So that they could learn respect

Two Belfast girls, age 12 and 14, were going to be sent to Pakistan by their parents, for “education.” A judge issued a forced marriage protection order to prevent this little jaunt.

He said: “I find as a fact that there is a present real and substantial risk that G and D will be forced by their parents to marry against their wishes.”…He found the real reason G and D were to be sent to Pakistan in 2007 was “so that they could learn ‘respect’ as an overarching filial duty which I hold in the context of this family means obedience overriding their full and free choice.”

Ah yes, ‘respect’ as an overarching filial duty, meaning people never have lives of their own, because they are always the property of their parents. Life under that arrangement is always vicarious, either upwards or downwards, and never simply a matter primarily for the person whose life it is. Excessive submission on the one hand and excessive authority on the other and never a decent proportionality.

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