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What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Should Europe protect a religious tradition at the expense of a person’s right to decide,

even when that person is a child? By the time most of us reach high school, we have learned about India and the practice of “arranged

marriages.” I reference India with regard to arranged marriages because when I search into the recesses

of my mind, the first time I ever remember learning about the concept of arranged marriages, really the

only country that comes to mind is India. That said, it is certainly not the only country to have engaged in

such practices. Indeed, even a quick glance at, dare I say it, Wikipedia, will show you that such a

tradition has been practiced for hundreds of years and by a number of countries, to include the United

Kingdom (because countries who have practiced such traditions have been immigrating to the British

Commonwealth for some time now).

As I remember it, I was taught about arranged marriages in a neutral fashion. It was neither good nor bad.

It was just the practice of another society. And though the practice surely must have seemed repellant to

youth in an American high school due to the individualism and spirit of free will so prevalent in its

society, we were not taught that it was illegal. Truth be told, I have never thought much about it since.

One thing that was not touched on was the concept of “forced marriage.” Odd, since, what is an arranged

marriage, really, other than a “forced” marriage? But is that fair? Probably not. After all, a woman can

always get lucky, right? Those who arrange her marriage for her may actually choose a partner she loves

or is willing to try to love. Other women may buy in, wholeheartedly, that it is, by tradition, her duty

(and perhaps even sacred honor) to carry out the wishes of another (usually her father) when it comes to

the act of marrying another. And then there are those families, perhaps those considered a bit more

progressive in their thinking, who allow their daughter some control in the decision-making process.

And why should anyone argue with any of these various nuances in arranged marriages? When it is

stripped down to its essence, is it not just a religious and/or cultural expression of moral values? Indeed,

it is. And were the only women to be affected by it those who fit into any of the categories I described

above, few would have any legal grounds to say otherwise. The thing is, the practice is sometimes

applied to women who are forced to marry against their will; it is also sometimes applied to children.

In the case of women who are forced to marry against their will, I suppose you could say that the practice

of one human being forcing another to do something against the will of another has been around for as

long as the practice of slavery has been. As for children, I could not tell you when the date of the first

recorded instance of a full-grown adult man marrying a child occurred. Though it is not what we

typically think of when we think of pedophilia, if the desire to marry a child has some of its roots in the

biological and psychological hard wiring that some say is at the root of pedophilia, then surely the

practice has been around for at least as long as arranged marriages have been. In either instance,

violations of human rights and dignity are clearly at stake.

I do not know when countries with this practice of arranged marriages (to children or otherwise) began

immigrating to the United Kingdom, but surely it did not start yesterday. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until

20071 that the United Kingdom rolled out the “Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act.” The purpose of

1 This piece of legislation was actually implemented less than six years ago -- November 25, 2008.

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the act is to protect individuals from being forced into marriage without their “free and full consent” and

for protecting those who have already been forced into such a marriage.2

Call me crazy, but it would seem that in today’s enlightened age, nobody would really dispute an

individual’s right to choose. Usually when we think of a woman’s “right to choose” we are referring to

abortion. And though Western society does seem to grapple with issues concerning that topic, the

majority of that debate concerns matters related to what I would call barbaric aspects of it such as forcing

a woman to carry a baby to term when she has been raped, waiting until the baby is almost due to be born

before aborting it, or even demanding that a woman give birth to a baby who, for various reasons, will

have difficulty surviving its first years and is likely to endure inhumane suffering in the process.

Europe is a Western society. It is the home of those whose ideas are borne from the minds of the great

Greek philosophers and whose religion exalts a man who was crucified on a cross for the sins of mankind.

It is replete with its own codes of morality and their accompanying practices, but nowhere among them,

in modern society anyway, is the practice of forced marriage. In fact, if it were not for the openness of

Western society, as found in Europe throughout most of its history, people from other lands, cultures, and

religions would not have the opportunity to continue their practices while residing in it. But, despite the

open nature as found in Europe, and other Western societies, to allow a subculture to practice values that

are in opposition to Europe’s tradition of dignity, respect, and freedom for all individuals in society is

inconsistent and problematic.

Having said that, clearly not everyone agrees. Despite the implementation of the “Forced Marriage (Civil

Protection) Act,” the practice continued. In fact, England and Wales ultimately decided that they needed

to criminalize the practice of forced marriage.3 If any of you reading this think that this is merely just a

case of a secular Western state imposing its will upon immigrants of another culture, think again. Others,

such as the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organization, have been crusading against forced

marriages as well.

On the one hand, any Western society today, to include Europe’s, encourages freedom of religion, but

truthfully, it only does so when the values of a religion either complement Western values or are at least

unobjectionable to those who subscribe to them. But let’s not paint Western society or Europe as the

villain. Ultimately, what the recent forced marriage legislation throughout Europe aims to do is protect

the individual. When a religion engages in practices that diminish the quality of life for a person to

include assaults on individual freedom, society should implement action that preserves such basic human

rights, even if it comes at the expense of religious traditions. After all, it isn’t just the rights of women

that are at stake here. Marriages are also sometimes forced on children as young as 5 years old, an age at

which I think most, regardless of the culture they come from or the religion they practice, would find

revolting. For cultures to coexist side by side with one another they each must find some common ground

and understand that a compromise for certain practices, such as forced marriages or marriages to children,

will never be acceptable in modern society.

2 Bik Wong, “The Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007: A Snapshot,” Family Law Week (June 2008)

(http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed24572) Retrieved October 14, 2014. 3 Alan Travis, “Forced marriage to become criminal offence, David Cameron confirms,” (June 7, 2012)

(http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/08/forced-marriage-criminal-offence-david-cameron) Retrieved October 14, 2014.