Lahore: Due to changing conditions, needs and educational awareness, the centuries-old tradition of “marriage within the family” has started to die in the rural areas of Punjab. Even in the villages, parents now prefer educated and economically strong young people to their daughters. giving priority.
60-year-old Hamidan Bibi, a resident of Manhala, a suburb of Lahore, is known as “Vicholan” who arranges relationships. Hamidan Bibi has had hundreds of relationships so far. They have dozens of silver and gold rings that they have received as rewards for having relationships.
Talking to Express Tribune, Hamidan Bibi said that the tradition of marrying sons and daughters within the family is now ending, people are now looking for good relationships outside the family, but caste and community conditions are still common in villages. A few decades ago, when a family asked them to find a relationship for their daughter, their first condition was that the boy should have land, property, and a large number of livestock was also given importance. , similarly family background and nobility were also taken into account but now times have changed now it is stipulated that the boy should be educated and handsome, government employees are preferred and if the boy is separated from his parents after marriage If so, this is the best option.
Rao Abdul Rahman is also a resident of a border village in Lahore. He said that he has three brothers and two sisters, all of them are sisters, brothers are married in the family, his wife is his cousin, but now he is looking for a relationship outside the family for his daughters.
Rao Abdul Rahman said that he has three daughters and two sons, all the children have been given higher education, but there is no boy in the family who is as highly educated as his daughters, so he wants to marry his daughters outside the family. Due to close relatives, he has married one of his sons to his sister’s daughter and one of his daughters to his brother’s son, but he has decided to marry the other children out of the family.
He said that because of this, his family members are also angry, but they think that this temporary anger can be tolerated, but the problems that will be caused by the marriage of the children will have to be endured for the rest of their lives. He gave the example of some children of his family who are married to each other but they are living their lives with quarrels and doubts and complaints.
Dr. Rubina Zakir, director of the Department of Sociology of Punjab University and an expert in the public health sector, while talking to the Express Tribune, said that there are advantages and disadvantages of marriage in the family, that is, cousin marriage. That boy or girl is their own blood, they think that “if someone kills their own, they will throw it in the shade”.
Dr. Rubina said that apart from this, one of the reasons for marriage in the family is the economic conditions because there is no need for much show on marriage and if the dowry is not given too much, it is enough. Sometimes it also happens that If there is enough property in the name of the girl, then the marriage is done in the family because the wealth will not go out, there is no need for investigation and research regarding the family, the future husband and wife are familiar with each other since childhood. , are familiar with temperament and nature, but also know each other’s parents well, so there are more chances of mental harmony and understanding between them, but if they see disadvantages compared to these few advantages, they are more are
On the loss of marriage in the family, he said that in families, girls are usually married off at a young age due to which the girls face problems during childbirth, besides, there are many diseases in cousin marriages that affect the generation. Transgenerationally, cousin marriages increase the rate of DNA sharing, the more DNA is shared with each other, the more genetic diseases such as thalassemia, heart disease, diabetes and diabetes are passed on to the next generation. And their rate is also increasing.
Dr. Rubina Kazim says that now, in modern research, it has also been revealed that hereditary diseases are transferred from one generation to the other generation by marriages in the same family, community, more than cousin marriage. He gave an example that if a person gets heart disease or diabetes at the age of 50, then his children may have these diseases at the age of 40. He said that now this awareness is being created in the public. That they marry outside the family to promote a healthy and prosperous society.
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