Law gives women the choice to help themselves

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Tarih	: 27 Kasym 2008 13:55

There has long been a tradition of arranged marriages in Turkish speaking communities. Whether the choice to marry was made by the parents or the child, we still seem keen to follow protocol when it comes to making an arrangement between a man and a women official. The "goruculuk" process is still common place even if the two love birds have been in clandestine intimacy for years.

It seems that this process is just more stringent than the western version of find each other, get engaged, then get married. Even in the western culture, there just one extra hurdle to jump, that of getting the parents to give their stamp of approval to the partnership (or at least on each other). Of course, it is not so institutioanlised compared to the middle eastern, or should I say islamic, process.

In its worst guise this institutionalisation of the parents giving their consent to a marriage is replaced by a patriarchal trading of the female involved in the union. Choice is not something that a woman has in such a circumstance. It is in these cases that women are treated as sexual objects to be traded - sexual because gender is at play and I can't think of any other term that captures why one sex would impose on another in such a way.

Needless to say that I celebrated the introduction of the Forced Marriages Act coming into force last week.

There are many nuances however, and many an arranged marriage can flourish into something quite healthy. But there is something distinctly destructive about the expectation that one can impose will on another in such a fundamental matter.

Although this seems to be on the decline in the Turkish communities, who exhibit a far more liberal attitude the expectation is still there. For the most, and in personal experience of speaking to Turkish speaking girls between the ages of 16 - 30, this expectation has been a prominent dilemma. I've spoke to many, who have been torn into two, who have fought with the conflicting pressures of family and society. On the one side an austerity that likes to say no without much discussion and on the other hand a society which encourages it. On the one hand a denial of choice, and in extreme cases a denial of an individuals human rights, and on the other an arena to express oneself and the choice to make a life worth living.

Sometimes men, and from mothers / sisters / friends who maybe lacked the choice of marriage themselves, use emotional blackmail against a woman who has tried to assert herself in her choice of partner. Sometimes I have witnessed men lose their daughters because they refuse to internalise the derogatory remarks and instead take flight.

My hope, as I'm sure is the intention of the act, is that more than stop those that may restrict another's choice, is that the women (or men) caught in situation will see that they always have a choice - and now a civil route to validate that choice.

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