Marraige of Convinience

In olden day, when kingdoms were the rule rather than exceptions, the kings and dynasties were prone to various semi-legal activities to increase/lengthen their influence over the land. One such tactic was: Marriage.

Say Shahapur and Raghavpur were neighbours in a mythical land. Raghavpur wants to increase his influence but cannot do so due to fear of Imaginarypur. King of Raghavpur realises that Imaginarypur is stronger than Raghavpur, but it is not stronger than combined strength of Raghavpur and Shahapur. Now, conviniently, Raghavpur has a son of marraigable age. He proposes to the king of Shahapur the marraige of Shahapur king's daughter and his son. King of Shahapur is not excited withthis offer, as he was expecting the Iparpur to for his daughter. But after lots of wheelings and dealings, which are of no relevance in todays world, he agrees.

Now this poor son is unaware of his scheming father and is happyly engrossed in his studies of Archery and Elephant-riding. Similarly his daughter is still playing hide-and-seek with her freinds and dreaming of a knight in shining armour to arrive from a foreign country.

Now the simple-minded mother is also in another corner of the palace scheming her little plots to get more jwellery and more silk for herself when she suddenly recieves a roll of cloth with the royal emblem. This was called mail in those good old days. This letter informs the mother of the plan of getting her son married to neighbouring princess, and is promised even more jwellery if she agrees.

Even now the prince of one kingdom and princess of other are unaware and busy in their own ways.

Then suddenly, as if divine hand hath commanded, they are invited to a big party where all the courtiers are busy merry making. They are made to sit on tall chair with even bigger partitions while both the kings lock hands as a sign of eternal friendship while drinking with the other hand. And they announce, one sentence each alternatively, of the divine match they are planning and how the great God himself came in their dreams to seed this idea.

Then it dawns on the prince and princess what they have gotten into. But they have no choice left but to sit in their chair and wonder.

This practice vanished along with the kingdoms, or so everybody thought. Until somebody analysed how some of the big organisations work.