Is Child Marriage a Muslim Problem?

Categorized | Feature

Tags | Akshaya Tritiya, Child Marriages, Ilisha, India, Laxmi Sargara, MSNBC, What if they were Muslim

Is Child Marriage a Muslim Problem?

Posted on 06 May 2012 by Ilisha

Laxmi Sargara, 18, holds her certificate of the annullment of her marriage outside the court Tuesday in Jodhpur, India.

Loons often attribute child marriages exclusively to Muslims, but a Unicef report says 47 percent of married women in India wed before age 18. Unicef also says 40 percent of the world’s child marriages take place in secular, Hindu-majority India.

As this map clearly shows, the practice is widespread in many parts of the world, most notably in parts of Africa:

Child Marriage Map

Disregarding anthropology (the comparative study of human societies) and eager to pin every social ill on Islam, anti-Muslim activists portray child marriage as unique to Muslim communities, and cite Islamic Law as a major obstacle to ending the practice. In fact, most Muslim-majority countries have legal age limits for marriage comparable to Western countries. According to the United Nations, in Algeria, Bangladesh, Iraq, Jordan, Malaysia, and Morocco, the legal age a female can marry is 18, and in Tunisia, it’s 20. Most of the remaining Muslim-majority countries have ages set for females ranging from 15-17, and in all of these countries, the age for boys is either the same or slightly higher. India has also set the legal limit to age 18, but as is the case in many countries, the law is difficult to enforce, especially in rural areas, where historical, cultural, and economic factors often outweigh legal restrictions.

Akha Teej is considered an auspicious day, when one does not have to consult any astrologer. This is the best time for marriages … Even our epics mention about child marriages. There is no harm in performing it, as the children do not live together and stay together only after attaining adulthood. ~ Priest in Rajasthan, Al Jazeera

Recently police and administration officials were injured when they were attacked by a group of villagers conducting child marriages in Rajasthan on the holy day of Akshaya Tritiya. Now a young Indian woman has won a landmark case that challenges the culture of child weddings. (h/t: Zangia)

Indian baby bride Laxmi Sargara wins annulment in landmark case

By msnbc.com staff

An Indian woman who was a baby bride has had her 17-year marriage legally annulled in a ground-breaking case challenging the culture of child weddings, Agence France Presse reported Wednesday.

Laxmi Sargara was 1 year old when she was married to a 3-year-old boy named Rakesh in the desert state of Rajasthan in northwestern India, the French news agency said. Their families decided that when they grew up they would live together and have children.

Child marriages, outlawed in India in 1929, are still common in many parts of the country, especially in rural and poorer communities, AFP said. A Unicef report says 47 percent of married women in India wed before age 18. Unicef also says 40 percent of the world’s child marriages take place in India.

“I was unhappy about the marriage,” Sargara, now 18, told AFP. “I told my parents who did not agree with me, then I sought help. Now I am mentally relaxed and my family members are also with me.”

Girls married off in infancy often remain in their parents’ homes until they reach puberty and then are taken amid great celebrations to their husbands’ families, AFP said. When Sargara just days ago discovered that she was married and would be sent to her husband’s home this week, she sought advice from social worker Kriti Bharti, who runs the children’s rights group Sarathi Trust, AFP said.

Bharti negotiated with Rakesh, the groom, who only uses one name, and both families to persuade them that the marriage was unfair, AFP reported. “It is the first example we know of a couple wed in childhood wanting the marriage to be annulled, and we hope that others take inspiration from it,” Bharti told AFP.

Rakesh, an earth-mover driver, at first wanted to press ahead with the relationship but was convinced by Sargara’s fierce opposition that the marriage should be revoked, Bharti said. The marriage was annulled through a joint legal document signed by the bride and groom and validated by a public official in Jodhpur, AFP said.

“To ensure that the girl does not face any problem in future, we decided to go for a legal agreement,” said Indu Chaupra, local director of the ministry of women and child development, told AFP.

The annulment coincided with the Akshaya Tritiya festival, a traditional date for mass child weddings. On Sunday, villagers in Rajasthan attacked and injured at least 12 government officials who tried to stop a wedding of about 40 child couples, AFP said. A recent survey found that 10 percent of girls in Rajasthan are married off before the age of 18, the BBC reported.

zangi

corrections:

“are you saying children can only give CONSENT to children? but not to adults?”
zangi

@Anticipated Serendipity
you wrote “Are you incapable of distinguishing between consensual sex – immoral or not – and state-sanctioned paedophilia masquerading as marriage (which is more immoral than some non-Muslim teens in America having sex)?

