Child Marriage Plot

One local Xiangxi student playing a child bride trapped in mosquito net (her wedding dress)

13 years old, but wife

Directed and written by (Molly) Jinyan Liu.

Characters:

Long Haiyin: Xiaohong

Yang Lijiao: Xiaohong Red's classmate + Justice

Yang Wuchengi: Xiaohong's father

Wang Shihui: Xiao Hong's mother

Tian Pingyu: The Justice Envoy

*Special thanks to our cast: Huayuan 3rd middle school students

We want to adopt Brecht's style of drama to break the fourth wall, stimulate the audience to think about legal issues, and realize the educational significance.

Approach 1: At the end of the play, we would like the actors to step out of their roles and become messengers of justice, introducing legal provisions in the form of a protest, helping the audience to shift their attention from the plot to the content of the law, and popularizing the knowledge of the law.

Site-specific: front gate of the local middle school

Approach 2: Compared to the school violence script, the presentation of this script will be more focused on the visuals than the plot. We would like to use a white mosquito net (symbolizes poverty) to bind Little Red and then use it as her wedding dress, and the parents use blood plasma or red paint to spread on the white "wedding dress" (symbolizes lifelong harm/unfortune married). Linking back to domestic abuse examples)/tied up with strings, Hong is controlled and scourged like a puppet by her parents and feudal dregs. The use of exaggerated stage props achieves a distancing effect and breaks the audience's emotional involvement in the events on stage, thus enabling them to think more objectively.

Location

Hua Yuan County No. 3 Middle School gate (pulling in and out of the gate, pulling Xiaohong out of the school through her parents, symbolize deprivation of educational opportunities, out of society)

Scene 1: Xiaohong is told by her classmates that her parents are causing trouble outside the school gate and ask her to go there to deal with it. Xiaohong feels uneasy and tells her concerns, and her classmates point out that there is a flood of cases of child marriages among people around her.

Scene 2: Her parents yell and clamor at the sight of Xiaohong, telling her to stop hiding at school and come out to her appointment as a bride.

Scene 3: Resistance (inside and outside the gate)-Wedding dress (mosquito net) (capturing the girl in a mosquito net)

Scene 4: Puppet - Wool - Controlled - Puffing red paint - Spurned - Sound effects (over the top) - + Domestic Violence

Scene 5: The Justice Envoy (who is actually the man who came over) appears with the POSTER, the call to protect the girl grows louder, popularization of the law on the protection of minors, audio sound effects

Costume Preparation:

Xiaohong and Xiaohong's classmates: Third Middle School uniforms

Little Red's parents: go on a local search for old age clothing

Messengers of Justice: Spotlaw culture shirts

(All wear Spotlaw culture shirts if clothing cannot be found)

Props

White mosquito net

Plasma/red paint

Rope

Disposable chopsticks

Tissue paper

Tape

Cardboard + Markers

Speaker

Outline:

The poorer and more backward the area the earlier the girls get married and the more feudalistic their thinking. Parent-arranged marriages/child brides contain many disputes over interests, and many girls are forced to marry at a young age, unable to complete their education. Xiaohong is a child growing up in such an environment, but she is even worse than most of her peers around her in child marriages. She is not in a free love relationship but is forced into marriage by her parents, and her father wants to gain a higher status and voice in the village by marrying off his 13-year-old daughter (even if she volunteers under the age of 14, it is still a rape of a young girl) to the 31-year-old son of the village headman's family to get the right to manage the fish ponds in the village. (In our interviews, students in western Hunan shared that most of the child marriages around them were consensual, because rural girls who are still young at heart are easily deceived by "spiritual boys" in takeaways, and coupled with the catalytic influence of the Internet and the absence of parental guidance, they mistakenly believe that they have encountered true love, and their parents, who do not have higher education, usually agree that their children should marry as early as possible to have children. Parents who are not highly educated usually agree that children should marry and have children as soon as possible. (Of course, the phenomenon of arranged marriages still exists, especially in the more mountainous areas and in the many remaining child bride villages, so I want to focus on these cases.) One day, Xiaohong's parents came to the school and wanted to take Xiaohong home to meet her future husband. Little Red knows the disgusting face of the "husband" her parents have found for her, the good sister she knew who was forced to marry and live only to reproduce for others, the husband and his family who treat her like an animal, violently restricting her freedom, and the cycle of darkness in which her life has been plunged. Xiao Hong does not want to be like her sister, she wants to choose her own life like the teachers who come to the village to teach. Xiaohong tightly retains the handle of the school gate, wanting to seize the opportunity to be educated to change her life, but still can not get rid of the control of her parents, captured by the wedding dress made of mosquito netting, can not break free. Handfuls of blood soaked the white wedding veil as her parents counseled her, like her sister's experience, like the blood and tears that were about to be shed in her miserable married life. Remote places are not outside the law, and the messengers of justice appeared to give Hong the weapon to protect herself with the law, holding up signs protesting against the feudal dregs, emphasizing the provisions of the underage protection law; emphasizing the right of girls to be educated; emphasizing the consequences of domestic violence and involuntary sex and the rape of young girls; and emphasizing China's legal age of marriage; that our girls, who should be protected, be well educated, and be given a good education, should be given a good education, and should be protected. Protected and well educated, they deserve to embrace a carefree childhood and have the right to choose their own lives.

