Should extremely early arranged engagements and marriages occur?

[phk]

I have known some Pakistani immigrants (these people are from Mirpur) who have secured engagements and potential marriages for kids as young as toddlers that are set to take place around 15-20 years later.

Should this practice be prohibited?

[RIP Robert H Bork]

I have known some Pakistani immigrants (these people are from Mirpur) who have secured engagements and potential marriages for kids as young as toddlers that are set to take place around 15-20 years later.

Should this practice be prohibited?

Yes. There shouldn't be any arranged marriages; people should only marry from their own free will.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Arranged marriages tend to last longer, so they should be allowed.

[Boris]

the practice should be discouraged and abandoned

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I think you should report the parents of these children to save them from the horrors. The US should ban immigrants sending their children off to other parts of the world to get married.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I think it should be discouraged, though I don't know about prohibiting it. Assuming we are talking about acting in our own nations, such that these prospective laws would be a response to the customs of immigrant populations, integrating them by force would probably not work so well.

[Frodo]

I have known some Pakistani immigrants (these people are from Mirpur) who have secured engagements and potential marriages for kids as young as toddlers that are set to take place around 15-20 years later.

Should this practice be prohibited?

In an era I like to regard as relatively modern and enlightened, arranged marriages (particularly arranged child marriages -your use of the qualifier 'potential' doesn't detract from the horror) is an abomination, and an affront to a civilized people.

Considering that these children are essentially being stripped of their childhood by already being wedded while they are still incapable of giving (or with-holding) their informed consent as well as the free will that normally they would be exercising once they reach adulthood, absolutely the practice should be banned and those who advocate it shunned and given treatment little better than that meted out to known pedophiles.

Yes, I do feel that strongly about it.  

[John Dibble]

It should be discouraged, but so long as the actual marriages aren't being forced onto the participants then banning the practice wouldn't really be possible because you couldn't distinguish between a marriage that is arranged and one that isn't.

[Joe Biden 2020]

No

(I originally said yes, but I misread the title)

[GMantis]

Most certainly they should be prohibited - marriage should be a free choice.

Arranged marriages tend to last longer, so they should be allowed.

This might be because they occur in societies where divorce is practically impossible.

[memphis]

If parents want to make an arrangement, there's not much that can be done about that, but the gov't should not recognize any marriage where either party is under 18.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

If parents want to make an arrangement, there's not much that can be done about that, but the gov't should not recognize any marriage where either party is under 18.

The government should ban parents from taking their children to other parts of the world for marridge. Its just as bad and immoral when a Pedophile takes a child into international waters, alone on a small boat.

[Associate Justice PiT]

If parents want to make an arrangement, there's not much that can be done about that, but the gov't should not recognize any marriage where either party is under 18.

The government should ban parents from taking their children to other parts of the world for marridge. Its just as bad and immoral when a Pedophile takes a child into international waters, alone on a small boat.

     How exactly would you establish that's what they were doing, though? It seems to me like something that would be largely unenforceable.