and
“CHOICE and RIGHTS make all the difference. An estimated eight girls die every day in Yemen due to child marriage; I don’t think that many teen girls are “married” against their will, then raped by their much older “husbands”, leading to death, in the U.S. ”

Are you incapable of understanding that in Islam any marriage done without consent is illegal”. so even though one can argue that a child can marry in islam, but even there it has to be with his or her permission. any coercion makes the marriage invalid (batil). so what a specific community does can’t be used as evidence of islam sanctioning it. although i am sure if yemen actually doesn’t sanctions marriage without consent.

and also are you incapable to understand that consensual sex between underage teens (or between children) is legal in most western countries. so what the western countries actually make illegal are two things

*consensual sex between an adult and a child within or outside marriage
*marriage between children is illegal. however the consensual sex (between children) itself is legal in most cases.

And if you are arguing children can’t give consent then how is it that sex between children becomes consensual and thus legal? are you saying children can only give to children? but not to adults?
zangi

islamophobes think this is a killer argument against Muslims. How is that pedophile is a such an evil and religious text of Muslims provide support for this practice, so they argue. I am not an Islamic scholar, so i am not going to comment on age of marriage of Aisha. however my question to islamophobes is this. on what basis do you consider a marriage on a young girl ( or boy) evil? if you want to make an statement and specially if you want to argue against a centuries old event, you better need to have a very solid evidence.

*when did the “child” marriage become evil in human history? the answer: in USA in 1920. other nations have similar history! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent

*do you have any scientific evidence to prove that a child can’t marry? answer: there is no scientific evidence

*why is child marriage considered bad in modern times? answer: various reasons. most likely “consideration” of child welfare. this is very subjective though.

*which is worse? a child sleeps with boy friend/girl friend? or marries them? please note that in most western countries (christian country?) sex between children is legal. marriage is not.

*is there any scientific evidence that makes it illegal for a grown up person to marry a child? answer: none. there are social and anthropological reasons, but no scientific reasons.

*does Islam prohibit setting a minimum legal age of marriage? answer: nope. even according to most conservative interpretations.

*what was the common practice in human history regarding age of marriage?

answer: in most civilizations (roman, indian, persian, chinese, arabic, african, native indian, where does that leave you and i am sure you didn’t descend from mars), children were often married at onset of puberty or sometimes even before that. so if you are going to condemn these centuries old practices as “pedophilia” based on your current standards, then most of us will be considered descendant of pedophiles!

so think before you condemn your own ancestors!

Bye Bye
Anticipated Serendipity

I understand the point the article is trying to make and I completely agree that child marriages are not unique to Muslim countries, however Islamists, who are good at manipulating the poor and ignorant (a large proportion of the population in some Muslim countries) have succeeded in rallying populations against bans and pose a huge problem for reform in this area.

@Fantom
Child marriage may theoretically be legal in the U.S., but if you looked at the map in this article it’s clear that child marriages are not common in the U.S., which is why it’s disingenuous to compare the U.S. to countries where the practice is customary, common and not only societally acceptable but encouraged as the norm. I hear the comparison between child brides and sexually active Western teens made all the time and it doesn’t hold up. Are you incapable of distinguishing between consensual sex – immoral or not – and state-sanctioned paedophilia masquerading as marriage (which is more immoral than some non-Muslim teens in America having sex)? Western teenage girls may engage in casual sex (I am opposed to all and any pre-marital sexual activity btw), usually with boys around their age and if they are forced they can expect the law and their families to be on their side, something child brides in Yemen don’t have. CHOICE and RIGHTS make all the difference. An estimated eight girls die every day in Yemen due to child marriage; I don’t think that many teen girls are “married” against their will, then raped by their much older “husbands”, leading to death, in the U.S. The Eastern child bride/slutty Western teen comparison falls apart very easily. Islamists are indeed a huge obstacle to banning paedophilia in some Muslim countries. There were demonstrations against setting a minimum age for marriage in Yemen, despite the number of deaths the practice causes there. I fully agree with Nur Alia that this issue needs to be addressed, obviously not by anti-Muslim/Islam polemicists, but it really seriously needs to be addressed.
highlander

@Halal Pork

well about Muhammad mariage, there were many versions, some of them reported not like bukhari versions,
like Ibn Khateer, Ibnu Hajar Al Asqalani or Abdal-Rahman ibn abi zannad record on Aisha’s sister Asma who were 10 years older than Aisha and died at 100 years old in 692/693 C.E.
also same record from Asad Al-Ghaba, who stated aisha was 5 years younger than Fatimah, Ali’s Wife
thus if we used non bukhari version, then Aisha’s age was around 13-19 years old

and it doesn’t makes sense, if she was so young, how come she did political campaign, town to town, made speech in-front of Public expressing her political view and gain many followers including some top arab’s leaders then lead civil war against ali and even after defeated, she still gain political role in the society. she was a genius politician.

