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Most Americans who get married today believe they are choosing their own partners after falling in love with them. Arranged marriages, which remain common in some parts of the world, are a rarity here.

But while about , I've made a surprising observation: These seemingly different kinds of matrimony may be beginning to converge.

Couples who ostensibly marry after spontaneously falling in love increasingly do that with some help from online dating services or after meeting through hookup apps. And modern arranged marriages – including my own – are becoming .

Going strong in India

According to some estimates, are arranged. They are the norm in India, comprising at least .

The practice also remains elsewhere in South Asia, parts of Africa, the Middle East and East Asian countries like Japan and China.

I believe that in communities where arranged marriages predominate still feel that parents and other close relatives are qualified to select marriage partners. Some consider their parents as more objective than they are about this big decision and more adept at spotting compatibility.

In addition, arranged marriages help couples uphold cultural and religious traditions that have stood the test of time. Perhaps this explains why people in arranged marriages tend to .

Data comparing divorce rates within countries for arranged and love marriage are hard to come by. But in the U.S., between 40 and 50 percent of all . In India, the divorce rate for all marriages is and it's there.

To be sure, divorce is often in nations and cultures where arranged marriages are common – making that metric a potentially unreliable way to assess marital bliss or the lack thereof. In addition, the U.S., Indian and other governments generally don't collect arranged marriage data.

Not your grandma's arranged marriage

As a result of , that ease communications, there and among . Young people who tie the knot that way have and can even initiate the process instead of their parents.

In addition, the prevalence of matrimonial websites such as (which means marriage in Hindi) and (life partner in Hindi) empower young Indians who reside in India or to become more .

The internet, higher education levels, and cultural and economic globalization are also making single Indians freer to do their own searching for future spouses than their parents were. And some traditions that limit choices for single people, such as parents to announce eligibility and interest, are becoming less common.

Finally, when Indians reach a marriageable age – usually between 18 and 30 years old for women and between 22 and 40 for men – the ways these aspiring brides and grooms interact are beginning to resemble contemporary dating in the U.S. That's a big change from the rituals of the past, which typically involved a supervised meeting between the prospective bride and the groom and several meetings between their families.

Arranged marriage, American-style

Arranged marriage in the U.S., where parents are largely deemed ill-suited for the task of finding marriage partners for their children.

But, in my opinion, things are changing here for a reason. , such as eHarmony, OkCupid and The Right Stuff are proliferating and becoming more accepted.

While these sites and apps don't use the word "arranged" in their branding, it's hard to deny that they do "arrange" for people to meet. In addition, the explicit criteria – online profiles, personality tests, questionnaires – that they use to match individuals resemble the implicit criteria parents and friends use to identify prospective spouses for arranged marriages.

An important difference is that third parties – dating websites and other matchmaking services or their staff – handle the "arranging" activities. EHarmony, for example, pre-screens candidates based on personality tests. OkCupid uses questionnaires to match people. Perfectmatch.com uses algorithms to match people, and The Right Stuff pairs people by profile.

Psychologist of the University of Chicago recently did a study with several colleagues about internet dating and modern matrimony. They found that more than one-third of all American couples who got married between 2005 and 2012 met online. Marriages that began when couples met online were a little than those who didn't and those spouses were somewhat more satisfied with their marriages, the researchers determined.

In my view, all parents seeking to arrange a marriage for their sons and daughters do so with the best of intentions. They don't always get it right, but they frequently do. My own parents certainly did, 23 years ago, when I got married. And whether parents or computer algorithms make this connection, the ultimate goal is the same: to ensure a happy and long-lasting union.

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