So I'm trying to figure out how I feel about the fact that there seems to be an arranged marriage taking place within my family.

My uncle and his wife are hardcore Bible-belt Christians, by which I mean they believe in such concepts as "The man is the head of the household and it's the wife's duty to submit to his leadership." And that they order their entire lives around what they believe God wants for them (and consult him often on exactly what that is), rather than simply claiming Christianity based on a weekly or monthly trip to church. They have three biological kids and have adopted NINE more, going on ten — five of them from Russia, the rest each from different countries. They've adopted kids considered too old to be adopted; they've adopted deeply troubled children, they've adopted "reject" kids who were adopted, then kicked out, by other families who didn't realize what a commitment they were making. They've basically made their lives into a ministry, and they've done wonderful things with these unwanted kids. They currently live in Alabama, though they're originally from Oklahoma.

I found out over the weekend from my mother that my aunt's been corresponding with a similar family in Michigan — a couple that's taken in more than a dozen special-needs children, and currently have 15 kids in their care, though some of those are their biological children. My aunt and this family's matriarch have been corresponding online about the difficulties of raising such a large family of adoptees, and they get along really well. Somewhere along the line, they decided that the Michigan family's oldest boy, "James," and my aunt's oldest adopted girl, a 19-year-old Russian I'll call "Ellen," would be perfect for each other. So the families arranged a meeting. James liked Ellen; Ellen is painfully shy and reportedly barely spoke to James and was never alone with him. But they later corresponded online, and he decided she was perfect for him, so the mothers have set a wedding date in January.

Now, I accept that I'm getting a very limited and skewed third-hand view of the whole thing, as the story came through my grandmother to my mother, and thence to me. I accept that my mother is full of phenomenal amounts of exaggeration and distortion. And I accept that I (like most of the family) have steadily questioned my aunt and uncle's sanity when it comes to all the adoptions, and I thought every one after #5 was a terrible idea, but it's all worked out fine so far, and the whole family seems happy.

Still, there are times when their house strikes me as an indoctrination camp, and thefirethorn (who is also related to the whole passel) and I are deeply curious what all these kids will remember about their childhoods when they grow up, and how they'll relate to religion. ’Thorn and I were raised with similar Bible-belt values, and we've both gone through heavy backlash; we can't help but wonder whether the kids of that household will go through something similar en masse once they get away from home. And now I'm wondering how Ellen in particular is going to react as she leaves the nest to marry a guy she barely knows, based on an agreement largely made by other people. I mean, even the family seems to be referring to it as an arranged marriage.

Of course, my most basic reaction is "It's none of my business, there's nothing I can do, and what I think or how I feel about it is entirely moot." Still, I remain creeped out.

I'm-a feelin': enweirdenated