Reva Seth knows that the story of her marriage sounds horribly calculating, but it wasn't at all, she insists. What? Even though she identified the characteristics of her prospective husband, meticulously attended every one of a colleague's parties until she found someone who matched, and got engaged at their seventh meeting?

“I wanted someone who had a similar education background to me and who was interested in politics,” she explains. “It was more a recognition that this girl I knew tended to have a large network of friends that would fit.”

And one night, there the husband was, although Seth insists there were no thunderbolts. “I was genuinely attracted to him. As we started talking I could tell he was involved in lots of things that interested me, and I got a sense that he could be a person I could fall in love with.”

Was she in love with him when they got engaged? “You know what, no, I wasn't,” she says brightly. “I don't think we'd spent enough time together to fall in love. But I knew I would. I had a strong sense that this was what I was looking for.”

Five years later, Seth, now 32, is happily married with a two-year-old son, and has become an advocate of the principles of arranged marriage, which she suggests her own experience reflects. This does not mean that she supports the kind of marriage in which the parties are left without choice about whom they marry. Rather she believes that common backgrounds and shared values - which underpin the Asian tradition of arranged marriage - are more likely to lead to an enduring relationship than the chance meeting promoted so enticingly by Hollywood and a culture that clings to the notion of spontaneous romantic love.

Certainly the notion of marriage as a celebration of romantic love is a relatively new phenomenon that has been around for only 500 years. But why should we ditch it? What Seth argues in her book, First Comes Marriage, is that if you build the components of a marriage with care, love will grow. She cites her own parents, whose marriage was arranged in India and who have been together for 33 years, and she has developed her case by talking to more than 300 women whose marriages were arranged. According to Seth, the divorce rate for such unions is between 5 and 7 per cent (compared with a 40 per cent failure rate in the UK) and a 2005 study showed that over time couples in arranged marriages report high levels of happiness and satisfaction.

Her starting point is that there is plenty of evidence that young Western women need help, largely in their catalogues of broken relationships. In seeking instant gratification they are inclined to mistake lust for love and, in spite of decades of feminism, they read a lot of chick-lit and still believe that their knight in shining armour is around the corner. At the same time, because of those decades of feminism, they are a demanding lot, accustomed to achieving their goals and don't take easily to compromise.

“Their expectations are high and that makes it hard to feel happy,” Seth says. “We just fall into relationships without stopping to think about what we're looking for or why we want it. Even when we find one that seems right, our expectations are unrealistic.

“The myth of rescue is still out there - he can take us away from whatever frustrates us and we cling to the idea that a relationship should just happen, that we shouldn't have to work at it. And as modern women, we're used to having what we want and we regard this incredible relationship as our right.”

Seth admits that she had made mistakes before she decided to take the strategic and proactive approach that she recommends. “Arranged marriages are primarily about fostering commitment and building a marriage out of that,” she says. “Not about fun or excitement or sexual chemistry. It's about finding people who have similar backgrounds on the basis that they should have common goals for the future and an understanding of where the other person is coming from.”

To this end Seth suggests that women seeking a partner consider what she calls their “marriage musts”, by which she means a set of criteria that define the generic prospective partner. She is not talking about a husband's height or sex appeal, but his values, his lifestyle choices, his qualities. Having moved across continents while she was growing up, she understood that this had shaped her life and wanted to marry someone who had also lived outside Toronto, where she is based, but who shared her interest in the Canadian political process. Once she had identified her musts it became easier to recognise someone who might be husband material, and she stresses that she regards the notion that there is one perfect mate out there for each of us as misguided.

“What's important is pausing to think about what you want from a relationship. Before, I thought I would know it when I found it, and I wasn't even sure what I was looking for. Once I made the list it wasn't at the forefront of my mind, but I was aware of it, and I was tired of relationships that hadn't gone anywhere. I don't think there is a ‘One', that idea is very dangerous - what if you've missed him, or it doesn't work out? I think Rana and I are very good together and we're very much in love, but I do believe that there are other people who could also be right.”

Her other key point is that marriages that work are those where there is no assumption that your partner will satisfy every need and desire. Don't expect your husband to fulfil all your emotional needs and to be your best friend - that isn't necessary, she says.

One group of women she spoke to, who had had arranged marriages, were alpha-type New Yorkers in their late thirties and she noticed too that they didn't look to their partners so much for their happiness. “In Western culture there's an obligation for your partner to provide all your social and emotional needs,” she says. “In the landscape of arranged marriage there is an extended group that takes the pressure off this one man being able to provide everything.”

The women she spoke to were calm and positive about their relationships, she reports; they didn't complain. “They were able to have this sense of contentment because they weren't looking for something better and that's a tough thing to cultivate.”

This is the flaw in her thesis: that arranged marriages rely on a cultural acceptance of long-term commitment; even if you're only adopting their principles, that takes a hefty dose of maturity. Are women in their twenties and thirties ready to accept, for example, that sex will be part of their relationship, rather than its focus and the measure of its success? And doesn't a culture that constantly strives for something better mitigate against notions of compromise and counting your blessings? Seth counters that her advice is for people who are ready for marriage: timing is critical.

“One of the strengths of arranged marriages is that both parties are ready. How much easier that must be. Rana and myself were both ready to make a relationship work,” she says.

It's a pragmatic approach that Marian Salzman, the New York trendspotter, has already identified as appropriate in a period of economic turbulence. “I think there's a feeling that arrangements that began in lust ended in dismay,” she says. “People are looking for partnerships that will age like wine and they need to begin with some smart thinking. I think it's going to be a new fad to say, ‘I don't want to be so emotionally driven by my love needs of the minute, I want to find a partner for life'.

“The cost of divorce is so great practically, emotionally and financially and that's another factor that is making people want more structure. Forty years ago it was rare for people to marry outside their communities and the community was good at reinforcing values and ties. We've become a society that is transactional, but what's good for me tonight probably isn't good for me in six months or six years. There's a yearning for something more permanent now, people want stability and ritual.”

Research by Penny Mansfield, director of One Plus One, a relationship organisation, also suggests that people are now seeking long-lasting companionships rather than great passion.

“Thinking about the kind of relationship you want is not what leads you to Mr Right, but you can filter out Mr Wrong,” she says. “Do I want someone I feel a great passion for, or do I want someone I'm attracted to and whom I will want to build a life with once the initial heightened sexual attraction has gone? My experience of interviewing people is that people are thinking more about what the long-term might be like.

“It matters to think about the qualities of that person - and indeed to know yourself. There is an aspect to arranged marriage that is about thinking ahead, about what relationships are for, about consequences, and we're beginning to get a shift towards people thinking like that.”

A poll in August indicated that 48 per cent of men and women between the ages of 25 and 34 said that they would like to improve or work on their marriage. “They are saying ‘I want my relationship to stay good', not ‘I can always get another one'. They want something that will last and have meaning. Possibly because of the credit crunch, once you become more selective, you make different judgments; if you are thinking about limited resources, you put a higher value on them. The way in which we conduct relationships has been consumer based, about expendability and novelty. If people are more consciously thinking about what relationships are for, that's a good thing.”

First Comes Marriage: Modern Relationship Advice from the Wisdom of Arranged Marriages, by Reva Seth, published by Simon & Schuster, £8.99 thecoupleconnection.net

Times recommends

• Babyboomers still partying on in their sixties
• Do I have a chance of finding love again?
• Video: How to do party make-up