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Konkvistador comments on On private marriage contracts - Less Wrong
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You seem to be mistaking arranged marriage for forced marriage. This is a grievous error of fact about human social practices; it is not a difference of opinion or values.
The difference between arranged and forced marriage is mostly one of degree. Indeed many studies trying to measure the outcomes of arranged marriages don't really have good ways to screen out forced marriages, some don't even attempt to.
I think historically most Western people who used the legal right of forced marriage where closer to the arranged part of that spectrum.
But you know what? I just realized that I simply assumed the latter was the case without good reason. Which tells me that I should drop the conversation and continue it another time, when I'm perhaps more clear headed and have done some more study of history.
If the difference between arranged and forced marriage is one of degree, than the difference between employment and slavery is also one of degree.
I don't think this carves reality at the joints. Not only are border cases hard to tell apart in many societies most of the instances cluster around where we would deem border cases.
Arranged marriages, like work, often involve driving external factors that don't amount to 'coercion'. Forced marriages, like slavery, always involve coercion. (The definition of coercion is the border dispute here). Do you concur? Or is there a continuum of marriage where "It sure would be nice to have grandkids someday" is only a matter of degree different from "If you refuse you will be stoned to death" or even "You have married this person."
What about a more realistic scenario: if you refuse, you'll be disinherited?
It isn't?
Is slavery immoral? Is employment immoral? Can morality be a matter of degree?
Probably. Possibly. Yes.
Can you describe something which is a difference of kind instead of a difference of degree?