Danish law concerning marriage

[Tilia]

When we spoke about equality in philosophy, our teacher said that he'd heard that there's a Danish law saying that if you marry a foreigner, you have to move out of Denmark.

Is this true?

[Vvi]

This article may help you out somewhat, the law dates from 2002 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2057594.stm .

"Under the new rules civil servants can ban a non-Danish spouse from living in the country if they consider that person's ties to Denmark are not strong enough."

"Another tenet of the new law is a ban on immigrants under the age of 24 from marrying. According to Bertil Haader, the Integration Minister, this is designed to prevent the practice of forced and arranged marriages amongst mainly youngsters from mainly Muslim backgrounds."

Finns, Swedes, Norwegians and the Dutch may marry a Dane in Demark and live there with them without having to leave though.

Edited May 6, 2009 by Vvi

[Tilia]

But are they serious? How rasicistic can you get?

[Vvi]

In the article they talked about reducing "marriages of convenience", for example Somali refugees marrying a Danish person merely for the sake of getting a Danish passport. Many of these marriages end in high divorce rates, with the couple staying married just long enough for the other to get residency, and then they get divorced. These kind of marriages were common between Israeli's and foreigners (especially Norwegians) in the 1980's, when the Israeli passport had many travel restrictions that prevente their hlders from travelling.

In some ways I understand the Danish government's actions, because foreigners are taking advantage of their country's good welfare and then not even working (so they are just living off welfare). This also happens in Finland a lot, although we have less refugees than Denmark does.

On the other hand, it's unfair to those Danes who genuinely do fall in love with foreigners, and it's also quite ridicuolous that Danes can be "exiled" from their own country. I suppose a way around it might be for the couple to live in Denmark together unmarried for several years while the non-Danish partner learns Danish and gets a job. Then they may be able to prove that they have close ties to Denmark and should both be allowed to stay.

[Tilia]

I can also understand how they think, but I still don't really like that law.

[Sandwich]

I think we have a similar thing here (not 100% but I read about it in a novel!) and yeah, it's marriages of convenience. They're usually pretty highly vetted, though, so if you are genuine, it doesn't tend to go against you.

[Tilia]

Sure, I don't think you should marry just to be allowed to stay in the country, but as far as I know, the Danish government isn't very firendly inclined towards refugees and foreigners.

And as Vvi said, it must be hard to be Danish and falling in love with a foreigner, then you have to move out.

[Mahuta ♥]

"Another tenet of the new law is a ban on immigrants under the age of 24 from marrying. According to Bertil Haader, the Integration Minister, this is designed to prevent the practice of forced and arranged marriages amongst mainly youngsters from mainly Muslim backgrounds."

?!#@!#

This is generalizing.. most muslims that live in europe are open minded..so forced marriages barely happens

[Vvi]

Another generalization is that Muslims in Europe are open-minded. My German classmates were in school with several Turkish girls back in Germany, and the parents of the the girls refused to allow them to do anything with their classmates (sleepovers, going to the movies, etc.), saying that just because they were in Germany didn't mean that the girls could take liberties and behave 2inappropriately".

Mnay Muslims in Europe try to maintain a balance between their own culture and the new one; my classmate's Pakistani friend in England is a case. Her family doesn't allow her to go out anywhere without relatives, even though she attends boarding school full-time alone, and they have already arranged a marriage for her. The girl's parents want to make sure that she doesn't deviate from their home culture and get married to an English man (understandable as they are religious). Arranged marriages aren't the same as forced marriages, but they show that the underlying social values of the society haven't changed even though they may be living in Europe.

For anyone interested in statistics of forced marriages in England for the years 2000-2002, read http://www.citymuslims.org/forcedmarriage.asp (from a London city website maintained by British Muslims):

Government officials said the special unit within the Foreign Office had dealt with almost 1,000 cases of forced marriage since it was set up in 2000.

In the past two years:

1. Nearly 500 people have asked for help to avoid being forced into marriages

2. 492 cases have been reported to police forces in England and Wales

3. 500 forced marriages have taken place in London while the national figure is believed to be much higher

[Mahuta ♥]

If both cases are generalizing then we cant state anything. To be honest with you, although I see muslims as muslims, I must say that turkish and pakistanis arent arabs(no offence to anyone), and yes I have heard of forced and arranged marriages before in europe(although not much), but i haven't heard yet of it happening in arab populations in europe.

I know for a fact that non arab muslims are mostly(not always) religious compared to arab muslims.

