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Understanding Culture

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In my opinion, I don't believe anyone can ever truly understand someone's culture without living through it. Engulfing themselves in what most people will never understand. I cannot begin to fathom what everyone's culture may be in class, and I am certain of mine. All I can truly do, in my opinion, is observe. When we, as American's, hear the words “child marriage”, it brings a few emotions quickly to the surface. It could bring shock, amazement that it could ever happen, maybe even disgust and in a few extreme cases hatred. I am an American, and I can tell you that I jump to conclusions when I hear those words, or any word that may bring unpleasant thoughts. By doing this, however, I am unable to truly see the picture of someone else’s culture, or their day to day lives. What I know may be completely different than what others have to live through every day.
I have decided to write about Romani gypisies and their culture and society. Mainly, about child marriage in their society. Now, there are several reasons I decided to write about this, the first and foremost being is that I would like to understand how a group of people could ever expect this to be okay, or for them a life style. The first thing I did was researched different backgrounds of Romani history, so I could get a better understanding of where they came from and where their culture originated. Romanis are believed to have lived, in their ancestors time, in a northern part of India. Their ancestors are also believed to be belonged to a Dom caste, a caste of people who are believed to be lower than other caste, or out-caste. Now, if you have ever researched anything about history, you know one of the oldest languages is Sanskrit. It is a language that has been around a very long time. It is believed that their language, now called Hindustani, is to originated from Sanskrit.
After I did the research about their past, I decided to look into more recent events, and, of course, look into what this paper is about, child marriage. Virginity is a must in this society if you are unmarried, regardless if you are a man or a woman. In 2003, a self-proclaimed Romani “king”, Illie Tortica, prohibited marriage before parties were of legal age in their country of residence. Now, if we take a step back and look at what that statement says, we start to get a greater understanding of what child marriage really means in Europe. It does not just happen in the Romani society, by strictly Romani people. It also happens to people outside of the Romani culture. It happens to people from many countries in Europe, countries like Ireland and England. Something that is quite popular in Romani society is bride kidnapping, where someone will take a young girl from their family to avoid having to pay a “bride price”, or something along the lines of what we know as a dowry. However, it can also go the opposite way. If they wish to marry the boy, but their family does not wish it, then they may also be kidnapped to avoid having to marry someone they do not want. However, the tradition puts younger women at a higher risk of becoming human trafficking victims. It is also very well to remember that these practices are not universally accepted throughout Romani culture.
I do not believe that is right; however I do not have the right to decide what ones culture should be, how you should act, or what you should believe. I always get upset when I am told what I believe is wrong, or what I know is wrong. My personal morals will never allow me to concede to their beliefs or customs; however I will not look down upon them either. It took many centuries to create their culture, and I will respect them for that. That is my view on Romani gypsies marrying young.

Works Cited
1. See Henry McDonald, Gardaí hunt gang accused of seizing Roma child bride, Sept. 3, 2007, Guardian, UK, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/23/ireland
2. MacDonald, Gardaí hunt gang accused of seizing Roma child bride; OSCE, Building the Capacity of Roma Communities to Prevent Trafficking in Human Beings, 2007, p. 17 http://www.osce.org/publications/odihr/2007/06/25035_892_en.pdf; Alexey Pamporov, Roma/Gypsy population in Bulgaria as a challenge for the policy relevance, http://epc2006.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=60261. http://www.kentucky.com/471/story/947390.html
3. See Pamporov, p. 4.
4. See MacDonald, Gardaí hunt gang accused of seizing Roma child bride; OSCE, Building the Capacity of Roma Communities to Prevent Trafficking in Human Beings.
5. ^ See Alexandra Oprea, Deconstructing Uni-Dimensional Understanding of Romani Oppression http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2295&archiv=1

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