SENTINEL WATCH September 4, 2006 Issue

UNFORCED MARRIAGE

TONY LOBL

THE SUBJECT of forced marriages has become a disturbing one in the United Kingdom. The Home Office estimates that upward of 300 young British people a year are forcibly compelled to marry, some of them teenagers as young as 13.

These marriages don't take place in the United Kingdom itself, but in countries overseas. Immigrant parents send their children back home to weddings they haven't even known they will be attending—let alone as bride or groom! A BBC news interview showed a 14-year-old boy who had been sent to Pakistan "to visit relatives," and had been chained up for two weeks, until a prearranged wedding took place with a girl he was informed he had been engaged to for five years. Their marriage has ended in divorce. Other forced marriages end in the breakup of the larger family.

In light of one common justification for this practice of forced marriage—tradition—I found it helpful recently to revisit the Bible story of Isaac and Rebekah (see Gen., chap. 24). In this remarkable story, the servant of Isaac's father, Abraham, agrees to travel a great distance to find a marriage partner for Isaac, and trusts God to point him to the right individual.

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