Daily Times

In the film ‘Runaway Bride’, Julia Roberts plays the role of a woman who has an intense fear of commitment and has run away from several of her weddings — it gets to a stage that each time she decides to get married, the whole town turns into a bookie-zone!

A recent judgement given by the honourable Chief Justice (CJ) of the Lahore High Court (LHC) is the topic of discussion lately. The honourable judge, whilst dismissing a habeas corpus petition filed by an alleged husband for the recovery of his alleged wife, has held that:

“The trend of runaway marriages has severely penetrated in society and it has smashed up the norms of a civilised and dignified culture. Nowadays, it has become a fashion that teenagers and young persons frequently swayed with the passions of love affairs and in furtherance of their activities, they without caring for the harsh attitude of their elders for this immoral act managed to contract secret marriage. The trendsetters have invented a safe way in the shape of filing habeas petitions to provide protections to their such secret marriages and to avoid any expected future criminal proceedings at the hands of their elders. This habeas petition is also a part of the same chain.”

Elopement, in common parlance, simply refers to secretly running away with one’s beloved, with the intention to get married, without parental consent. If one Googles the term, it is enlightening to see that there are lots of elopement ideas available on the internet. This notion has been severely romanticised by the west and even Indian and Pakistani movies.

But here comes the snag: we live in Pakistan and not in the movies. While Islam gives a man and a woman the right to marry each other and also stipulates that consent of the parties is essential to a valid marriage, nowhere is the concept of elopement found.

Getting eloping couples married is a big booming business in Lahore. There are various package ‘deals’ being offered and the average cost of this ‘service’ is reputed to be around Rs 25,000. The couple is led to believe that there exists such a thing as a ‘court marriage’, whereas there is no concept of this in our law. What happens is that a private complaint is filed before a magistrate, on behalf of the girl, alleging that she is an adult and wants to marry of her own free will and that her family is threatening to kill her. Her statement is recorded and notices are issued but those notices are never sent to the other party. The complaint is then either withdrawn or is dismissed for non-prosecution. A nikkah is solemnised between the couple — complete with arranged witnesses and nikkah-khawan — who think that they have been married through the court! So, when the girl’s family registers an FIR for kidnapping against the boy, the statement on the judicial record comes in handy. Sometimes, the nikkah takes place first and then the complaint is filed. It is rumoured that the fees received for these services are split between all concerned.

The fact is that couples have been eloping since time immemorial but the escalation in numbers has come in recent years due to exposure to cable and mobile networks. Young gullible girls fall prey to this romantic notion without realising the dire consequences. There have been several instances of couples being gunned down by enraged family members right outside the gates of the courts. In others, boys often leave the girls, who have no place to return. There have also been cases where the boy has not married the girl and she falls prey to abuse by him and his friends.

Those who do get married are sometimes roped into false cases filed by their families. Scared out of their wits, these couples run to the high courts for the quashing of these FIRs. One honourable judge realised that the best he could do for the girl in such an event was to get the boy to enhance her dower amount so that some financial assistance was available to her in case the boy ditched her. Sometimes the girls come to their senses and return home and, in others, they are forcibly taken away by their families. Confronted with such a situation, the husband files a habeas corpus petition, seeking recovery of his détenu wife from the illegal custody of her parents. It was in one such case that the honourable CJ of the LHC refused to exercise this jurisdiction, holding that the parents could not be subjected to such disgrace as sending a bailiff or the police to their homes.

Whilst I firmly believe that every adult, male or female, has the right to marry a person of his or her choice, and that any marriage that is not consented to by the parties would be void, I also believe that the honour and respect of the people responsible for raising you, who provided sustenance and disregarded their own needs to cater for yours, should not be trampled with a word like elope or runaway. I also believe that the parents should advise and persuade their offspring on the perils of marrying an unsuitable contender, and not make it into an ego issue. Our responsibility as parents demands that we look after the interests and welfare of our children, but if that child is an adult, and does not see the logic of our argument, then it is best that the marriage be solemnised respectfully and the child be sent on his or her way, with blessings, and be left to bear the responsibility of their choices in life. It is the best thing we can do as parents.

However, as a child, I believe that we owe it to our parents that they not be subjected to ridicule and humiliation. If they do not agree with your choices in life, it is best to convince them. If that is not possible, achieving financial stability should be your first target. Only time will determine if your love is real or is it just raging hormones. A few years wait is never enough to kill true love. One can get married without running away, in a respectable way.

Julia Roberts did not elope. She ran away, alone, because she did not know who she was as a person or what she wanted in life. Be mature enough to know what you want and then be mature enough to handle it in a mature way. Running away with someone is definitely not it.

The writer is an advocate of the high court