I have a friend who moved her from Poland many years ago. She was a teen at the time. Part of the Polish underground resistance. Amnesty international brought her here. She is beautiful, even these many years later. She met an American man quickly and married. She did not necessarily love him. But they are still together today and have 3 gorgeous sons. She has grown to love him. If she had stayed in Poland she would have been arrested and executed. I think she made the right choice.
You say that this happened 17 years ago with your parents telling you to do it. How old were you at the time. That has great bearing on it. What country did you come from? What were your conditions there?
What your parent, he and you did is defined as a crime in the USA. If you had married him with the intent to stay married to him for a lifetime, raise a family, etc, then I would not consider it a crime as long as he knew where you were coming from. There are many arranged marriages that are entered into. Your intent would have been to be legitimately married.
Are you now divorced from this man? Or did you just let the marriage be forgotten?
If you did not live with this man, did you have sex with him? I am confused? From your description it sounded like you never did consummate the marriage.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> my current husband is telling me that it is the most horrific act a girl could commit.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Your husband knew about this before he married you. He accepted it. IMHO he is way out of line in the way he is treating you.
I do not condone people using marriage as a way to get residency in this country. Your parents, the man and you did something wrong. It was an illegal business deal.. all of you used each other.
BUT… it is far from the most horrific act a ‘girl’ can do. I can think of many things far worse.
If you did not consummate the marriage then there is no way it’s prostitution.. Prostitution requires that sex takes place in exchange for money.
If you did consummate the marriage to make it ‘legal’ then I’d say you used each other. But it was still not prostitution. The act of consummating the marriage was not done for the exchange of money. The marriage papers were done for the exchange of money. Many people in this world are not raised in the luxury of this country. Many people do things that most of us would not if they feel it is the only way they can save their lives.
[quote] He says that the institution of marriage should never be use for any purpose other than to validate one's love for each other. [quote]
This is the ‘modern’ view of marriage… mostly in the USA and Western Europe I suppose. But in many parts of the world, even today, marriages are arranged. Many people marry someone their parents picked out. Often they have only met once or twice.
My ex-mother-in-law grew up in Italy. She married the son of her mother’s best childhood friend. She met him for the first time two days before they married. My great grand mother was also from Italy. Her first marriage was arranged through a marriage broker, as it was difficult for a woman of ‘quality’ in Italy at the time to find a match. She was sent to the USA to marry a man whose mother had arranged the marriage. After that man’s death she married my great grand father. When I was a teen, living in Italy, I had friends whose parents arranged their marriages to men they had never met. I have friends from India who married under the same circumstances. This is just not unusual at all.
Often time these arranged marriages actually fair better then the ones based on ‘love’ and hormonal rushes. Though I’d never want to be in one because I know the kind of dweeb my parents would have picked (lol).
The purpose of marriage is not to validate love. It’s to form a family and raise children. I heard a judge say one time “When are people going to realize that it is not about love. It’s about a commitment to build a life and family.”
You are right to divorce this man. If he feels this way about you, no matter what you did, he is not going to make you a good husband. This is the beginning of abuse.. the beginning of him putting you in a place beneath him.
We all make mistakes in our lives. Especially when we are young. Especially if parents are pushing us to do it.
<small>[ July 13, 2003, 02:42 AM: Message edited by: Zorweb ]</small>
