Q.Girls and boys should be free to decide whom they wish to marry. Parents should have no say in this matter.

This is a 'Let's Debate' prompt with room for more than one reasoned position, best approached using the chapter's own ideas of self-regarding choice and the liberal view of individual liberty. …

The chapter's discussion of the harm principle is directly useful here: Mill's distinction between 'self-regarding' actions (which affect mainly the person making the choice) and 'other-regarding' actions (which cause real harm to others) suggests that choosing a life partner is, for the most part, a self-regarding decision — its main consequences fall on the two people marrying, so under the harm principle there is no obvious case for another party, including parents, to override that choice by force. The chapter's own Liberalism box makes a directly related point: liberals argue that a decision like whom to marry belongs to the individual rather than to the family or community, precisely because liberal thought gives priority to individual liberty over the claims of family, caste or community. …