Forced marriage
Encyclopedia
Forced marriage is a term used to describe a marriage in which one or both of the parties is married
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 without his or her consent or against his or her will. A forced marriage differs from an arranged marriage
Arranged marriage
An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...

, in which both parties consent to the assistance of their parents or a third party (such as a matchmaker
Matchmaking
Matchmaking is any process of matching two people for the purpose of marriage or a sporting contest.-Practice:In some cultures, the role of the matchmaker was and is quite professionalized...

) in identifying a spouse, although the difference between the two may be indistinct. The practice of forced marriage was quite common amongst the upper classes in Europe until the 20th century, and is still practiced in parts of South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...

, East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

, the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

, and Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. Forced marriages now in Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

 and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 are generally committed within communities of immigrants from such areas. In most but not all forced marriages, it is the female (rather than the male) who is the involuntary spouse.

The United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 views forced marriage as a form of human rights abuse, since it violates the principle of the freedom
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...

 and autonomy of individuals. The Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 deems forced marriage grounds for granting an annulment
Annulment (Catholic Church)
In the Roman Catholic Church an annulment is the procedure, governed by the Church's Canon Law and the Catechism, whereby an ecclesial tribunal determines the sacrament of marriage was invalidly entered into. An annulment determines the Catholic marriage to be void at its inception...

 — for a marriage to be valid both parties must give their consent freely.

In response to the problem of forced marriages among immigrants in the UK, the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007
Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007
The Forced Marriage Act 2007 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It seeks to assist victims of forced marriage, or those threatened with forced marriage, by providing civil remedies...

 was passed, which enables the victims of forced marriage to apply for court orders for their protection.

Historically, forced marriage was used to require a captive (slave or prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...

) to integrate with the host community, and accept his or her fate. One example is the English blacksmith John R. Jewitt
John R. Jewitt
John Rodgers Jewitt was an armourer who entered the historical record with his memoirs about the 28 months he spent as a captive of Maquinna of the Nuu-chah-nulth people on the Pacific Northwest Coast of what is now Canada...

, who spent 3 years as a captive of the Nootka people on the Pacific Northwest Coast in 1802-1805. He was ordered to marry, because the council of chiefs thought that a wife and family would reconcile him to staying with his captors for life. Jewitt was given a choice between forced marriage for himself and capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

 for both him and his "father" (a fellow captive). "Reduced to this sad extremity, with death on the one side, and matrimony on the other, I thought proper to choose what appeared to me the least of the two evils" (p154)

Shotgun wedding

A shotgun wedding is a form of forced marriage occasioned by an unplanned pregnancy
Unintended pregnancy
Unintended pregnancies are those in which conception was not intended by the female sexual partner. Worldwide, 38% of pregnancies were unintended in 1999 . Unintended pregnancies are the primary cause of induced abortion, resulting in about 42 million induced abortions per year...

. Some religions and cultures consider it a moral imperative
Moral imperative
A moral imperative is a principle originating inside a person's mind that compels that person to act. It is a kind of categorical imperative, as defined by Immanuel Kant. Kant took the imperative to be a dictate of pure reason, in its practical aspect. Not following the moral law was seen to be...

 to marry in such a situation, based on reasoning that premarital sex
Premarital sex
Premarital sex is sexual activity, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex, practiced by persons who are unmarried. Although it has always been practiced, in the West it has increased in prevalence since the mid-1950s...

 or out-of-wedlock births
Legitimacy (law)
At common law, legitimacy is the status of a child who is born to parents who are legally married to one another; and of a child who is born shortly after the parents' divorce. In canon and in civil law, the offspring of putative marriages have been considered legitimate children...

 are sinful, sanctioned by law, or otherwise stigmatized. The phrase is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 colloquialism
Colloquialism
A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...

, though it is also used in other parts of the world.

It is based on a hyperbolic
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....

 scenario in which the pregnant female's father resorts to coercion (such as threatening with a shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...

) to ensure that the male partner who caused the female's pregnancy goes through with it, sometimes even following the man to the altar to prevent his escape. The use of violent coercion to marry is no longer legal in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, although many anecdotal stories and folk songs record instances of such intimidation in the 18th and 19th centuries. Purposes of the wedding include recourse from the male for the act of impregnation and to ensure that the child is raised by both parents as well as to ensure that the woman has material means of support. In some cases, a major objective was the restoring of social honor
Honour
Honour or honor is an abstract concept entailing a perceived quality of worthiness and respectability that affects both the social standing and the self-evaluation of an individual or corporate body such as a family, school, regiment or nation...

 to the mother.

Shotgun weddings have become less common as the stigma associated with out-of-wedlock births has gradually faded and the number of such births has increased; the increasing availability of birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...

 and abortion, as well as material support to unwed mothers such as welfare
Welfare
Welfare refers to a broad discourse which may hold certain implications regarding the provision of a minimal level of wellbeing and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity. This is termed "social solidarity"...

 has also reduced the perceived need for such measures.

