Is it just me or is this wrong?

[Hazel at the Hill]

I'd like to hear the other side to this one - what we define as marriage might not have the same connotations in other cultures? Perhaps this is more like an alliance between two families - a good match? Does the girl still live with her parents afterwards? Or with his perhaps?

I don't know anything on the subject, I'm afraid - but it would be a strange thing if the girl's parents put her through something which wasn't good for her.

Or do I just see the best in people?

[bobleponge]

Hazel,
I was so angry yesterday I got the local lad I was with to quietly ask similar questions, as although I read about it daily in the papers, I hadnt actually seen it.
In this particular case, the girl has been given to the groom's family as a payment of a debt.
The girl will now go and live with her new husband, in this case she will be living well over 50km's from her family. Sadly, it is a marriage as we understand the word. It is against the law here, but it doesnt stop it happening.

[kirsty b]

Thats so sad. A child is a child, not a payment of a debt. I have an 8 year old daughter and she is so innocent and young. I can't imagine someone her age marrying and being taken from her family.

I admit I know little (if anything) about that culture, but adults having an arranged marriage - fair enough they know what they are getting into, but children - it just seems wrong to me.

How old was the groom Bob? You said he looked fairly young too. It seems unlikely either child had a choice.

[MaureenHall]

I feel so sad for that little girl, and all the other little girls that we don't hear about going through the same ordeal. Human rights springs to mind here!!! Or does that not apply outside our culture?

[di]

I agree that it's an awful practice,a child should not be used to settle disputes or pay debts,but I'd also be interested to know how her family felt...maybe like Hazel,I'm too keen to see the good in people,but how desperate must they have been?What were their alternatives?Was it just a case of..."oh give away your 8 year old daughter & we'll forget you owe us X amounts of money",or was it more a case of "if you don't you & your family can live in fear of the consequences for the rest of your lives"???
That's not me condoning the practice,I think it's absolutely abhorrent,but I think be careful judging the girls parents...they may have felt just as forced into it as their daughter.

[Mac]

Seems it's going on here too, or at least they're sending kids from here.

BBC NEWS | UK | Forced marriage plea to schools

I was at school (a fair few years ago I admit!) with a boy whose family were from Pakistan. Omar was asked when he was 15 if he wanted to marry a girl from over here or from Pakistan. He said he would rather wait til he was older and make his own decision. His younger sister who was 12 at the time got no choice. She was sent to Pakistan just after her 13th birthday, married to a 2nd cousin, and to my knowledge has never been back to Scotland. I try not to be judgemental, and try also to have the upmost respect for other religions and cultures, but I just can't understand how this can be right in any shape or form.

[snohare]

Yeah Bob, this is the sort of thing that made me join Amnesty International. I might not agree 100% with what they believe in, but at least they believe in the freedom to make choices. Let's face it, that is what we all want when push comes to shove; it's just that some want to choose what will remove choices from others, sometimes all choices.
Seems to me that there are a lot of places all over the world where the local culture interprets religion how it wants, in order to keep the status quo - and not allowing choice or change is a big part of that. Sadly, it is hard to see what will ever change as long as people like that are willing to be as violent and intolerant as they are. Where are the clerics who will condemn this in their home town ?
I've got a book somewhere about a couple of lassies from Bolton who were sold by their family to Yemeni husbands at the age of 12 and 14. It was outright rape, and the families didn't care what the kids felt, they made it clear that the brides had no say in the matter. The only sin they could see was that of upsetting the applecart. One girl escaped to write the book with the aid of an ex-forces helper hired by her mum. The one good thing about it was that the British government was forced by the publicity to develop a pretty good policy to nip these forced marriages in the bud. But it is a real problem in the Asian communities in the UK; plenty of one way "holidays".
And the leading cause of murder in India ? Mothers-in-law who douse their daughters-in-law with kerosene, light it and call it a cooking stove accident, when the families have a falling out. Often it is about the bride price - they feel they didn't get value. The police do not often investigate.
Call it culture and you can get away with murder. Dysfunctional isn't the word. Medieval pretty much describes it.

[bluemoon]

I have to admit, this sickens me. An eight year old is a child, regardless of her culture or beliefs. If her family and the family of her 'husband' doesn't see that then one wonders where they actually would draw the line; 6 years old? 4 years old?

[TEB]

I have to admit, this sickens me. An eight year old is a child, regardless of her culture or beliefs. If her family and the family of her 'husband' doesn't see that then one wonders where they actually would draw the line; 6 years old? 4 years old?