Script (English Version):

Scene 1:

Xiaohong's classmates: Xiaohong! Little Red! My goodness, you're finally here you simply don't know... (panting)

Little Red: It won't be my parents...

Little Red's classmate: yes! They're coming to school!

Red looks embarrassed

Red: What happened? What's wrong with you?

Red: You don't know, my parents want me to get married!

Red: I don't know why I haven't heard that before, but you're going to have to drop out of school, aren't you? My goodness! We're going to have 6 dropouts this year because they want to get married! No, Red, why? Why? Why?

Red: My father must be obsessed with the management of the village fishpond, he's been trying to get it back...

Red: Who are you marrying?

Xiaohong: They're going to make me meet the village chief's son again, the 30-something-year-old bad guy, and they're going to marry me off to him, to this man who's more than twice as old as me! (choking) Help me, help me, I don't want to be like my sister, help me...

Little Red: Let's hide? But your parents are already in front of the school...this is this!

(Both of them are anxious and don't know what to do)

(Suddenly)

Father: Zhang Xiaohong! I see you (grimacing)! You come out!

(The students are frozen in place, Xiao Hong takes a deep breath and moves her feet slowly)

Scene 2:

Father: Why are you hiding at school? Come out! Do you want people to wait for you?

Xiaohong: (firmly) No. I don't want to marry him! I don't want to marry him, I want to go to school, Dad, I want to go on to school!

MOTHER: (walks towards Xiaohong, puts her hand on Xiaohong's shoulder) Your father made an appointment with the village headman and said yes, it's not customary to break an appointment, besides (tone hardens) you are going back on your word now, where do you want to put your father's face? (Looking at her father, hoping to please him)

Xiaohong was silent, no matter how much her parents tried to drag her out of the school gate, Xiaohong held on to the gate and wouldn't let go.

FATHER: (tugging hard on Xiaohong) This child of yours, you're just a wooden stake, why can't you talk yourself out of it? You a girl family study how to get out of this mountain, our family for your brother to study is enough! Your mom is not also so over it!

Mother: Xiaohong, let's listen to your father. It's all good for you.

Xiaohong: Good for the kids?How could my sister end up like her?She'll never be able to raise her head in the family, she'll be a reproductive machine, worse than a dog!

Xiao Hong let go of the gate and ran as hard as she could inside the school. Her parents caught up with her and caught her with a "wedding dress".They tape her mouth and tie her hands with rope.

Scene 3:

Red is pushed out of the school gates, kneeling on the ground.

BACKGROUND VOICE: Little Red, run away!I used to want to, but I married out and realized that I definitely won't be able to go back to school in the future; they'll reprimand us for doing endless chores, they'll reprimand us for spending all our time giving birth to and raising babies!

Rag and broom thrown at Xiao Hong

BACKGROUND VOICE: Little Red, don't come! (SHAKING VOICE) I was detained and beaten if I didn't do as I was told, and beaten if I didn't do as I was told! Everyone egged him on to finish hitting and kicking me just to control me!Red paper ball thrown at Red

BACKGROUND VOICE: The man went into the city, we didn't have a marriage license, we were so young, and we hadn't developed any sense of responsibility.He, long ago, just threw us mother and daughter away and walked away. Now I don't even have a diploma, with a child, how can I support myself?Black paper ball thrown at Xiaohong

Background voice: Run ah Xiaohong! You can't expect your parents to do anything else to you after demanding the bride price, run! Go study go study!A girl can only change her fate by herself!

Scene 4:

The Messengers of Justice run onto the stage holding signs

The tape on Red's mouth is torn off.

Messenger of Justice 1: After February 1, 1994, China's laws no longer recognize de facto marriages.According to article 16 of the Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China and the Law on the Protection of Minors, the legal age of marriage in China is 22 years for men and 20 years for women, and marriage is prohibited before these ages. Without a marriage license, it is illegal cohabitation and not protected by law.The rope on Xiaohong's hand is untied.Messenger of Justice 2: The current Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Minors stipulates that parents or other guardians of minors shall not allow or force minors to marry or enter into marriage contracts for them.

The wedding veil on Xiao Hong's head was removedMessenger of Justice 3: Primary education and junior high school education are collectively known as "nine-year compulsory education".It is the duty of the state and society to provide primary and junior high school education for children and young people of the right age; conversely, it is the duty of children and young people of the right age and their parents to receive primary and junior high school education.Little Red being helped up from the ground by the Justice EnvoysMessenger of Justice 1: Although society is becoming more enlightened as civilization progresses, there are still cases of "child brides" and "child marriages" around us. Such bad habits are harming children from generation to generation.

Messenger of Justice 2: Our girls should be protected and well educated.

Messenger of Justice 3: They deserve to embrace a carefree childhood.All: They have more right to choose their own life!

Red: I want to learn, to explore the world, to save more girls. You can't control my destiny, and I'll never fall into being someone's puppet.

A photo of Molly and the local middle school principal after interviewing about the drop-out problem in the school.