To start off with I just want to clear the air about the differences between a forced and arranged marriage. A forced marriage is simply where the two people are forced to get married and have no choice whereas an arranged marriage is where two people are recommended to each other and they spend time getting to know each other (well they should but sometimes they don’t…) and it is their choice at the end of the day if they get married. I think there is a confusion in society about the differences between forced and arranged marriages which makes people think that a person who accepts an arranged marriage has been forced into it…

I don’t understand how someone could force a marriage on someone. How they could live with themselves knowing their children aren’t happy. It is usually favour giving in poor countries where young girls are  basically sold to men who are old enough to be their grandfathers… For example i recently read an article where a widow re-married but she couldn’t have kids so she got her 12 year old daughter married to the same old man just for one purpose… How horrific is that?! That poor child has no childhood ahead of her… No hope…  We complain about the smallest of things yet there are people in horrific situations, a hundred times worse than us. The stories of child brides make me die inside. The thought of a poor girl being thrown into the hands of a paedophilic man who seriously has no heart… All for a tiny thing.

I know I’m not a perfect Muslim but I’m sure in Islam a marriage should be a relationship where there is love and acceptance from both parties? It should be a relationship where both people go into it knowing what they have accepted and that they will do anything for each other. Not a relationship where a poor girl doesn’t know whats going on. Not a relationship where a person is unhappy and scared. Marriage is half of your deen in Islam so surely a forced marriage is turning you away from Islam and not bringing you closer to it?

Another topic of thought is this ‘cast system’ in the Pakistani culture. For years and years it has determined marriage. Are you gujar, meerpuri, choudhary?… Should we even care??? Will someone please tell me in Islam where it says to segregate everyone into minority groups? Surely we should be sticking together and not splitting ourselves up. I’m sure many of you will have seen the situation where two people cant get married due to them being from a different place in Pakistan… Surely we should be focusing on what the two people are like and if they have similar personalities and not focusing on things like their ‘cast’…. Surely a Muslim should marry someone who is a Muslim and that is all?

Right… Rant over LOL I just wanted us to think about marriage and what it should represent. It should represent love and happiness and we should choose who we are marrying because it is our lives that are involved in a marriage and not anyone else’s…. However that doesn’t mean to disrespect our parents choice because after all they know us better than we know ourselves…

Thank you for your time and please share and subscribe. Also please leave comments, I really want to know what you think! 😀