Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/08/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]OK, since I started this discussion... I guess arranged marriages come in various shapes. On the benign end of the scale are the ones where the families agree to the deal but the woman has a say in the selection and the ultimate veto power. But then there are also the cases where the girl (because in many cases we are talking about quite young girls) is simply told that she is to marry this man, and that's that. Like in the novel "Brick Lane" by Monica Ali. Perhaps a better term for what I was talking about is "forced marriage" rather than "arranged marriage". Forced marriages are common in certain cultures, and while they obviously do not involve the kind of immediate physical violence that female circumcision does, they are equally harmful to the woman. I maintain that the two practices are morally comparable and that both are incompatible with a free society. As for the argument that Western marriages often end in divorce while arranged ones do not, so what? A high divorce rate is not in itself a terrible thing. In fact, in countries (like Sweden) where women have made the most progress in terms of equal rights, the divorce rate tends to be quite high. All this shows is that in those countries a woman has the freedom to get out of a failed marriage and has a fair shot at not ending up in poverty as a divorcee. Countries where arranged/forced marriage is common also tend to be societies where a divorced woman is a social outcast and where economic opportunities for women are limited--no wonder the divorce rate is low! And this is not an attack on members of the list who live in arranged marriages. But let me respectfully suggest that there is some self-selection going on here. By definition, people who participate here are intelligent, well-educated, good-looking and have exquisite taste in camera equipment. We do not have many peasants from rural Anatolia on this list, I am sure. Nathan Douglas Herr wrote: > B.D., how is an arranged marriage discriminatory against the woman? Isn't > the man equally involved, and doesn't he have obligations toward the woman? > > Doug Herr > Birdman of Sacramento > http://www.wildlightphoto.com > -- Nathan Wajsman Almere, The Netherlands General photography: http://www.nathanfoto.com Seville photography: http://www.fotosevilla.com Stock photography: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=507 Prints for sale: http://www.photodeluge.com