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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Merkuri" data-source="post: 5085322" data-attributes="member: 41321">The man getting to choose his bride (and her having nothing to say about it) is not that uncommon in human history.  I don't know why it would be interpreted as a creepy sexual subtext.  It's not a culture I'd like to live in, but I found it entirely plausible and non-creepy that in this culture the man gets to choose his mate for life.  It would be creepier if the mating wasn't for life and the man had the right to go around and mate with whoever suited his fancy at that moment.Heck, there are some modern day cultures that still do arranged marriages, where neither member of the couple gets to choose.  I actually know somebody at work who had an arranged marriage and is very happy with it.  The idea of marriage being a choice between the two married people is not a universal truth.But also remember that we only saw one instance of this mate-choosing happen.  It's possible you misinterpreted the "this one has to choose me back" comment and that's actually the way things are done normally in their culture.  Neytiri certainly didn't slap him around with a "that's not the way we do it" comment like she had been doing the rest of the movie.  For all we know the custom is for a man to choose a woman and then the woman has to accept him ("choose him back") before the mating happens.  Maybe the man's role is just to initiate the whole thing.And whatshisname - the guy everyone thought she was going to be mated to in the beginning - seemed pretty upset at Neytiri that she had mated with Jake as if she had a choice in the matter.  I'd think he would have had more sympathy for her (or at least less ire) if she was just a possession chosen by another man or something like that.</blockquote>

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