Identity, Dignity & Human Rights
It's Already Arranged
Forced marriage — family pressures young person into marriage
Premium
intermediate
9 minutes
The Situation
What They Said
“This is our family tradition. You will marry who we choose. It's already arranged.”
Forced marriage is a serious human rights violation and a criminal offence in Australia. It occurs when a person is married without their free and full consent — including when consent is obtained through coercion, deception, or the exploitation of a power imbalance. It is distinct from arranged marriage, in which both parties freely consent to marry a partner chosen with family involvement. The distinction is consent, and the absence of genuine consent is the legal and moral line.
In Australian communities where forced marriage occurs — including some migrant, refugee, and diaspora communities — the pressure is often framed as cultural or religious obligation, family honour, economic necessity, or the need to protect a young person's prospects. Young people — disproportionately young women and girls — are told that compliance is love for their family and that resistance is betrayal. This framing makes it extraordinarily difficult to resist, particularly for young people who are financially dependent on their families and who fear community exclusion.
Australia made forced marriage a specific criminal offence in 2013 under the Criminal Code Act 1995. The offence has broad reach: it covers not just the ceremony itself but any conduct leading to a forced marriage, and it applies extraterritorially — meaning an Australian forced to marry overseas can still access the criminal law. The Australian Federal Police and state police both have jurisdiction. There are also civil remedies, including the ability to seek a protection order, and specialised support services including 1800 RESPECT and the Forced Marriage helpline.
The Fallacy
Cultural Tradition Immunity Fallacy — Treating Family Practice as a Defence Against Criminal Law
The invocation of cultural tradition or family custom is a powerful social pressure but has no standing as a legal defence to forced marriage. Australian criminal law does not recognise cultural practice as a defence to offences under the Criminal Code Act 1995. Section 270.7B creates the offence of forced marriage and the only legally relevant question is whether the victim's consent was free and full — not whether the practice has a family or cultural history behind it.
The phrase 'it's already arranged' is also legally significant. It implies that the young person's position is already settled — that events have been set in motion that cannot be reversed. This is false. The legal system has a range of tools to intervene before and after a marriage: police can investigate and charge perpetrators, courts can issue protection orders, and marriages conducted without consent can be challenged for validity. The young person's consent is required at the moment of marriage — and cannot be pre-committed by family arrangement.
The specific mention of 'tradition' also deserves unpacking. There is a meaningful distinction between cultural practices that are freely embraced and those that are imposed under coercion. The cultural practices of any community do not constitute a private jurisdiction that overrides the rights of the individual members of that community — particularly when those members are young people who cannot freely leave the community, whose alternatives are constrained, and who face serious consequences for non-compliance. Their lack of visible resistance is not consent.
What the Law Says
Your Legal Foundation
Marriage Act 1961 (Cth)
Section 23B — Grounds on which marriages are void
“A marriage is void where either of the parties is, at the time of the marriage, married to some other person; or the parties are within a prohibited relationship; or by reason of section 48, the marriage is not a valid marriage; or the consent of either of the parties is not a real consent because it was obtained by duress or fraud; or because that party is mistaken as to the identity of the other party or as to the nature of the ceremony performed; or because that party is mentally incapable of understanding the nature and effect of the marriage ceremony.”
Section 23B makes a marriage void if consent was obtained by duress or fraud. A marriage entered into because of family pressure amounting to duress is void under Australian law. This civil remedy is available independently of any criminal prosecution and means the marriage has no legal standing from the time it was purportedly conducted.
Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth)
Section 270.7B — Forced marriage offence
“A person commits an offence if the person engages in conduct that causes another person to enter into a forced marriage; and the first-mentioned person is reckless as to whether the other person enters into a forced marriage. Penalty: Imprisonment for 7 years. A forced marriage is a marriage entered into without the free and full consent of one or both of the parties to the marriage.”
The forced marriage offence carries up to 7 years imprisonment and applies to any person — including family members — whose conduct causes another to enter a marriage without free and full consent. This includes arranging the marriage, applying pressure, making threats, or engaging in deception. The victim does not need to physically resist — the absence of free and full consent, however generated, is sufficient.
Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth)
Section 270.7A — Forced marriage — meaning
“For the purposes of this Division, a marriage is a forced marriage if one party to the marriage entered into the marriage without freely and fully consenting to the marriage because of the use of coercion, threat, or deception in relation to the marriage; or because the party was incapable of understanding the nature and effect of the marriage ceremony.”
Section 270.7A defines 'forced marriage' broadly. Coercion includes not only threats of violence but also social pressure, financial control, isolation, and manipulation — the tools most commonly used in family-based forced marriage situations. The absence of physical force is not a defence; psychological coercion and family pressure meet the statutory definition.
What Scripture Says
God's Word on This
1 Corinthians 7:39 (NIV)
“A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord.”
Paul's instruction to marry 'anyone she wishes' is theologically significant: the choice belongs to the person entering the marriage. Scripture here affirms the individual's freedom in the matter of marriage — not the family's right to determine it. A marriage that the person did not choose for themselves is a contradiction of the freedom Scripture affirms even in the context of marriage guidance.
Song of Solomon 3:4 (NIV)
“Scarcely had I passed them when I found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him to my mother's house, to the room of the one who conceived me.”
The Song of Solomon is a celebration of mutual love freely chosen and freely expressed — love that overflows in the desire to share with family. This is the biblical vision of marriage: chosen love brought to the family, not imposed love enforced by it. The difference between the two is the presence or absence of the individual's own heart in the choice.
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What They'll Say Next
Common Counter-Arguments
After you respond, they may push back with these arguments. Members get the full rebuttal for each.
They might say: “The ceremony is happening overseas. Australian law can't reach you there.”
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They might say: “You already said yes at the family meeting. You can't go back on your word now.”
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They might say: “We're just following our religion. The marriage is being conducted according to religious law.”
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