Daily Lessons from Life 08 December 2010 - Malaysia law minister rejects calls to end child marriages

"Malaysia law minister rejects calls to end child marriages - Channel News Asia 08 December 2010

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's law minister on Wednesday shot down calls to ban underage marriage, despite an uproar over the recent wedding of a 14-year-old Muslim school girl.

Siti Maryam Mahmod wed 23-year-old teacher Abdul Manan Othman last weekend in a mass wedding at a major mosque, after being given permission in an Islamic Sharia court.

Malaysian Muslims below the age of 16 are allowed to marry as long as they obtain the permission of the religious courts. Sharia law runs in parallel with civil law in the multi-ethnic country.

Nazri Aziz, a minister in the premier's department in charge of legal affairs, said the government has no plan to review laws allowing for underage marriages because the practice is permitted under Islam.

'If the religion allows it, then we can't legislate against it,' he told a press conference.

'Islam allows it as long as the girl is considered to have reached her pubescent stage, once she has her menstruation,' he added."

Another practice that Islam is criticized for insisting on holding to the old way and not embracing an enlightened way that majority of reasonable people believed are not healthy.

It was reported some woman ministers also objected to child marriage with one of them claiming it is totally wrong!

Lessons for me are:

1. traditional ways are fine as well as they meet medical evidence that the practices do not harm the people involved or that they bring benefits to the people involved;

2. when traditional ways are NOT good for the health of the people involved, they need to be changed. Hopefully by the more enlightened people who can influence the traditionalists. IF not, the change may come through confrontation that need to be prevented;

3. in the case where religion is involved, the complexity and difficulty of change goes up multifold! Like I have stated many times previously religion involved emotion and emotion is not rationality! No logic for what is done need be offered! That makes it that much more difficult to discard the 'traditional ways'.

Only the parents of the minors who get marreid can help their children. Hopefully the will act rationally eventually. In the meantime, the lawmakers may need to push the process along isntead of throwing their hands up and said: This is not my territory!!