Talk:Bride kidnapping

Bride Kidnapping in United States
Hello all -- The bride kidnapping in United States cites two cases in particular: Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Lee Dugard. Although the Smart case may arguably be a bride kidnapping case, because there was a false marriage ceremony performed, there was no such pretense for Dugard. She was, simply and tragically, a victim of sexual servitude. Thus, these are surely kidnappings, but may not be bride kidnappings. Further, I question the relevance to this article in general, because these cases result from individual perversions, rather than established cultural traditions. The remainder of the article looks at cultural influences in bride kidnapping traditions.

Regarding the marriage traditions in the break-off Mormon communities, again the fit with the article isn't quite right, although they bear similarities. These are *forced* marriages, but not really bride kidnappings.

I recommend deleting the entire section, unless we wish to explore bride kidnapping traditions within the United States (see, e.g., Hmong). Perhaps we could include the information as a see also at the end of the page? Thanks.

The section:

United States

Several reports of bride kidnapping for religious reasons have surfaced recently. Most known are the cases of Elizabeth Smart in Utah and Jaycee Lee Dugard in California. Both alleged perpetrators are currently awaiting trial for kidnapping and sexual assault. Other cases exists within some fundamentalist or break off groups from Mormonism around the Utah-Arizona border; however, accurate information is difficult to obtain from these closed communities. Most of these cases are usually referred to as forced marriages, although they are similar to other bride kidnappings around the world.[89] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ibsensgirl (talk • contribs) 17:01, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry! Forgot to sign. Ibsensgirl (talk) 17:06, 18 August 2011 (UTC)Ibsensgirl


 * Hi, yes, I can see your reasoning on this. The article does, and should, focus on the cultural phenomenon. I would not object to an excision of the section above, leaving it here on the talkpage for any future editor. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:39, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

| Missouri has lenient laws and may be used to solenize child rapes. Perhaps deserving of mention? 65.26.30.123 (talk) 01:23, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

The Georgia Section
Hello --

I'm writing because I noticed that the Georgia section was entirely blanked without the editor offering a justification for the deletion. This is the section that was deleted:

Georgia

In Georgia, bride kidnapping occurs throughout the country, but primarily in ethnic minority communities, such as Samtskhe-Javakheti.[48] Although the extent of the problem is not known, non-governmental activists estimate that hundreds of women are kidnapped and forced to marry each year.[49] In a typical Georgian model of bride kidnapping, the abductor, often accompanied by friends, accosts the intended bride, and coerces her through deception or force to enter a car. Once in the car, the victim may be taken to a remote area or the captor's home.[50] These kidnappings sometimes include rape, and may result in strong stigma to the female victim, who is assumed to have engaged in sexual relations with her captor.[51] Women who have been victims of bride kidnapping are often regarded with shame; the victim's relatives may view it as a disgrace if the woman returns home after a kidnapping.[52] In other cases, the kidnapping is a consensual elopment.[53] Human Rights Watch reports that prosecutors often refuse to bring charges against the kidnappers, urging the kidnap victim to reconcile with her aggressor.[54] Enforcing the appropriate laws in this regard may also be a problem because the kidnapping cases often go unreported as a result of intimidation of victims and their families.[55]

The section was supported by footnotes, and has recently been reconfirmed in news reports:

European Integration Means Women's Rights 28 November 2011 By Paul Rimple

A friend recently confided that she was pregnant and her partner did not want the child. She faced a choice between abortion and the severe wrath of her family, who she was convinced would disown her after a fierce beating. Single motherhood was not an option.

People in Tbilisi are often in denial that such “backward” attitudes are prevalent in Georgia. “Maybe in the villages,” they say, but women in the capital still find themselves dominated by traditional gender roles in which they are expected to be virgins when they marry and complacent homemakers thereafter. Hymenoplasty is a solution, but it does little to address the problem.

