PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND FREE MARKETS
Word count: 947
Sham marriages
Introduction
In many European countries, there has been a rising problem about sham marriages (‘fake
marriages’). A sham marriage is a marriage of convenience between two people who do not
intend to create a real marital relationship but instead try to gain from each other for citizenship,
political reasons, personal gains or other sorts of strategic purposes, which at least one of the
partners entered against their own free will, as a result of some form of coercion by the other
partner.
Research shows that this marriages are common all around the world including Asia, Europe,
and the United States (Haenen, I. E. M. M. 2014). For example, there have been a lot of sham
marriages recently in the UK, where a lot of people from Middle East countries pay a certain
amount of money to British citizens, in order for them to earn a residency or even citizenship.
These marriages degrade all moral values of real marriages because there is no true love and
romance between the partners. This problem is very hard to be identified since most of the
people tend to lie when there are being interviewed about their relationship situation.
Argument from coercion
One of the main reasons why sham marriages occur is because of economic reasons. There are
many people who would do anything for some extra money in their pocket, so they can be very
vulnerable to this kind of deals. An American survey showed that, people would offer to pay
5000$-20000$ to the person that they are trying to marry just to get the citizenship or residence
after 3 years and in some cases these people didn’t even receive the money (Seminara, D. 2008,
November 30). This kind of deal is unfair and involuntary because of the type of people it is being
directed to, the ones with a bad economic background, and thus forcing them in a way to accept
this deal and lie to the authorities on their marriage.
Argument from corruption
There is not a specific definition of marriage since there are many cultures in the world and
which have different ideas about the term marriage. The closest definition we can get is: “Any
union between two or more people which, in a specific society is legally, culturally and/or
religiously sanctioned, which is binding, and which, within the particular context of that society,
establishes certain rights and obligations between these people and is seen as marital or marital-
like.” (Haenen, I. E. M. M. 2014)
According to this definition, sham marriage degrades all the moral values of marriage as one of
the partners entered against his/her free will and this might have happened in different ways such
as physical violence, emotional blackmail, psychological abuse, social violence or a combination
of these variables.
Personal evaluation
1
Word count: 947
Sham marriages
Introduction
In many European countries, there has been a rising problem about sham marriages (‘fake
marriages’). A sham marriage is a marriage of convenience between two people who do not
intend to create a real marital relationship but instead try to gain from each other for citizenship,
political reasons, personal gains or other sorts of strategic purposes, which at least one of the
partners entered against their own free will, as a result of some form of coercion by the other
partner.
Research shows that this marriages are common all around the world including Asia, Europe,
and the United States (Haenen, I. E. M. M. 2014). For example, there have been a lot of sham
marriages recently in the UK, where a lot of people from Middle East countries pay a certain
amount of money to British citizens, in order for them to earn a residency or even citizenship.
These marriages degrade all moral values of real marriages because there is no true love and
romance between the partners. This problem is very hard to be identified since most of the
people tend to lie when there are being interviewed about their relationship situation.
Argument from coercion
One of the main reasons why sham marriages occur is because of economic reasons. There are
many people who would do anything for some extra money in their pocket, so they can be very
vulnerable to this kind of deals. An American survey showed that, people would offer to pay
5000$-20000$ to the person that they are trying to marry just to get the citizenship or residence
after 3 years and in some cases these people didn’t even receive the money (Seminara, D. 2008,
November 30). This kind of deal is unfair and involuntary because of the type of people it is being
directed to, the ones with a bad economic background, and thus forcing them in a way to accept
this deal and lie to the authorities on their marriage.
Argument from corruption
There is not a specific definition of marriage since there are many cultures in the world and
which have different ideas about the term marriage. The closest definition we can get is: “Any
union between two or more people which, in a specific society is legally, culturally and/or
religiously sanctioned, which is binding, and which, within the particular context of that society,
establishes certain rights and obligations between these people and is seen as marital or marital-
like.” (Haenen, I. E. M. M. 2014)
According to this definition, sham marriage degrades all the moral values of marriage as one of
the partners entered against his/her free will and this might have happened in different ways such
as physical violence, emotional blackmail, psychological abuse, social violence or a combination
of these variables.
Personal evaluation
1
