Arranged Marriages in the United Kingdom

 

Just the other day, Sky News broadcast an item dealing with arranged marriages in the UK and the ramifications thereof. This, of course, was related to those marriages of the mostly Asian communities throughout the country. One of the questions asked was, are arranged marriages say, between a Pakistani man and woman, forced? Because let’s face it, in the Muslim religion of today, men come first and women come second. It has always been like this from time immemorial.

Now, this is going to sound bias but for the life of me, I have never quite understood this tradition which is mostly an Islamic institution although it still exists in some extreme forms of Hinduism and Judaism. Here in Britain, forced marriages became more common in the 70s which was as a result of the influx of South Asian immigrants after the post-war boom. Added to this were the Pakistan and Bangladesh civil wars that once more led to immigration and, with it, forced marriages.

Having worked in the Middle East and South East Asia over the years, I was well aware of the concept of arranged/forced marriages. I looked into it further and seemingly both parties have to give their consent before marriage can take place. But looking at Saudi Arabia for instance, in that country a man can have two wives, three, four, maybe more. Did those women really consent to those marriages? I’ll leave that to your imagination.

And lastly, during the programme, I came across a word that I've never heard of before: 'hetronormative'. What? I had to look it up on Google: 'It denotes or relates to a world view that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation.' So I guess that rules out homosexual marriages then! And of course, when it comes to homosexuality, especially in Islam, it is very much a no-no! In Saudi Arabia today if a same-sex couple is found to be having a homosexual relationship then they can face the death penalty. But then, this is Saudi Arabia folks!

My final statement on this matter is quite simple. A man and a woman are brought into this life to ultimately mate and produce offspring. It’s called evolution. And it has always been like this dating back to the 4th millennium BC and beyond. Today, in the year 2021, surely a woman can pick and choose which man she will marry and spend the rest of her life with. Here in Great Britain, we are a country with open societies and free speech. Forced marriages really are a thing of the past and the communities who are still entrenched in this custom of yesteryear maybe need to look to the future and wake up and smell the coffee! 

Watch out for a future blog on life in Saudi Arabia, a country where I spent about four years as a Technical Author in the oil and gas industries.