In Pankisi, honor killings, although rare, still occur, and in the Marneuli district, which is mostly populated by Azeris, child brides are either given away by their parents or kidnapped by their “fiances.” While bride-napping is in many cases a method of consensual elopement, hundreds of women are taken against their will each year across the country — and not just in the regions. In 2007, 304 cases of “illegal deprivation of liberty, with the aim of marriage” were reported to the police in Georgia. More than half were from Tbilisi and in most cases, the perpetrators received a fine or suspended sentence.

The Anti-Violence Network of Georgia claims that “every third woman is the victim of violence in Georgia.” In a Caucasus Women’s Research and Consulting Network study, 90 percent of women stated that “women should be more modest and try not to provoke violence,” while 60 percent of women stated that whatever happens should stay within the family, regardless of the situation.

Clearly, the country needs to pursue an aggressive education campaign so that society realizes that it’s not acceptable to allow women to be married against their will or beaten. Georgia has signed a number of international human rights treaties that require the state to prevent and investigate violence against women, and it has established laws on domestic violence. Yet the government still lacks a comprehensive approach to policies and programs aimed at achieving women’s equality with men, particularly those that address both direct and indirect discrimination against women.

Being committed to European integration means being committed to meeting the obligations of the treaties it signs and, at the very least, creating conditions where women no longer believe it’s their fault they are abused and the men who abuse them are punished to the full extent of the law.

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/european-integration-means-womens-rights/448697.html#ixzz1gFytveiJ The Moscow Times

Can anyone tell me the protocol in a case such as this -- where another editor entirely deletes a section without offering justification? The editor was contributing from the following address: 130.63.41.103. Thank you! I hope you all are well Ibsensgirl (talk) 19:54, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Your tolerance is to be commended! Really, there is no excuse for blanking sourced statements, let alone whole sections, unless the person attempting such offers an explanation (e.g. the edit summary) and then sticks around to discuss the matter here. I'll revert it for you. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:19, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The Roma entry
All its citations are from the same article, and its credibility has been seriously challenged by actual Roma people. If there are no other credible sources for this information, I suggest it be removed. If not that, I also suggest that counterclaims are at least cited or referenced so that the entry is more balanced. Daimetreya (talk) 01:52, 11 January 2012 (UTC)Daimetreya
 * I see three citations in the Roma section, albeit oddly presented (see). One is The Guardian:
 * Henry McDonald, "Gardai hunt gang accused of seizing Roma child bride", September 3, 2007
 * One is an OSCE report:
 * "Building the Capacity of Roma Communities to Prevent Trafficking in Human Beings", 2007, p. 17
 * One appears to be an academic document:
 * Alexey Pamporov, "Roma/Gypsy population in Bulgaria as a challenge for the policy relevance"
 * Which of these are you referring to? BrainyBabe (talk) 12:40, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Synth at the Roma section?
I've tagged this statement: The tradition's normalization of kidnapping puts young women at higher risk of becoming victims of human trafficking. as WP:SYNTH as it appears to be an over-statement of what the sources actually say. Neither claim that there is a 'normalization of kidnapping', or as far as I can see, links it directly to an increased risk of trafficking; in fact it appears to be presented as exceptional. RashersTierney (talk) 10:20, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Historic occurrence
The article very precisely lists societes which may perform bride kidnapping today, but says almost nothing about its occurrence in historic societies. I'm guessing that it used to be much more common. At least, some researchers believe the Indo-European peoples to have performed bribe kidnapping originally. I don't know enough to expand the article, but for those who do I think it would be good to write something about what we know about bribe kidnapping from historic sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.206.44.215 (talk) 02:13, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I should read more closely. This has happened to me before today... I see there is a section about historic occurrence. It could be expaneded, but all right, I'm sorry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.206.44.215 (talk) 02:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

agreed. there are tons of historic examples. one that i can think of right off is that during the colonizations of the americas, spanish men were notorious for performing bride-kidnapping indigenous women.Crossovershipper (talk) 06:35, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Bride Kidnapping In North East India
Suhungmung (talk) 04:04, 15 March 2014 (UTC) I am from North East India, travelled extensively there and never heard of Peethchuk. This is a ridiculous fictitious term that does not cite any source. 1) Peeth is a hindi word, and no tribe in the north east speaks Hindi. Their languages are Mon -Khmer or Tibeto Burman mosly 2) All tribes have different customs and the fallacy is apparent when the tribes' names are not mentioned. I have deleted this section.

