Marriage Problems in Pakistan

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Exchange marriages or Watta Satta:

Bride exchange and women's welfare in rural Pakistan

Author: Hanan.G.Jacobi and Ghazala Mansuri

Date of Publishing: September 2011

Publisher: American Economic Review

Watta Satta means tit for tat or give and take that you give a daughter or a sister and you will get the same in return. In Pakistan in rural areas of Punjab "exchange marriages" is very common, in these traditional societies women’s formal legal rights are often weak, exchange marriage is a great factor of marriage problems in Pakistan. In this article we will discuss that exchange marriages in Pakistan can play just such a role. In rural parts of Pakistan, exchange marriages accounts for over 30% of all marriages. Exchange marriages are more than just an exchange of women from two families or clans; it establishes the shadow of mutual threat across the marriages. A husband who ‘mistreats’ his wife in this arrangement can expect his brother-in-law to retaliate in-kind against his sister. Watta Satta is cited as a cause of low domestic violence in some families, and extreme levels of reciprocal domestic violence in some families of Pakistan. This happens because women is still even today is considered as the minority group and in these tribal areas mostly women have no secured rights only the orders of the male are considered, so if the women refuses for exchange marriages they are out through a series of some torture, it is governments duty to solve all these issues and end the system of exchange marriage i.e. "Watta Satta"

EARLY MARRIAGES

Author: Gulsher Panhwar Johi

Publisher: Youth Xperia

Date of Publishing: 13th October, 2012

Half of the Pakistani women married before 18 years of their age and nine per cent women begin childbearing at 15-19 years, putting country on top in maternal mortality rate in South Asia. Mostly parents thinks that their daughters are burden on them, they should not be educated, to invest in them is a foolish thing, they will not give them fruit or they will not full fill their needs and desires. Vani is a form of Child marriage that is practiced in rural areas of Pakistan. It is one of the ancient customs of Pakistan that involves the marriage of one family's daughter to another family's so. If the other family does not have any son, then the daughter is married with an elder usually the head of the family. It is considered to be the peaceful agreement among two parties. The custom takes place when a male or female member of the family commits a crime or deviates from tribe’s norms. The final decision is taken by the Chaudhry. In rural areas we see the parents are selling their daughters to the wealthy or the surpanj's families for the sake of money. A young girl is traded for the mistakes, crimes and sins of their other family members. Whole her lives, she would have to live with a groom and his family, who would never love or respect her. The custom is illegal in Pakistan; it is still practiced in tribal areas of Punjab and Sindh among other ethnic groups of Pakistan. It is deemed as a form of conflict resolution amongst families, yet no one pays any attention to the lives of young innocent girls who had not yet fully grown up to understand the realities of life. The old customs and traditions coming down from ancestors are being followed without thinking about their consequences. The dominance of masculine over feminine has always been a global issue but in Pakistan it has been increased not reduced think, it is due to the flaws of education system in Pakistan that Vani is still carried out in this contemporary world. By the end of the day, education is a decisive factor for society’s social and psychological development.

Research Model:[pic 2]

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Variables:

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Hypothesis:

There are many reasons that lead to marriage failure some of them are Dowry, Parental Choice, Interference of family between a couples life, Early marriages, Exchange marriages and in some areas, desire for male child acts as a reason for marriage disaster. Dowry also creates marriage failures in Pakistani society due to which the girls are also get victimized in physical violence, mental torture, they are threaten to be killed and several cases have been reported in Punjab, Rural Sindh and even in highly populated cities of Sindh and Punjab in which the family of the boy brutally beats the girl or sometimes burn her alive, on the other hand early marriages also contribute as a huge problem in our society, the couples are forcefully made to marry and as they are not old enough to speak for their choice due to lack to maturity, early marriages also contribute in the increasing number of female deaths because when a girl gives birth at an early age her body can’t stand the pain faced at labor and that eventually leads to death. Another problem in our society that leads to marriage failures is when parents forcefully interfere in choosing one’s life companion without knowing or asking their child of their choice and this issue further lead to the decline of the marriage and even in the married life these sorts of issues create marriage instability. Last but not the least the problem of Watta Satta or exchange marriages are very common in our society which seen in vast amount in Punjab and Baluchistan. These marriages are done as a contract to assure durability in another’s marriage but mostly they end in a very disastrous way which leads to entire family dispute which go on for 4 to 5 generations or sometimes they don’t end.

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Operational Definitions

Universe:

The research was conducted in IQRA University with an idea that the samples will represent our society’s thinking, it was an independent research