Nerve Endings Firing Away

Pakistani girls are now free to marry on their own will. Yippee! What’s’ next? Freedom to breathe without their parents’ permission? I never knew that desire to choose your partner for life constituted a legal dilemma apart from a moral or cultural anathema. It finally took the Pakistani Supreme Court to recognize a natural right of an individual though I am still surprised that it required legal intervention. But the court had an interesting anomaly in its judgment.

It stated: “The consent of the wali is not required. An adult and sane Muslim female can enter into a valid nikaah of her own free will; after reaching puberty; a Muslim girl is competent to marry of her own free will“. Does the court conclude that a girl has attained adulthood after she reaches puberty, which can be almost as earlier as 12 years in recent times? I bet the fundamentalists will take advantage of this obvious discrepancy and seek to invalidate the judgment. I hope better sense prevails and the court clarifies its position.

But considering the disparate interpretations of the Sharia law and the inclination to display a progressive attitude towards criminal law often can prove to be tenuous in blatantly Islamic nations like Pakistan. I would love to hear from our neighbors across the border on this obvious yet seemingly fuzzy issue.