Would you be ready to marry someone we’ve never met before? For the seventh time, the production of Married at first sight asked the question to French singles. Twenty-five thousand applications later, M6 is preparing to present this Monday the seven couples formed on the basis of their love compatibility.
After six seasons, 36 couples formed by the experts – and soon five babies born following the marriages of the show, the risk of going in circles was great. Because if the concept of uniting strangers goes as far as the name of the program, there is little room for maneuver to breathe new life into it. Especially since the show has built its foundations on one of the most dusty love institutions: marriage. With a few surprises, the production still hopes to blow a wind of novelty on the program.
A new pair of experts
Exit Pascal de Sutter, it is Gilbert Bou Jaoudé who will support Estelle Dossin for the new season. A couple therapist and sexologist doctor for more than ten years, he has participated both in the training of the couples on the show and in their follow-up. “The experience is incredible because it allows you to put into practice on a large scale the things you observe and study,” he says.
He sees his participation in the M6 program as a complementary activity to his therapeutic work. If he refuses to mediate between his patients, for ethical reasons, it is precisely the principle of Married at first sight. “It happens to me to have people who I follow individually who say to me: “But doctor, you know my intimacy, you follow me, you know me personally, do you have someone to introduce me to? ” »
The new pair he forms with the clinical psychologist present since the third season allows a different approach from previous seasons, according to the latter. She believes that this change of partner allows her “not to fall into a certain comfort” and to “question herself” for this new season.
Two men who are 79% compatible
Among the seven couples ready to marry for the needs of the show, the production conceived for the first time a gay couple. A rather favorable timing as France prepares to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the “marriage for all” law. “We had not succeeded in creating a homosexual couple with sufficient compatibility in previous seasons”, justifies Karen Aboab, the producer of the show. This time it is the protocol put in place by the experts of the show resulted in a compatibility of 79% between two men.
Among the 25,000 files received to participate in the show, the production is delighted that Married at first sight has become a “means envisaged by single people to end their celibacy”. Thanks to all these applications, the show manages to broaden the profile of the participants with a 50-year-old bride.
The production still promises moments never before seen in the program. It evokes particularly original requests from families before the union of two strangers. “It is above all a life experience and life has many surprises in store for us”, insists Karen Aboab.
Anti Tinder
All these novelties are added to the foundations of the program. Since its first season, it has been based on the institution supposed to seal the love between two people “until death separates them”. As if marriage, civil or religious, was a guarantee of a solid relationship even before it started. The production claims that the show is positioned against the current of ephemeral dating applications like Tinder. Karen Aboab insists on distancing Married at first sight of a system of “consumption of the encounter where, at the first disappointment, one does not persevere”.
“It is a signal that we send to ourselves and to the rest of society since culturally, marriage is a social gesture and it is also a testimony of commitment to the other”, justifies Estelle Dossin . According to her, many candidates say they are reassured to meet someone capable of going so far to find the ideal partner.
Gilbert Bou Jaoudé evokes marriage as “an element of the psychological process” which favors the success of the experience, where the participants are in a state of mind of commitment. Whether it’s for better or for worse remains to be seen…