Forced marriage is triggered by families fearing loss of control over girls’ sexuality

Evidence

Marriage is used in these two communities to reinforce kinship and job networks, although people marry from a wider pool than they normally would in their communities of origin. Marrying into the right family brings respect and status in the community as well as economic connections. Various forms of arranged marriages exist, but in general the less educated the family, the more traditional the practice. Families arranged transcontinental marriages because of the limited pool of marriage partners. In Bradford, for example, 50 per cent of the marriages were transcontinental ones, a figure that rose to 71 per cent in Oxford. The researchers estimate, drawing on police data and on the Southall Black Sisters, that there are two hundred cases a year of forced marriage. Significantly, ‘liaisons with the opposite sex are an important trigger for instigating the process of forced marriage.’ That is, families sought to push through arranged marriages without the consent of their children whenever they feared they would lose control of girls and women’s sexuality. Immigration was not an important factor in these arrangements. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 323

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s wider point that Muslim women’s sexuality is cast as imperilled — and to the standing ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ article on moral panics over women’s bodies as class and identity signaling.