The person behind arranged marriages The person who makes the arranged marriage decisions is mainly the dad because he likes to be in charge of the family and make all the decisions for the family. In most case the dad is the alpha male of the family. In India they have the families (parents, aunties, uncles or grandparents) of the boy or girl find other families around their village or nearby villages and they ask them if they have a boy or girl who is available to be married. This is called match maker. In India they let the girl or boy (who might be married) to have more of an input to the final decision. But in Africa its a different story. The fathers just choose the whole thing and the daughters don't get an input in anything. So the girls get an input in India but they don't in Africa.
The reasons why arranged marriages still happen There are a lot of reasons why they still happen but usually there's two views. A bad view and a good view.
Bad View In Africa horrible things happen with arranged marriages. But it's more of a forced marriage in Africa so I'll just define a forced marriage here. Forced Marriage ~ Dictionary Definiton
Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or both of the parties is married without his or her consent or against his or her will.
In Africa most of the families are really poor and can't afford to keep the kids and pay for their clothes, food and water so they agree with another family to sell them off so the other family can have some more people to help around the house. All the girls are another pair of hands for them to use. Here's some information on the selling that's involved in the marriages.
When the families can't afford the kids they choose one kid to sell to another family to get money to pay for their food, clothes and water. They family who wants to buy the girl usually wants to buy the girls because they can work around the house or the girls have an Australian visa and they want to use it to get into Australia. Some parents actually just want to get rid of their child because they don't want them anymore. Another bad view is that the boy or man wants an Australian visa, so they marry a girl who has one so they can use it to get into Australia. Which is using the girls again just to give or help themselves. I think most of arranged marriages are bad. The things that happen to the girls are awful. They get forced to work for families and give their time to help people they don't even know.
Good View Sometimes the girl actually doesn't want to have the pressure or stress of having to choose a man or a boy for them to live with for the rest of their life. Which can be very stressful at times. I think that's one of the good parts of an arranged marriage. Because if it's what you want then they should respect that.
Effects on your well being in an arranged marriage Most of your well being is affected in an arranged marriage. I'll go through some of the elements of well being and see how each one gets affected.
Spiritual Your spiritual well being is affected because when you start living with someone you have to make adaptations to your living style. One thing is your religion. Your husband might have a different religion to you. That would affect your life style because you might pray four times a day and they only pray once or it might be what your religion says you should eat. As the husband being the alpha male, as I said before they like to make all the decisions and they want to be the boss so they could make you change they way you live by changing your religion. That would affect you spiritual because it's what you choose to believe in and you suddenly have to change it because of some stranger you don't even know.
Social In some cases the families you have to live with they don't let you have any contact with anyone so you don't tell anyone about this marriage or where they are so someone doesn't come and rescue them. That would affect your social well being because you might be very close to some one and then you can't talk to anyone anymore and that would make you sad and depressed.
Physical What you eat could be bad for your health because you might've had a different diet and religion before they got married so then they had to change diets. You also wouldn't be getting enough physical exercise because you would be stuck inside a house all day doing house chores and not getting outside.
Our responsibility to create well being towards arranged marriages
Our responsibility is to create awareness for these girls that are being forced to marry someone they don't even know. Obviously we can't stop every single marriage in the whole world but we can at least let people know what's happening with these poor girls. We call that raising awareness. With our action we're taking we're making a website and we're making a story for people to read. We wanted to let lots of people know about what's happening but we wanted to have lots of information as well, and the website is a way to do that. We could've taken action in some other ways like: - A play showing people how they get married and how they live after the marriage - This is big but ask the go team about the next mufti day and try and change it so people have to wear a colour that represents arranged marriages and then every gold coin gets sent to Compassion (a company that stops poverty. Which includes arranged marriages) or another service that helps girls in arranged marriages Those were just some but we thought a story and a website would be the easiest to make and it would give people a big understanding of them.
The elements of well being connected
Personal:
Personal Wellbeing is the health of the body or the personal health of him or her.
Personal Wellbeing is connected with our emotions and some of the goals of personal wellbeing are:
Enlightenment Nirvana Actualisation Bliss Joy Paradise Peace Serenity Tranquility Being Calm
They are the ten goals of personal well-being that people try and live by.
Personal well-being involves: Paying attention to your feelings, thoughts and emotions, both positive and negative. Using a positive attitude in your approach to life. Accepting mistakes and learning from them. Living and working independently while realising the importance of seeking support out and help from others. Setting life goals and priorities. Enjoying life despite its occasional disappointments and frustrations.
Physical: Physical well-being involves aspects of life that are necessary to keep yourself in top condition. This is achieved through a combination of beneficial physical activity/exercise and health eating habits. Elements of physical well-being include: Building muscular strength and endurance Cardio strength, endurance and flexibility.
It is also concerned with developing personal responsibility for your own health. You’’ll understand and appreciate the relation between good nutrition and how your body performs. The physical benefits of looking and feeling good often lead to the psychological benefits if enhanced self-esteem, self –control a, determination and a sense of direction.
Social: Social well-being is the ability to relate to and connect with other people in our world. Our ability to have a positive relationship with family, friends and co-workers contributes to our social well-being. Social well-being is also how people react and behave in relationships with other people and their community. It includes empathy, compassion, caring, trust, feelings. Some people’s social well-being is very good when they are around other people and sometimes their reaction to what people say can be bad.
Spiritual: Spiritual well being is about our inner life and it's relationship with the world. It includes our relationship with the environment, our relationships with others and with ourselves. Spiritual does not just reflect religious belief. To be spiritually well will mean a positive emotion with others, yourself and our environment.
Mental: Mental well being refers to a person's thinking processes, the ability to express thoughts and feelings, and respond appropriately to situations. It is about our ability to open our minds to new ideas and experiences that can be applied to personal decisions, group interaction and community betterment. The desire to learn new concepts, improve skills and seek challenges contributes to mental well being.
How are they all connected?
First of all they are all connected with our emotions. Without well-being we would be extremely unhealthy. Our life would be hard and unhealthy without well-being. Our life also evolves around well-being. It makes up to how you live your life, it makes up your personality, it makes up your emotions and how you act around different people. How other people see and react to you, how you react to things and people and what you think of people. Well-being is also a part of our everyday lives to stay healthy. We can’t follow just one of the well-beings because we need to stay healthy in every element.
Well-being is a very important thing in our life and they are all connected to keep us fit and healthy. They are all connected in their own way. Well being is also connected with our body not just our emotions. Just focusing on one will not achieve good health because that is just trying to make the one element of well being the best. All the different kinds of well-being are connected: personal and physical, personal and mental, personal and social and personal and spiritual. Those are just some of the connections that the well-beings share. People that try and get well-being usually want theirs to be the best and they want to be healthy, but they won't be healthy if they focus on just one.