Excellent female student successfully "fought" against the "wife-catching" custom twice

Escape on the first night of Tet

HTHT is a senior student at Quy Hop 3 High School. At the beginning of the story, the girl with intelligent eyes shared: "The custom of "wife-catching" or "wife-stealing" of the Thai people has existed for a long time and this custom still exists in my village.

Adults say that because they did not have buffaloes or cows, and were too poor to marry, in the past people thought of a way to capture wives so that young couples could be together. But now it has changed, it is not the result of love between couples and there is no consensus between the two families for a marriage according to law and tradition.

HT recounts the story of his wife being kidnapped during the Lunar New Year. Photo: Le Phan

During the recent Lunar New Year of Mau Tuat, HT was twice taken by VVH (born in 1995), a man from the same commune, to be his wife. T. has been H.'s friend for more than 2 years. On the first day of Tet, H. and a group of people went to T.'s house to play. There, he drank alcohol with T.'s father. At around 10 p.m., the house ran out of alcohol, so T. and H. went to buy some. From T.'s house to the pub is about 3 km and you have to pass the cemetery. When you get there, H. asked T.: "Will you be my wife?". T. replied that she still had to study, but H. did not listen and kept driving with the intention of taking her home.

Too panicked, T. jumped out of the car and ran for his life. When he saw a house on the side of the road with the lights still on, T. asked to hide. Here, he borrowed a phone to call home and ask someone to pick him up.

With the help of relatives

Next, on the evening of the 4th day of Tet, T. went to her grandmother's house to play. When she got there, T. saw H. and his group of friends. At that time, her maternal aunts even "spoke well" about H. and his family. One aunt suggested: "You will be very happy when you go home." But none of this could change the girl who had just turned 18: "I told my aunts that if they wanted to go, they would marry him, but I had to study and work to help my parents." At around 9 p.m., T.'s aunt got drunk and asked T. and H. to take her home. On the way, H. drove straight to his relatives' house in the next neighborhood. "Here, I saw H.'s family members kept talking about me marrying him, but I refused."

HT (left) has twice fought against the custom of wife kidnapping to continue his dream of university education. Photo: Le Phan.

On the morning of the fifth day of Tet, H.'s family brought betel and areca nuts to T.'s house to ask for her hand in marriage. T.'s parents told their daughter that having her wife kidnapped twice had brought shame to the family in the village, and that it was up to her to decide whether to marry H. or not.

With a resolute refusal, T. once again won the “war” of wife capture, in which even her family members almost gave up on the old custom, abandoning their little daughter - the best student in the district high school. And the incident only ended when the school intervened.

Now T.'s mental state has stabilized and he has gone to school with his friends.

“I was born into a poor farming family, the family's life depends on two rice crops, the family has many siblings, studying is hard so I have to try to study well, find a stable job, change my fate and repay my parents' kindness to me and I will only get married when I can fulfill my dream of going to the University of Tourism, becoming a tour guide!” – HT shared with tears in her eyes.

HT is 1/50 of the best students in the school. Photo: Le Phan

Teacher Nguyen Minh Dat - Principal of Quy Hop 3 High School said, "HTHT has been an excellent student of the school for many years. Last semester, T. had a total score of 8.4. He is one of 50 excellent students of Quy Hop 3 School. Not only is T good at studying, he is also very obedient and polite."

Superstitions still persist

In early 2017, also in Quy Hop district, a girl was kidnapped by a group of young men to be their wife while on her way to the South to work.

Such incidents are not uncommon in mountainous districts during Tet. The custom of “wife kidnapping” has been transformed into a tool to serve bad purposes.

Teacher Nguyen Minh Dat, Principal of Quy Hop 3 High School, added that in previous years, every Lunar New Year, 3-4 students of the school dropped out of school because of the custom of "wife-catching". In the 2017-2018 school year, the school and local departments and agencies stepped up propaganda work, thanks to which, during the Lunar New Year 2018, Quy Hop 3 High School had 2 victims of the custom of "wife-catching" but were helped and encouraged by the school to return to school to participate in studying.

What the HTHT female student has just experienced once again rings the alarm bell for the people, and at the same time shows the reality of lack of knowledge and limited awareness of a group of people in the mountainous area. It was thought that changing life would make bad customs no longer have a place to live. However, it still persists, especially when the neglect and indifference of the victims' families have invisibly turned them into accomplices. Even for HTHT, although she has successfully fought to escape bad customs twice, the risk of her becoming a victim again is not small.

Dr. Vi Van An, Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, said that wife-capturing is not a custom of the Thai people. The custom of wife-capturing only exists among the Mong people. In many cases, people organize the "capturing" of wives without the girl's consent. But after the groom's family completes the wedding procedures, both the girl and her family usually accept it. This custom is widely recognized in the community.

In the past, Thai people were free to date and eloping only happened when the couple was forbidden, or when the groom’s family was too poor to afford the wedding and the girl agreed to follow her husband. Some cases of “capturing” a wife without the girl’s consent were just a phenomenon and could not be called a custom.

In some places in Nghe An, many young Thai men have taken advantage of the distortion of the custom of wife-capturing to force young girls, even many female students, to drop out of school to become wives.