In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, the slang term 出来ちゃった結婚 Dekichatta kekkon (a marriage necessitated by an unplanned pregnancy) emerged in the late 1990s with a very similar meaning, although the etymology of the term in Japanese does not imply the same threat of physical violence that the English idiom "shotgun marriage" does. The term dekichatta kekkon can be loosely translated as an "oops marriage" or an "it's-already-happened-marriage". Namie Amuro
Namie Amuro
is a Japanese R&B and pop singer, entertainer, and former actress who at the height of her popularity was referred to as the "Teen Queen" and the title "Queen of Japanese Pop Music". Born in Naha, Okinawa, Amuro debuted at the age of 14 as an idol in the girl group Super Monkey's...

 is credited with beginning a trend of marrying and having children fairly young, at ages 19 or 20. The practice continued to be highly publicized and occurred throughout the late 1990s and first decade of the 21st century. Notable celebrities with shotgun marriages include Nozomi Tsuji
Nozomi Tsuji
, known professionally by her birth name of is a Japanese tarento and a former member of the pop idol group Morning Musume, its subgroup Mini Moni, and the duo W. She has participated in the shuffle groups 10-nin Matsuri, Odoru 11, and 11Water, H.P...

 and Anna Tsuchiya
Anna Tsuchiya
is a Japanese singer, lyricist, actress and semi-retired model.Tsuchiya was born to a Japanese mother and an American father of Polish-Irish descent from Buffalo, New York. In her earliest years, she spoke English and Japanese...

. Additionally, there is a trend of shotgun marriages among older Japanese for a variety of reasons, including: lack of motivation, limited education received, and socio-economical factors. Older examples include Leah Dizon
Leah Dizon
Leah Dizon is an American-born former gaijin tarento, singer, and model in Japan. Born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, she moved to Tokyo, Japan in 2006 to pursue a career in entertainment...

 and Miyavi
Miyavi
, better known by his stage name , is a Japanese visual kei musician. His work as guitarist for Dué le Quartz and his successful solo career have established him as an accomplished musician in the Japanese music scene.- Early life :...

.

In China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

, the term 奉子成婚 (Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: Fèngzǐchénghūn) (literally, "Married by the child") means that the couple married because the woman conceived the child of the man outside of marriage. Similar to American shotgun marriages in parental pressure for the pair to marry, it is becoming increasingly popular for China's youngest generation. However, in the same age group, there is also objection and criticism to such a practice.

Compensation marriage

Compensation marriage, known variously as vanni, swara
Swara (custom)
Swara is a child marriage custom in tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. This custom is tied to blood feuds among the different tribes and clans where the young girls are forcibly married to the members of different clans in order to resolve the feuds...

and sang chatti, is the traditional practice of forced marriage of women and young girls in order to resolve tribal feuds in parts of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 and Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

. Although illegal in Pakistan, it is still widely practiced in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

In pop culture and academia

The British movie East Is East
East is East (film)
East Is East is a 1999 British black comedy/drama film, written by Ayub Khan-Din and directed by Damien O'Donnell. It is set in a British household of mixed-ethnicity, with a British Pakistani father and an English mother in Salford, Lancashire, in 1971...

shows the practice of forced marriages: A Pakistani father (married to a British woman) forces his oldest son into marriage and, after the son's escape, tries to do the same to the two next eldest sons.

Addressed by the U.K.

Gita Sahgal, the writer and journalist, film director, and human rights activist was the producer in 2002 of "Tying the Knot". The film was commissioned by the U.K.'s Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...

's Community Liaison Unit, which was set up to handle the problem of British victims of forced marriage who have been, or may be, taken abroad to marry against their will. The educational video on marriage and freedom of choice was produced for use in schools, youth groups, and other organisations working with young people, examines marriage across various cultures, and was designed to promote discussion on the issues it raises.

Forced marriages can be made because of family pride, the wishes of the parents, or social obligation. For example, according to Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, many forced marriages in Britain within the British Pakistani community are aimed at providing British citizenship to a member of the family currently in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

 to whom the instigator of the forced marriage feels a sense of duty.

See also

  • Arranged marriage
    Arranged marriage
    An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...

  • Birth control sabotage
    Birth control sabotage
    Birth control sabotage, or reproductive coercion, refers to efforts to manipulate another person's use of birth control or to undermine efforts to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Examples include replacing birth control pills with fakes, puncturing condoms and diaphragms, or threats and violence to...

  • Bride kidnapping
    Bride kidnapping
    Bride kidnapping, also known as marriage by abduction or marriage by capture, is a practice throughout history and around the world in which a man abducts the woman he wishes to marry...

  • Exchange of women
    Exchange of women
    The exchange of women is an element of alliance theory - the structuralist theory of Claude Lévi-Strauss and other anthropologists who see society as based upon the patriarchal treatment of women as property, being given to other men to cement alliances...

  • Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007
    Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007
    The Forced Marriage Act 2007 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It seeks to assist victims of forced marriage, or those threatened with forced marriage, by providing civil remedies...

     UK legislation
  • Human trafficking
    Human trafficking
    Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...


External links

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