A common law marriage or Jawaz Orfy in Arabic is defined as a marriage contract between a man and a woman which is recognized by Islam, but not by the Government. It's most common among university students like myself when people are too horny to think straight. I've seen a few of my classmates drop out of college to support a child which resulted from such a marriage, or to simply run away with the "bride" to escape having to face society with the taboo of having been part of such a thing.
The difference between this and a regular teen pregnancy is that a common law marriage either results in a back alley abortion, or a forced government-recognized marriage contract signed before the pregnancy becomes visible. Either way, it's a life sentence of people talking about you behind your back, and the end of whatever normal life the child would have had.
Many people praise Common Law Marriage because it serves as an outlet for teenagers to relese pent-up frustration, and is generally theraputic, although people who hold such an opinion are a minority. Others, the overwhelming majority, claim that it is an unholy union that should be abolished because it can only do harm. In either case, the end result is always the same. The couple is always too afraid and thus abort any resulting pregnancy, the "groom" freaks out and abandons the mother of his child, who becomes devastated now that she has no one to turn to, and if the families become involved, abortion is the only concievable solution to the problem - after which they would worry about the girl's tarnished innocence and virginity, and search for a man willing to marry such a woman.
What are your views on the issue?
Here is an article about one of the most famous of these marriages, check it out if you're interested. It will provide more information on the issue in case I left anything out.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4295911.stm
Showing posts with label taboo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taboo. Show all posts
Monday, July 28, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Today at an on-campus birthday party, I was overcome by a feeling that I don't understand. I was peacefully eavesdropping on two of my non-guy friends who were attending a party when I was unfortunate enough to hear an extremely unpleasant conversation. I think that I was bothered by the fact that I found this to be a perfectly normal conversation.
The girl's brother found a saved MSN messenger conversation between a guy with us in college and herself. She feels like she's betrayed his trust by speaking to a guy outside the walls of campus, and now she's devastated that he thinks of her in a new light. but here's what I found interesting: She has no problem with the whole thing. I mean, the fact that she actually did talk to him on the internet isn't an issue for her. She just thinks that now he'll never look at her the same way again. In other words, she's not convinced with what she's doing, but she's really just doing it out of fear of being labeled as something she's not.
What made me more certain of that conclusion was that when the girls were picking a place to go have lunch, they joked that we should go with them, but stay a few tables away from them. In other words, they were trying to be sublte about thinking of ways to go out with us. However, the stigma of being seen with members of the opposite sex was too much for them to handle, and the idea was aborted. (Even when we were all on our way to the main road to go home, they sped up ahead of us so as not to be seen with us)
The conclusion I've drawn from these stories is simple. The issue isn't that the girls feel that what they are doing is the right thing, and that to remain respectable within the community they have to do what they do. The only reason they do all that is because they've been fed all of it since they were too yound to remeber, so it really becomes an everyday thing for them. That plus the fact that everyone else thinks in the same way makes them too afraid to defy the norm and be labelled as "free" girls. But what I find most unpleasant is how this way of thinking has found its way into the internet. If they're afraid that their parents would find out about their relationships with guys, then the internet is a safe place for them where the parents can't find them. And if they really want to be safe, then they shouldn't save the online conversations.
But my greatest regret was being forced to pay 30 pounds for a present that was so unbeleivabley ugly. They'd better not get me anything like that on my bithday. :)
The girl's brother found a saved MSN messenger conversation between a guy with us in college and herself. She feels like she's betrayed his trust by speaking to a guy outside the walls of campus, and now she's devastated that he thinks of her in a new light. but here's what I found interesting: She has no problem with the whole thing. I mean, the fact that she actually did talk to him on the internet isn't an issue for her. She just thinks that now he'll never look at her the same way again. In other words, she's not convinced with what she's doing, but she's really just doing it out of fear of being labeled as something she's not.
What made me more certain of that conclusion was that when the girls were picking a place to go have lunch, they joked that we should go with them, but stay a few tables away from them. In other words, they were trying to be sublte about thinking of ways to go out with us. However, the stigma of being seen with members of the opposite sex was too much for them to handle, and the idea was aborted. (Even when we were all on our way to the main road to go home, they sped up ahead of us so as not to be seen with us)
The conclusion I've drawn from these stories is simple. The issue isn't that the girls feel that what they are doing is the right thing, and that to remain respectable within the community they have to do what they do. The only reason they do all that is because they've been fed all of it since they were too yound to remeber, so it really becomes an everyday thing for them. That plus the fact that everyone else thinks in the same way makes them too afraid to defy the norm and be labelled as "free" girls. But what I find most unpleasant is how this way of thinking has found its way into the internet. If they're afraid that their parents would find out about their relationships with guys, then the internet is a safe place for them where the parents can't find them. And if they really want to be safe, then they shouldn't save the online conversations.
But my greatest regret was being forced to pay 30 pounds for a present that was so unbeleivabley ugly. They'd better not get me anything like that on my bithday. :)
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