Chowrangi

Why are girls married against their will in the Subcontinent?

The mentality of some fathers concerning their daughters marriage disgusts beyond belief. A father thinks that his daughter is his property, and he can marry her to anyone he likes without even bothering to ask her. Husbands also don’t care whether their wife is happy with the marriage or not.

Most girls just keep quiet and the tears of blood flow inside without anyone ever seeing them. In other cases girls commit suicide. Girls who have the courage to raise their voice are abused and forced to marry.

According to Islam, a girl does not need the permission of her parents to marry the person of her choice. If the marriage is arranged, it is compulsory that the father seeks his daughter’s permission before marrying her off.

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Mohammad Yusha

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10 responses to “Why are girls married against their will in the Subcontinent?”

  1. Hend Avatar
    Hend

    Child marriages must be happening based upon what we hear in the news sometimes from rural areas.

    I think the problem in Pakistan must be quite diffrent from that in India. You have daughters forced into marriages too but I don’t know if that is actually child marriage. I read somewhere that the practice of child marriages started among Hindus to reduce the chances of being carried away by Muslim soldiers and rulers or feudal lords.

    Going by news reports, instances of burnt alive or sati seem rare like 1 in 10 years, we have many more instance of women burnt for dowry. But nowadays laws are so strong that a mere complaint by a woman is enough to ruin the life of entire family of her husband.

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  2. Shakir Lakhani Avatar
    Shakir Lakhani

    @ Hend: some people (Hindus, particularly) have child marriages, although it’s against the law. The boy and girl are married when they’re four or five years old, and if the boy dies before becoming an adult, the poor girl becomes a widow and can’t marry anyone else (and if she’s from a backward area like Rajasthan, she’s in danger of being burnt alive along with her dead “husband”). Does this happen regularly nowadays?

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  3. Hend Avatar
    Hend

    It is not just the deeply religious who do this, it seems everyone gets a bit conservative when it comes to their daughter’s marriages.

    Ok, may be all people don’t actually marry them off forcibly but they do put a lot of pressure on their daughters and finally the pressure gets to them. The poorer people are more eager to marry off their daughters whereas the rich are just a little bit more patient.

    Domestic violence is one of the outcomes of such commodity like treatment of women.

    I am seeing that in urban subcontinent, girls are studying more and more and trends suggest they will surpass boys in higher education (Masters, PhDs etc). The urbanization is also spreading so on the whole things will improve but as long as even a small percentage is married off forcibly, it is still shameful.

    There is so much debate about sex education in schools but I wonder why there is no education on this topic and about treating girls/ women with respect.

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  4. Lt. General Ayub Khan Avatar
    Lt. General Ayub Khan

    good

    and we should shoot taleban and wahhabi who think its ok to force women to do what the men want

    Marriage is a commitment of love…therefore, it requires CONSENSUS on both sides!

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  5. shakir Avatar
    shakir

    in islam permision of girl is compulsary to marry with any boy.with out permision of girl THE NIKAH is not legitimate according to the rules of islam.

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  6. Want peace. Avatar
    Want peace.

    I am in a similar situation. Except I don’t live in Pakistan, I live and grew up in the West. So it exists in southasian communites heavily in the west as well.

    anyway, the article was very accurate. you have to cry tears of blood on the inside. and seems like there’s no where to go….

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  7. Shakir Lakhani Avatar
    Shakir Lakhani

    There used to be a law specifying a certain age before which boys and girls could not get married. For girls it was either 18 olr 16. But since illiterate people don’t register the births of their children (especially in tribal areas), this law is violated.

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  8. Mohammad Yusha Avatar
    Mohammad Yusha

    @ Samina: Very well said, although it does not exist in the West, unless you are talking about immigrants.

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  9. Samina Begum Avatar
    Samina Begum

    Its not only in the Subcontinent but in the Western World. Girls and boys are emotionally blackmailed by their parents even though its against all the islamic principles. Just like the jaayla times girls were buried, people today are no different. People would go against Islam but not bear the shame from their ‘biraaderi’. May Allah guide the Ummah.

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  10. Shakir Lakhani Avatar
    Shakir Lakhani

    What kind of fool’s paradise are you living in, Yusha? In most Islamic societies (even in some parts of Karachi) most Muslim girls are married off by the time they are twelve. So how can they choose their life partners? Even in many educated Pakistani families where the men have suddenly grown heavy beards, the trend is to get girls married by the age of sixteen. It’s all due to the belief that if girls are allowed to remain single for a long time, they might run away with their drivers or servants.

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