#54: Opposing a Marriage (PART 1)

【Think Again】
“I love your daughter and asked her to marry me. Today, I’m here to ask for your blessing.”
“We’re deeply in love with each other, and we want to spend our life together.”
 
When the grown children are engaged and dutifully visit one another’s parents to ask for their blessing, aren’t most of us unknowingly conditioned to speak these words?
 
And what follows naturally are the unspoken words, “. . . so please give us your permission.”
 
Surely, the grown children know it very well that the right to get married belongs to the marrying couple. Nonetheless, we more often than not tend to seek for that mystical parental approval. Strangely enough, some grown children feel compelled to go so far as to even pledge, “I won’t get married against my parents’ wishes.”
 
As if to see through such innocent minds, quite a few parents make unreasonable demands or even oppose our grown children’s marriage.
“Love evaporates in no time, so drop the Have-nots and stick with the Haves.”
“Best to marry someone of the same race/nationality to avoid future troubles.”
 
From time to time, we come across parents who oppose not the ones actually getting married, but rather their families.
“Marriage is a family affair, so we expect them to feel the same way.”
“Our family is far better off than them. That’s a breeding ground for future catastrophes.”
 
What’s more, we even find some parents who mistakenly believe that they can be excused for discriminatory remarks – in the name of Parents love for our children – especially about the prospective bride.
“If she has health issues, or can’t have a baby, then I disapprove!”
“You’re getting too old to be a bride. Hurry and get married before you’re treated like a leftover.”
 
It's sad to see that so many parents fall apart and become quite unreasonable when it comes to our grown children’s marriage. It’s almost as if we want to prove that, Parents have the right to decide our children’s marriage. In all fairness, a parental misbehavior of this sort can be spotted all over the world in every culture. Yet, it seems to stand out particularly in Asia.
 
Perhaps, it’s rooted all the way back in Confucius, a Chinese philosopher from 2500 years ago. His teachings largely focus on the respect for the parents and elders, which was widely accepted across Asia and still so deeply ingrained in many of its cultures today. Confucianism professes to Live one’s life by following the wise leader, and in many cases, it automatically assumes the parents to be such wise leader. Consequently, following the guidance of the parents is construed a virtue in many Asian cultures.
 
To be sure, marriage is an important decision and critical crossroads of life. When we face that fact in all seriousness, we’re strongly influenced – especially in Asia – to follow the guidance of our seemingly wise and experienced parents rather than to make the unseasoned and inexperienced decision on our own. That is, to almost blindly obey the parents instead of following our own heart, love, and care for each other.
 
In fact, as bizarre as it may sound today, until 1947 under the old civil law in Japan, a legal consent by the head of the household was required for any family member to make their own important life decisions, like whom to marry or where to live. Back then, the head of the household for almost all families was the eldest male, usually either the father or the eldest son who succeeded him.
 
This meant that not only the grown children, but also the adult siblings were deprived of the right to their own free choice. The fact that such an intrusive law was the official law of the land until post-World War II reveals how deeply the belief that Parents have the right to decide our children’s marriage is rooted in the Japanese culture.
 
But truth be told, everyone has the right to decide whom to marry. It’s an undeniable human right. As a matter of fact, the United Nations has adopted it as such in 1948, as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And we all know very well that human rights are the basic rights that all people are born with. Therefore, it’s evident that parents have no right to decide our children’s marriage.
 
The terrible truth is that too many parents breach and encroach on our grown children’s rights.

Read Next: Opposing a Marriage (2)【What are we as Parents?】

Read Theme: Family