Yes with our mores it is, but I would imagine that in some cultures an 8 year old is a wage earner if only as a Primark/Tesco/Asda sweatshop worker

[Bayleaf]

A common misconception here is that only girls are involved and perhaps only fathers.
This is completely wrong. For every arranged marriage there are 2 people and in very many circumstances, perhaps the overwhelming majority, it is the MOTHERS who arrange everything.

So far as I can see, no-one has the slightest idea what the girl involved thought about things. Very many young, forced brides have nevre known anything else and it is as normal as "living in sin" is in the UK today.

[quark1]

Heywayne couldn't have put it more succinctly.

The sooner we do not offer succour and business and the right to live here, to these nations/peoples who perpetuate this kind of 'custom' the free-er men, women and CHILDREN of those nations will be.

[Seahorse]

A common misconception here is that only girls are involved and perhaps only fathers.
This is completely wrong. For every arranged marriage there are 2 people and in very many circumstances, perhaps the overwhelming majority, it is the MOTHERS who arrange everything.

So far as I can see, no-one has the slightest idea what the girl involved thought about things. Very many young, forced brides have nevre known anything else and it is as normal as "living in sin" is in the UK today.

What sort of argument is that? How does who arranged it make it better or worse?

As for whats 'normal' - the little girl may very well have thought 'this is just how things are' (just like many subjugated people throughout the ages!) but whether she did or not, an 8 year old can in no way be either physically or mentally ready to be a 'wife' in the complete sense of the word.

[snohare]

I can see how done properly, with good judgement from adults, it might well - and I'm sure does - work well, Bayleaf. What I think prompts our strong reaction is when it is not done properly, at a suitable age, and our concern that there is not a lot of incentive to push in that direction.
In the case I cited, it was a pair of girls who were brought up in a Western culture, and in effect sold by a drunken father. Okay, that is evidently bad - but allowed according to local views. If you read the "Bookseller of Kabul", a nonfiction book written from interviews with local women, there are many instances there of forced marriage - and where do you draw the line between forced and arranged, when coercion is waiting in the wings ? - for women who have never known anything else, but still want something different. The men may not appreciate the truth of the misery their wives or sisters feel in their situation, but frankly they do not want to, and are not encouraged to. To them, change, like choice, is like a gun in someone else's hands.
Sadly, from what I have read on the subject - admittedly, concentrating on the worst human rights cases - it seems all too common that when that young Indian groom starts to feel his oats, he will not hesitate to use his wife as he thinks he is permitted, regardless of her age or attitude. She has been bought and paid for, just like any other livestock - it is her duty to keep her husband happy. You never seem to hear of her wishes or needs, somehow. Unless you think girls that young actually want sex, you have to admit this is rape, surely ?
Different cultures have different strengths and weaknesses - look at our feral children and you will see how badly wrong Britain has gone in many ways. I am often surprised we don't get more flak from other countries for that. But still and all, we don't stoop to subject our kids to experiences that outside of marriage would be illegal.

[bobleponge]

A common misconception here is that only girls are involved and perhaps only fathers.
This is completely wrong. For every arranged marriage there are 2 people and in very many circumstances, perhaps the overwhelming majority, it is the MOTHERS who arrange everything.

So far as I can see, no-one has the slightest idea what the girl involved thought about things. Very many young, forced brides have nevre known anything else and it is as normal as "living in sin" is in the UK today.

Bayleaf I'm afraid I have to take issue. Currently living and working here, the reports I read on a daily basis indicate that, in the vast majority of cases, the father has kidnapped the child, or taken her against the mothers will, and sold/bartered her for whatever reasons.
And as far as the "its normal for them" argument, ask a child who was bought up in a battered home, and who knew nothing else until he left home, if just because it was normal it was right.

I dont know the circumstances of the individual girl, neither do I know the choices the parents had. I would like to hope that the other choice was too horrific for anyone to think about, in order for them to have made the choice in the first place, but with the amount of these cases that I read about, I suspect its more to do with money or honour.

Again I will stress, I am not castigating a religion or a culture or a nation, I actually like this country, and when you consider that the last Prime Minister here was a woman, its clearly not a country that is totally mysogynistic.

I guess seeing it first hand, no more than 20 feet away has sickened me more than I ever thought it would be possible to do.

[pipscariad]

I'm not going to enter into any heavy reply here (where to start really, many of what I feel has already been said), but just to simply to say that like you Bob I feel completely appalled at this - my daughter is 8, and when I think of her wonderful childlike joy of life, and innocence, what you have experienced makes me feel so terribly, terribly sad.