Bible "rationale" way out of context
The bible quote refers to the prohibitition Neder of regular marriage with the man of benjamin, thus letting them pick their own wives exempts that prohibition, thus avoiding the anhiliation of the Tribe of Benjamin, those women went there willingly thus irrelevant to kidnapping. It is a tradition kept until Talmudic times to some extent with the celebration of Tu B'Av Dafuki (talk) 20:53, 7 November 2016 (UTC)


 * The Book of Judges, Chapter 21 says the instructions to the Benjamites were "Go and hide in the vineyards and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, rush from the vineyards and each of you seize one of them to be your wife." This sounds like kidnapping to me. Batternut (talk) 21:44, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
 * The point was, as said previously in the chapter, to avoid the dessimation of an Israelite tribe, therfore the method was to "fake" a kidnapping so it won't be willingly, thus violating the Neder, but it was the brides' families that brought up the idea in a "peace talk" with the Benjamin tribe (21:19-20). Very easy to understand when reading the previous Psukim. It is obvious that it has nothing to do with the "Rationale" of violent Bride Kidnapping Dafuki (talk) 11:42, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
 * You quote the word "fake" but neither fake nor any synonym of it is mentioned in the verses spoken of. And I see no indication that the dancing women of Shiloh had any say in the proceedings. Batternut (talk) 12:48, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
 * There is no phrase in any marriage in most of the bible about the "say" women had in their marriage (except Rebecca) should we say they were all "kidnapped"? This has no mention in any jewish book. (Aside from the obvious fact that they went there to get "hitched") Dafuki (talk) 21:58, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
 * You said the women went there willingly, and have just added the obvious fact that they went there to get "hitched", but without any biblical text revealing the "say" women had, where does your knowledge of their complicity come from?
 * Anyway, it's the "seize one of them to be your wife" bit, which is in the bible, that looks like a prima facie kidnapping. I doubt many marriages in the bible mention "seizing". Batternut (talk) 23:15, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It is common reading of the bible in hebrew, and mostly common sense. I retract from what I previously wrote, without the common interpertation and knowledge of jewish laws (Forceful marriage is impossible and not valid) it is useless to argue this point. Snfdfk (talk) 00:55, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

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William Muir's interpretation of Islamic law, and undue weight
We write:

"While most Islamic scholars take the view that forced marriage is forbidden,[130] other views are held by some: William Muir stated that according to Islamic law, non-Muslim women can be captured and married to Muslims even while their husbands are alive.[131] Their existing marriage is annulled by capture.[132][133]"

I removed everything after the comma per WP:UNDUE, but I was reverted by here.

Here's a bit of what the neutrality policy says about due and undue weight, and how giving minority or unqualified views undue weight can have a deleterious impact on neutrality:

"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.[3] Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a 'see also' to an article about those specific views...

Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserves as much attention overall as the majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views (such as Flat Earth). To give undue weight to the view of a significant minority, or to include that of a tiny minority, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject...

Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence..."

With this in mind, it is already very problematic to juxtapose commentary by one person, William Muir, next to, and with the same weight as, the opinion of "[m]ost Islamic scholars". I am having difficulty understanding how this is not flatly incompatible with the neutrality policy, especially the sections I quoted above having to do with undue weight.

