Kyrgyzstan, one of the many Stan’s that popped up after the fall of the Soviet Union.  Your typical third world country where men kidnap women as their bride to be.

A poor family living up in the mountains needs to marry their son off.  Son has previously proposed marriage to a couple local gurls with zero success.  Well now what? . . . . . I got it!  Let’s go down to the city and kidnap one.

Brilliant!

This tradition has been passed down from generation to generation, although while part of the Soviet Union this custom was banned.  Pffft!  And you thought communism was a bad thing.  

A good half of your Kyrgyzstani marriages have kidnapping to thank for wedding bliss.  Ah Lamoure.  Even better statistics are 80% of these kidnapped gurls eventually relent.  

Let’s break this down shall we?

The hopeful groom spies a gal whom he’d like to bear his children.  The men gather and plot out the careful strategies needed to kidnap a 20 year old, 98 pound girl.  While the unsuspecting biology major is heading for her morning class the men surround and push her into a moving vehicle.  She protests that she’ll be late for her class but her knight in shining armor, and proud groom to be, comforts her and says that she has no more need for learning as she’s going to marry him and become a sheep herder.  *thumbsup*

Surprisingly enough this is not sufficient evidence to convince the kidnappee.  So the brave men turn the young girl over to the harpies, also known as the women of the family.  The women bully and berate her for a good twelve hours, in an attempt to get the girl to submit.  Around this time the family of the unwillingly bride is contacted; now depending on whether this family truly cares for their daughter they either consent to the partnership and actually travel on over to the house to join in the intimidation, or the father intervenes and says, “Piss off!  I’m taking my daughter home.”

For the girls who refuse to give up their independence, they are often deemed as tainted among society or just raped and killed off.

Though this practice is illegal, like marijuana use in Canada, the law is rarely if ever enforced.