Rawalpindi exemplifies old style Pakistan. I had checked into a lovely very run down hotel with blue windows, stone floors and cool faded bedrooms. I played pool in a street round the corner and later that day I met the hotel owner’s nephew who was over from Birmingham. He was a little suspicious of me at first, and asked me some searching questions. Realising I was there more by chance than by design he relaxed and was soon telling me proudly in his strong Brummy accent of the scam he was pulling off with his uncle. He was there to get a wife. Together they had found and groomed a rich family who were prepared to pay a good dowry. The plan was to marry the girl, get her back to the UK, put up with her for a couple of years, spend the money, and then divorce her. He told me that this is common practice.
Up to this point I had only ever considered the issue of arranged marriage from a liberal multicultural perspective, countering qualms about personal freedoms infringed, with the many reassurances of those happily in such marriages. What I heard in Rawalpindi changed the nature of the argument for me. These men were acting legally. The system they were exploiting employs coercion and information asymmetry as constituents of its moral and legal structure. It is both readily “corruptible” because of this, and incompatible with the choices guaranteed by just society. These principles are exemplified in a very graphic way by the wearing of the burqa in public, which I am glad to see the French are now going to ban.