I am a muslim arab and i dont go to movies either..but i'm living happily still with an open minded family and in a mixed school (when there are many single gendered school here). So saying that her parents dont let her go to movies isnt a full indication that they're too religious or that she's going to end up in an arranged or forced marriage, although it does happen.

[Tilia]

Have I got something wrong when I think that stuff like forced marriage/arranged marriage/honour killing haven't got anything to do wiht religion, but with culture?

[moneyfaery]

Have I got something wrong when I think that stuff like forced marriage/arranged marriage/honour killing haven't got anything to do wiht religion, but with culture?

Culture and religion are often very integrated and difficult to differentiate.

That sounded like math

[Vvi]

Religion influences culture to a large extent. But yes, culture differs a lot in these cases. Even in countries with similar religious practices, there's variance. For example, among Palestinians there are relatively few honour killings (unfortunately, those that do happen take place in religious Muslim towns up in the north of the country, so it adds to the stereotypical image that people have of Muslims).

However, in marriage arranged marriages often have something to do with religion. Muslim women are not allowed to marry outside their religion, so parents may arrange a marriage for her to a suitable Muslim man rather than risking her getting married to a non-Muslim. Arranged marriages are less common with Christian Arab families than Muslim ones (here at least); one girl in my school got engaged her last year of high school and the marriage was arranged for her.

[Tilia]

When I was in 8th grade, a Muslim girl in my class, was subjevt to a murder attempt since she had a boyfriend from the "wrong" culture. After that, we were told that it didn't have anything to go with her religion, it was purely the culture. They were very keen on us understanding the difference.

I know that religion influences culture a lot, but in my class now, there's a girl who's allowed to have boyfriend and so on, so apperantly it differs between cultures.

[Mahuta ♥]

so parents may arrange a marriage for her to a suitable Muslim man rather than risking her getting married to a non-Muslim.

Arranged marriage is not very common by the way. Maybe in Palestine but places liek Tunisia, arranged marriage has become greatly uncommon. Even in the gulf countries, specifically in Oman, arranged marriages is becoming very rare that when we hear about it we would think of the father being too strict.

Many muslims have boyfriends or lovers if you want to call them, talking personally and publicly and quite often girl marry only the guy they choose.

[Vvi]

The words "lovers" and "boyfriends" don't mean quite the same thing. Unless the Arab girls are having sex with their boyfriends before they marry them?

[Mahuta ♥]

Well thats an issue if yuo want to see it that way.

There's either boyfriend the typical 'chick flick' sort of relationship(sorry i call it that, lol) or a boyfriend that would mean a lover in the sense that it is a serious relationship.

I may be usnig the wrong terms, but those are the terms used, and in many cases boyfriend could mean lover depending on ther person using it.

Lover, if you use that to call a couple who have sex, then let me tell you, if we ignore all the other arab countries and look at the gulf, as they may present the 'strict' muslims, you have boyfriends of both kinds and you have lovers just as much. Sex before marriage, although im against it, is not very rare im afraid to say. In most cases the guy is convinced to marry the girl, because normally he just dumps her after that and the girl's future is shattered.

[NoShii]

Law does not have to make sense as long as there is a way to prove it is for the benefit of the people, which in this case, it can and there's a sense to it. It's a little bit extreme, but your country might just not have that problem as extreme as the Danish have it in order to put a law like this.

[charlotteee]

There is no Danish law stating that Danes must leave the country if they marry a foreigner. I don't know where your philosophy teacher got this idea but it's not true!

I am a foreigner in Denmark due to my dad's job, (although I am an EU national) and I've been living here for 6 years. While it is true that Danes in general have quite a xenophobic approach to foreigners, there are many Danes married to foreigners here. In fact, most of the teachers at our school are foreigners married to Danes.

It is indeed true that a foreigner who marries a Dane does not immediately receive citizenship (this is true in most countries!), they will receive this after a minimum of 5 years, when they speak fluent Danish and have passed the "National Citizenship Test" (a test on Danish history, Danish language, etc.-).

Hope this answers some of your questions...

[Tilia]

Has that law existed before? It seems to be a great confusion about this. Some people claim it's ture and some claim that it isn't. I've heard that many Danes live in south of Sweden and to to Denmark over the brigde to their work every day. May I ask what country you are from? I understand that it doesn't apply to all nationalites.

Noshii: Sweden does have a lot of reefuges and immigrants, which is really good, because otherwise the population would decrease. So I do think this problem might exist here as well.