from Married At First Sight.

Arranged marriage is common in countries such as India and part of Asia but can it work in America? Married At First Sight USA sociologist Pepper Schwartz thinks so but even she had reservations when the concept was put to her.

“They called me and they asked me if I would be interested in doing a TV show about relationships,” she says, from her home in Seattle.

“When they told me it was about arranged marriage at first sight, I was a little flummoxed, but I did know a lot about regular arranged marriage so I said OK.”

What does shock her is the number of people keen to take part in the televised experiment.

“When I first did this I thought ‘Well, who’d do this?’ It’s such an extreme form of marriage in the US but, up until now, I think we’ve had something like 45,000 people apply,” Dr Pepper says.

Like the Danish series it is based on, Married At First Sight USA features three couples – paired up by experts, including Dr Pepper – who agree to marry when they meet.

Unlike the Australian version, the couples are legally wed and must divorce if the relationship fails. After the wedding, the couples spend their first night together in a hotel before leaving on a honeymoon.

Upon returning home, they live together as husband and wife for six weeks before choosing whether to stay wed or call it quits.

“As the show developed, I felt the show had its own integrity, that its mission was to help people and that we could do that not just by matching people, not just by helping them grow, but also that people watching this on television could learn a lot,” Dr Pepper says.

“A lot of people watch as couples. They can see in other people, problems and perhaps inappropriate tactics, things that they recognise and go, ‘Oh, I do that and I should stop. It doesn’t look very good’.”

Dr Pepper and fellow experts – clinical psychologist Joseph Cilona, sexologist Logan Levkoff and humanist chaplain Greg Epstein – put applicants through a lot of tests (including a 45-page questionnaire) before matching them up.

“Most people who apply have lost faith in themselves,” Dr Pepper says, adding that many have had