Re: Forced versus arranged marriages - our take on it
Exactly! Why don’t people within our community agitate against forced marriages and make it culturally/socially unacceptable - we already know it’s religiously prohibited, but apparently people forget about Allah when it comes to arranging such marriages for their children.
Instead it’s almost always brushed away as being an exaggeration and not the real problem. Often times you will have parents assume the solution to curbing their children’s supposedly *azaad/*modern ways is to marry them off. Granted, that’s not the only circumstance this happens in, but it’s why a lot of people don’t say anything against it - they think the parents are doing a good thing by getting the child married before the child becomes too westernized.
My issue is that there is a difference between an arranged marriage and a forced marriage. We need to understand the difference between the two within our community before we go out and tell others that forced marriages are unislamic. Parents need to remember that applying undue pressure or as Mad Hatter said, emotional blackmail should not be part of the arranged rishta scenario - that too takes away from the child’s right and ability to make what is arguably the most important decision about their own life. Guide your child, don’t browbeat them into submission.