Skip to main content

Arranged marriages: A prisoner in the house



          Shackle, Samira, in his article “A Prisoner in the House” published in the magazine New Internationalist on November 2013, discuss about two Indian women, Jasminder and Mandeep and why they became slaves in a dark life in Britain because of arranged marriages. how badly their foreign spouses and family treated them and who help them.

No way out: every year, some 500
South Asian women are forced into domestic
slavery in Britain following an arranged marriage.
          First the author talked about 19 years old India girl Jasminder’s family background and her family think their daughter will have better life in Britain. Sometimes families must sell many home assets for the dowry.  So, the daughters feel they must go since their family has sacrificed so much.  But when they arrive in their new country, all is not like they think. All of the family people treat her as a slave and make fun of her, even over the next two years nothing change. Finally, the doctor’s staff at the hospital called the police. And the author also wrote about another girl, Mandeep.  She is also in this dark life.   Her in-laws make her work and do all the housekeeping and cooking.  And they make her live in the unheated garage in the wintertime. They treated her just like an animal.  Although those case got reported by police, it made the author more thinking. He wanted to know why those cases happened and why so many women were not way out the arrange marriage (see above the photo).  Shackle said “that most of these women do not know their rights.”.  Many arranged marriage women speak no or limited English and the fear the legal authorities.  “This makes it difficult to ask for help”. And Shackle also said “I am sure there are women who we do not even know about because they have never had the courage to leave home” because they are afraid of too many things which they do not know what will happen to them every day. At the end of article, due to additional training the British Home Office help many women to leave.  There are about 45,000 foreign spouses every year, but few women are affected by these type issues, Hopefully there will be better improvements in the future.

 In this whole article, some parts mirror my international marriage.  And some parts different since those women arrived Britain by an arranged marriage. Mine is from falling in love then marry. Their life background made their life more different. Their life is not by their choice.  Their family decide their future, not them.  Without a good educational background, it is hard to overcome their difficulties with wisdom.  Some rely on woman’s groups for help.  Being kind and loving are women's nature.  We have more courage is also very important. Sometimes speaking is easy, but sometimes doing is so hard.  Just like I told all my friends why successful man would go to another country to look for a bride. Arranged marriage is so dangerous and is stupid behavior. I hope more news coverage of these unfortunate cases let more people understand the impact of arranged marriages. If we can improve marital happiness index, it will reduce these unfortunate stories.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Native American Boarding School: DESTROYING a Culture

Bickford-Duane, Pauline , in his article “ DESTROYING a Culture ” published in the magazine Cobblestone on Jan 2015, discusses about how US Government took land and broke treaties with Native Americans.  Then they tried to make them like white people, But later US Government learned that was a bad idea.  So, they gave Native Americans back a lot of rights such as the ability to governed themselves, attend their own schools, and learn their language. Photographs from the Carlisle Indian School show a group of Sioux boys shortly after their arrival at the school (ABOVE) and a group of “assimilated” Sioux students (OPPOSITE). The author first wrote a short history of how the United States government tried to take over Native American culture. She said the government had tried for almost 100 years and over 400 agreements to find a “solution” to the Native American “problem”. But most of them were not successful. then in the late 1800s, Senator Dawes prop...

Twin City Terrorists: Who Are They and is it a Significant Problem

Ian Tuttle, in his article “ Twin City Terrorists: A Community Reacts to Its Jihadi Sons and Daughters ” published in the Nation Review on November 3, 2014, discusses about terrorists in the Somali community in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sometimes he could not talk to local Somalis because he was white.  They thought he might be a spy. But even with this problem he was able to talk to Somali’s with many different ideas about the “terrorist” problem in Minnesota. The author research goes back to 2007 when 23 Somali Minnesotans joined al-Sahbaab, an al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group.  And recently 18 Somali Minnesotan’s joined ISIS and went to fight in Syria. Tuttle said that ISIS borrowed some of al-Shabaab’s recruiting ideas by using social media to glorify terrorism. Tuttle thinks few jobs and how Somalis are treated in Minnesota help ISIS recruit.  He quoted a Somali member of the Minneapolis School Board “For instance “What does the future look for me [Somali y...

some great links for writing essay

External Resource Link to Berkeley Library Evaluating Web Pages Link - Good if you want additional information on how to tell if a website is credible http://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/evaluating-resources Link to History.com - Hear some of the greatest speeches of all time! https://www.history.com/speeches External Resource Link to Toastmasters International - Lots of Good Arti cles and Videos on Public Speaking http://www.toastmasters.org/ Link to Purdue Owl Writing Lab (Great Site for APA Ciation Help)   https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/