Interesting Links for 24-12-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Why Britain should ban cousin marriage

(tags:UK family marriage )

Comments

[wildeabandon]

I'm extremely wary of arguments among the lines of 'People may be pressured into this thing therefore we should ban the thing'. It feels very reminiscent of France's 'we will protect women's freedom by dictating to them what they are allowed to wear in public'.

I would be a lot more interested in the views of people who are in, have been in, have considered, or feel like they experienced pressure to enter a cousin marriage than some white dude from a political party that desperately wants to win it's voters back from Reform...

[cmcmck]

This absolutely and since it's most common here among folk of Asian ancestry, one may suspect he's also a screaming racist!

[jack]

Yeah. I feel bad for resisting but I'm also very cautious of conflating these things.

I notice that buried in the middle of the article is "As pointed out last week by Karma Nirvana, a leading charity supporting South Asian women against honour violence, Holden does not have a track record of working with the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) sector. Yet values matter, and we should be prepared to fight for values of liberty and independence when they are under threat."

The statement it linked to is stronger than the article mentions:

Any legislation must prioritise the safety, dignity, and rights of women and girls.

Karma Nirvana cannot support Richard Holden’s bill. This is not because we condone cousin marriage, but because we believe the true agenda behind this bill is not to address the harms that can arise from cousin marriage but to use it as a tool for political point-scoring, inciting hate, and driving a wedge between communities. The harmful framing of this bill erects barriers for victims seeking support, constructing walls where there should be pathways.

At Karma Nirvana, we are committed to confronting all forms of violence and abuse, but we understand that sustainable change cannot be imposed from the outside. It must be built on collaboration, understanding and respect.

That the statement from the person who knows the most is directly opposed to the point of the article, and the article spends a lot of time on "why this is harmful and important" and almost none on "why this will help when the people who know most about it say it won't" makes me not support the article until I know more.

[haggis]

Yeah, even without reading that link, I was wondering
a) what Karma Nirvana and other groups who work with young Asian women think would help
b) why Richard Holden is riding this particular hobby horse at this particular time.

[channelpenguin]

Don't see that it needs a special case. The law and social support behind ensuring no-one is pressured into ANY marriage, and protecting those who refuse / go against family wishes should be instead beefed up so it actually does its job. This would automatically cover these cases.

[bens_dad]

I don't remember the movie East is East very well, but my recollection is that the Shah sisters that the George wants Abdul and Tariq to marry were supposed to show the results of cousin marriage. Anyone remember better, and is this a realistic result ?

[calimac]

If, as the article suggests, genetics is a side issue, and this is really about women being pressured into marriage, then banning first-cousin marriage seems an indirect and haphazard way of going about it, because even specifically financial pressures can take many other forms than this: marriage to cement alliances between families, for instance, is not a notion limited to the old European royal diplomatic marriages.

[jack]

about women being pressured into marriage, then banning first-cousin marriage seems an indirect and haphazard way of going about it

Well put.