Kidnapping Brides and the Peace Corps

No the Peace Corps is not kidnapping brides, but I started out doing some research after reading a New York Times article about "ala kachuu" which happens in some countries mainly Kyrgyzstan. What it basically is taking a woman by force to become your bride. Some of these young women agree, sometimes their family agrees before hand however, sometimes it is really kidnapping and rape that the goverment turns it's back on.

The idea is to be able to marry a bride without having to pay a dowry or arrange for an expensive wedding, basically an elopment. Unfortunately it is has also ended up with rape, murder and suicide happening when the bride really is forced against her will and does not agree to submit. Rape often happens if the woman is resistent knowing that if she does leave after that without consenting to marriage her reputation is in tatters. Many of those that leave do kill themselves rather than be forced to deal with the shame that is inflicted on them.

When searching for more information about this primative "tradition", I found an online journal written by Adam Braddock who is in the Peace Corps and is living in Kyrgyzstan with his wife as part of their assignment. While I was in high school I often thought about joining the Peace Corps, so while I didn't, folding to family pressure, I have a strong admiration for those who are in the PC.

He writes about a personal experience he had witnessing the ala kachuu:

November 17th Wife Stealing – Jazgul

There is a tradition here that we're not fond of, you may have read something of it in a previous journal or email. Before coming here I knew nothing about Wife Stealing, as it's called, it wasn't even mentioned during our in country training. I heard about it in some detail for the first time from a K10 volunteer. At first I wasn't sure I understood the culture enough to admonish the tradition's this experience is about learning and understanding another culture, so I thought. I can't possibly understand all aspects of the matrimonial tradition here, the history, nomadic influence – what basis have I to criticize. Love and courting, after all, as I know them are very Western ideas. But all the times I tried to accept it, tried to understand and exercise a big heart of tolerance, it left me feeling a little hollow. Like I did something wrong or didn't do enough. It's hollowness in the gut, just a little lower than the place we feel hollow when we feel guilty.

Now Ala-Kachuu (take and run) is in season - there actually is a season for it, albeit informal. The reasons for it include a coming and cold winter with which families will need an additional helper around the house, or farm. Also this month marked the end of Ramadan, revealing a new moon that symbolizes to most of the Islamic world the breaking of the fast, and, in Kyrgyzstan, a time for wife-stealing.

This week our host cousin, Kaliz, stole himself a wife. Actually, in his case, the stealing of young Jazgul was an arrangement between her aunt, and Kaliz's mother, Kalya. It's often the case that the pressure to steal, and accept being stolen comes from women. During the process they may block doorways, and often forcefully restrain the girl. Symbolism also plays a powerful role in bringing a distraught young woman into the fold: sometimes bread is crumbled over a threshold (stepping over bread is a desecration) to prevent exit; women will try to force the joluk (wedding scarf) onto the bride's head, symbolizing consummation. And after all this if a girl successfully escapes, the women left to their failure will often cast curses upon the departing, sometimes leaving young women terrified of the fate they may have made. When we arrived at the party Jazgul was no longer fighting. She had given up and proceeded as many girls here do to accept this "tradition", it is her sacrifice for her people, her conscription.

When we entered the room I felt like we were witnessing some sick freak show, and now I was melding with the mob. She sat Curled up on her knees in the corner of a room surrounded by other 17 to 20 year olds, mostly boys, celebrating a marriage, a conquest. Jazgul's emotions were worn in her hollowed, retreating body. She was as far away from this event as she could emotionally be. Even Kaliz was resigned, as if giving way to fate (later I would find out he was thinking about his own girlfriend who he had hoped to marry). Shortly after we entered, the room cleared out, and for a moment it was just Laura, our host mother and sister, and myself. We spoke to her carefully, asking her if she is alright, no congratulations. Then Laura, no longer worried about committing a cultural faux pas, slowly extended her arms and held Jazgul. Our host mother laughed for the concern that Laura could no longer hold back. So many Kygyz women it seems have conditioned themselves to resist such emotional prostrations. Jazgul returned from her disembodiment and embraced her arms around Laura.

Over the course of the next couple hours Laura managed to abscond to the adjacent room with Jazgul, just the two of them for most of the time, working through the language barrier to talk about her family, her expectations, and fears, and how she was tricked by her Aunt who asked her to come to Chong Tash with her to help with a wedding. Once she arrived she was cornered in a room; the pressure came, and she eventually broke. She also talked about her boyfriend in Jalalabad, sad that she let him down. But her family had accepted a dowry of sheep, and goats, and now she must accept it. They paid well for her.

This morning I asked my all female class of 11th graders this morning: "Are you afraid of being stolen?" Unanimously they replied, "yes." Young girls fear that they may all be surprised: watched by a boy from afar, followed, and one day, without warning, accosted and forced to face a similar, and sometimes even worse fate than Jazgul.

The next season will begin sometime after High School graduation.

Adam's written journal contains alot of information, I've read it all and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read about not only what he and Laura have overcome but more about a different life than what we have here.

I've written him a letter via the US post office since he had to remove his email address, from too much spam. So, if and when I hear from him? I'll keep you posted.

He writes an update in February of 2005 to his thoughts on wife stealing:

I've realized now that I won't ever know the history, I won't ever know it enough, and I'll probably never be able to abandon Western bias about love and relationships. Yet, I have relinquished some of my tolerance. I think this is wrong; and I do what I can to disrupt the practice - while maintaining credibility, which may be little more than a stone dropped on the sea. But while I share these ideas with students, family, and friends; while translating a Human Right's Charter for other teachers and school director, and organizing petitions against wife-stealing, I don't feel a hollow trembling in my gut, in fact it feels pretty good.