But the problem is worse than that, because Muir's background makes him and his opinions about Islamic law very unsuitable and inappropriate to present as a 'counter-point' to the view of mainstream Muslim scholars. Taking a look at our article on him, there are some relevant interesting facts:

"Sir William Muir, KCSI (27 April 1819 – 11 July 1905) was a Scottish Orientalist, scholar of Islam, and colonial administrator, serving as Principal of the University of Edinburgh and Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Provinces of India...

[He] was an Orientalist and scholar of Islam. His chief area of expertise was the history of the time of Muhammad and the early caliphate...

Muir's contemporary reviewers of his Life of Mahomet uniformly praised him for his knowledge of Arabic...Historian Avril Powell notes that none of the contemporary reviews commented on Muir's view that the Muslim society was stationary and incapable of reforms, perhaps because it was quietly assumed as indisputable by most of Muir's Victorian co-nationals. Written objections to this aspect of Life could be found in the writings of Muslims living inside the Empire only after the 1857 rebellion.[5] However, a contemporary review in The Times criticized Life for 'propagandist writing' with Christian bias and for 'odium theologicum'.[7] Contemporary historian E. A. Freeman praised the book as a 'great work', yet questioned its conjectural methodology, particularly the 'half timid suggestion' made by Muir that Muhammad had fallen under the influence of Satanic inspiration....Bennett (1998) praises it as 'a detailed life of Muhammad more complete than almost any other previous book, at least in English,' noting however that besides 'placing the facts of Muhammad's life before both Muslim and Christian readers, Muir wanted to convince Muslims that Muhammad was not worth their allegiance. He thus combined scholarly and evangelical or missionary purposes.'[11] Commenting on Muir's conjecture that Muhammad may have been affected by a Satanic influence, Clinton Bennett says that Muir 'chose to resurrect another old Christian theory'...In the final chapters of Life, Muir concluded that the main legacy of Islam was a negative one, and he subdivided it in 'three radical evils'...

According to Edward Said, although Muir's Life of Mahomet and The Caliphate 'are still considered reliable monuments of scholarship', his work was characterized by an 'impressive antipathy to the Orient, Islam and the Arabs', and 'his attitude towards his subject matter was fairly put by him when he said that 'the sword of Muhammed, and the Kor'an, are the most stubborn enemies of Civilisation, Liberty, and the Truth which the world has yet known''...

Muir was a committed Evangelical Christian...He wrote 'If Christianity is anything, it must be everything. It cannot brook a rival, nor cease to wage war against all other faiths, without losing its strength and virtue.'..."

So here's what I'm drawing from all this. Muir was respected and influential as a scholar of Islam and as a historian, and some of his work is still relevant and influential today. But he was also a colonialist and Euro-Christian supremacist who viewed Islam (along with, I suppose most or all of the world's non-Christian religions) as inspired by and a source of radical, Satanic evil.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Muir's opinions on the topic of bride kidnapping in Islam contradict the mainstream view, and that his differences of opinion tend to cast Islam in a clearly negative light.

Certainly, these judgments of his are relevant to the history of Islamic scholarship in general. Maybe some investigation should be made into whether his views should be introduced into articles like Islamic studies and so on. But here, on the topic of bride kidnapping, where we have only one short sentence describing the views of 'most Islamic scholars', it is not appropriate to give such undue weight to the tiny minority analysis from a highly eurocentric 19th century colonialist historian. --causa sui (talk) 20:45, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Well argued. Batternut (talk) 10:02, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. This content is also problematic because the sources do not discuss marriage per se, but rather concubinage. Thus, the relevancy is questionable. Buddytula (talk) 19:25, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Pakistan Section
Hello all. The section here for Pakistan is poorly sourced and grammatically incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:7000:C01:CA8B:FD50:C9A0:2D93:5E96 (talk) 02:22, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Refs
&#32;Bookku   (talk) 12:05, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Ottoman Law on bride kidnapping. https://acikbilim.yok.gov.tr/bitstream/handle/20.500.12812/326688/yokAcikBilim_10077318.pdf?sequence=-1&isAllowed=y