It is about culture
By CARE
Channy and his friend in front of the university building in Bonn (photo: private)Pretending to overlook, speeding up with a blushing face, asking me to hurriedly follow her – this is what my Cambodian friend, a 20-year old girl, always does when we pass by people kissing on the street. We have only been in Bonn for the number of days matching my fingers, but this really catches my eye. I always swallow my shyness when I see people kissing around me. This I have never seen in the public places in Cambodia. Here I am really breaking my curiosity and running across European culture – a new scene for my inquisitive eyes as a foreigner.
Different culture
In Cambodia, Kissing between an unmarried boy and girl is a big issue. We have a very strict culture regarding this. The children are not allowed to move from the parents to live with their boyfriend/ girlfriend even fiancée/ fiancé before they are married. If you are engaged, you can hang out with your partner for hours and then come back home or the guy can go to visit the house of his wife-to-be quite often as he wants. A girl is valued as long as she can keep her virginity before the wedding. I am really surprised when my German friend told me that adults in Germany normally have had more than one girlfriend/boyfriend. And they usually don’t marry their first one. If it happens in my country, you will be called fickle and be looked down on by your neighbours.
I don’t follow in my sisters’ footsteps…
‘How old are you?’ my aunt asked me. I frowned for seconds and gave her my year of birth. She was seemingly serious, carefully counted her fingers and then nodded. I quickly grasped the reason: I should get married at my age, 27. I don’t ignore this fact, but I always think that I am too young. In Cambodia some parents, mainly in the countryside, are eager to have their daughters married at the age of 16, and their sons in the early twenties. They unreasonably think that the older the child is, the less chance it will have to get married, especially for daughters. My mother, for instance, never gives up her unsuccessful attempts to lobby me to marry a certain girl, from a reputable family. I don’t know her name, nor do I know what she looks like. A real arranged marriage!!!! This, I affirm, will not happen to me as I am a big-headed child and a modern youth. However, it repetitively dropped on four of my five married sisters. None of them got married later than their early twenties and had never known their spouse before. The girls more often follow the parents because they believe their parents’ eyes – the parents always want their children to have a bright future. Furthermore, they did not dare to reject my parents’ purpose.
My friend’s wedding in 2007 (photo: Pak Seangly)The blind reasons for early marriage
I am not an expert on marriage. But I know some of the reasons of those early married people. Some misinterpret the meaning of marriage, while others firmly gaze at one reason or point out of hundred reasons. The others say: I want run a family of my own; my parents want to see their grandchild, as grateful child I have to follow my parents, all my friends were already married so why not me, I am worried that no one else will want to marry me if I miss this chance. ……..so on and so forth. I am sad to see these loves never grow well and mostly end up with tragedy such as a divorce. For example, if the young couple does not get along or there is no job to earn a living for family. The girls always encounter both physical and mental problems – to marry at 16 then divorce at 18 with the child in belly is far from easy. Research done by the Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey shows that among all Cambodian women who give birth, nine percent are younger than 19. I am vigorously against such an early marriage.
Go on your own
I am Cambodian, I do love my country and I really love my prosperous culture. Above all I also love my fellow citizens. We always say: Marriage will only happen once in our life. Thus, I want my people to make it meaningful to their lives, not to marry just for the sake of it. Everyone always dreams of having a brilliant family of his/her own. So how to deal with or escape from those irrational weddings, then, the answer is easy: Always marry the one you love, not the one your parents love. Get to know your partner before the wedding.
