FARGO - The tradition of Romani girls marrying as young as 14 years old is so important for some immigrant families here that they would rather break the law than change their ways.

This past year at least two new brides quit school in West Fargo once they turned 16, one teacher said. Another girl married in 2003 when she was 15; within months she was carrying a child for her 20-year-old husband.

At the center of the cases is the Romani culture, brought here in recent years by immigrants from the Balkan region, people mostly from Bosnia or Albania. Though the practice often skirts the law here, the tradition of Romani girls marrying in their teens is for some families so important they resist changing their ways.

"It doesn't matter where I am," said Senad Djemaili, a 40-year-old father of nine from Kosovo who moved to Fargo in spring 2003. "I will follow my tradition. I don't want to be ashamed."

Djemaili said shame is something his people feel when a daughter or sister becomes sexually active outside of marriage. In Kosovo, the stigma is strong enough to drive parents to suicide and whole families to leave their village, he said.

Even with their parents' consent, teens cannot legally marry in North Dakota or Minnesota until they turn 16.

But in the Romani culture, where a relative might perform the ceremony in a home, the pact is binding even without a certificate from the county courthouse, said Fargo police officer Julie Hinkel, the department's refugee liaison.

"It is not negotiable," she said. "Once they come into this country, they can't pick and choose what laws they want to follow."

Hinkel said she might deal with five such cases a year, and she knows they happen more often than that.

In October, the Cass County state's attorney charged two sets of parents with encouraging the deprivation of a minor, a misdemeanor, for the relations between their married children. The girl was 15, her husband 20.

Since then the husband, charged with the same count, and his parents have pleaded guilty and received deferred sentences of one year. The girl's parents are scheduled to appear in court next month.

The couple's parents often arrange the marriage, usually setting up a girl of 15 or 16 years with a boy a few years older, Hinkel said. Part of the deal is a dowry from the boy's family to the girls' parents.

In one case Cass County Social Services discovered, the price was $20,000, said Rick VanCamp, a supervisor in child protection services.

Courtney LaLonde, a West Fargo High School teacher, said two of her female Romani students quit school over Christmas break, now that they're married and 16. LaLonde suspected both were 14 when they married boys around the age of 18.

One of the girls even showed LaLonde photos of her lavish wedding last year.

"We had two really bright girls," LaLonde said. "It's really sad."

Now the girls are working entry-level jobs, one with a motel, the other with a fast-food restaurant, LaLonde said.

"When you come here and you have a world of opportunity, it just seems you would want to take that," she said.