and so if we put Aisha as same Generations as Ali ibn abi thalib, Fatimah etc, then it’s all fit,she was her equal political rival….
Sir David : Man on a phone with a french spell check

Roméo was 14 , juillet 12 nothing changes really .
The idea of a legal âge for either sex , relationship or mariage is a legal And social construct.
In some of the countries listed poor folks have nô register of births so dont know accurately how old they or others are. They have enough problems finding food never mind éducation.
Éducation is the answer hère
It lèads to choice . For instance educating young muslim women that the Quran gives them the right to say no.
tarig

Venezuela
Mali
Mexico
Mozambique
Equatorial Guinea
Bolivia
certain states in USA

according to the UN data, these are the countries in which, by law, it is legal to marry at 14 years or under in some cases. Now as this is an endemic problem, and occurs on every continent of the planet, I think the law is a good reference to use when highlighting its acceptance world wide, (culturally, there are very few people who promote child marriage religiously, and most that do only do so to provide a veneer of authenticity to their cultural practices).

Halal pork said earlier what are Muslim countries doing to stop child marriages, well using the UAE, Oman and Qatar as an example, over the last 40 years the entire culture has been changed, and this is something that is now considered taboo. In fact, looking at all the Muslim countries where child marriage is practiced against the law, (yellow and up), every single one of them is war torn. For those of you who are fortunate enough never to have been in a situation of war let me tell you this, if you ever want to smoke some weed without fearing harassment, that’s the time to do it, authorities have too much on their hands to worry about enforcing laws.

Now this isn’t to diminish its occurrence, or our need to eradicate the practice completely, but I think the data, when taken in context, not only disproves this Islamophobic myth, but also proves that it occurs contrary to the law in countries that are poorer, have lower standards of living and education, and are ravaged by war, particularly those in Africa. If you want to end the practice then give people hope and prosperity, stop stealing their resources and fomenting war and strife, simple really!
PerpetuallyConfused

My wife told me that in Indonesia 36% of marriages involve girls 16 years or younger.
While on the subject of marriage, I do not support the idea of a man having more than one spouse. The last thing I need is another wife…
Fantom

I have some bad news for VRM and other loons out there:
from the UN report referenced above (http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=GenderStat&f=inID:19)if you scroll down to the USA and read the footnote 13. it says:
“The legal minimum age for marriage varies by State. Women aged 13-18 and men 14-18 may marry only with parental consent.”

In other words, child marriage with parental consent is NOT illegal in the USA. In other words, in some states a girl age 13 can legally marry provided that her parents consent to her marriage.
This exactly the law in most Muslim countries. I said most because according to the same UN report the USA is more lenient regarding the minimum legal age of a girl with parental consent.

Now, mind you VRM, that there is a difference, actually some differences
1- Girls in Muslim countries don’t engage in causal sex before marriage.
2- Schools don’t distribute free condoms.
3- Children Hospitals don’t perform abortion procedures on pregnant school girls.
4- 99.99% of men who are seeking marriage -in my country at least- are looking for working spouses because, like in the USA, one income is no longer enough to sustain a family or a household.
Ilisha

@Halal Pork

I suggest you visit the link provided by Haddock. Also, here’s an excellent comment written on a previous thread by Stephen G. Parker:

As regards the ‘child rape’ accusation, Nadir was not allowed to give a response; they just basically assumed the correctness of the young age of Aisha (peace be with her) at the time of the consummation of her marriage and were demanding that Nazir ‘acknowledge’ that Muhammad (peace be with him and his family) was therefore immoral and a pedophile. Nadir of course would not for a minute accuse the Prophet of immorality; and if he’d had the opportunity I’m sure he would have given a reasonable explanation of the ‘Aisha affair’ – perhaps even showing that there is very strong evidence that Aisha was around 18 when she was married (not 9). {See Dr. David Liepert’s article for example – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-liepert/islamic-pedophelia_b_814332.html ). But the chief thing is, one can’t give a simple ‘yes or no’ answer to the accusation about the Prophet marrying a 9 year old. It requires a much more lengthy response, which they would not allow Nazir to do.

The main point to understand is that Muhammad (peace be with him and his family) did NOT marry a 9 year old girl. Muslims in the past have not bothered to question the weak evidence in support of that supposed early marriage simply because until relatively recently such early marriages have not been considered immoral. It was not considered immoral in the culture of the Prophet’s time; nor was it considered immoral in later cultures – until recently. But the fact that previous generations did not consider it strange or immoral for the Prophet to marry Aisha at such an early age, and therefore did not question the hadith that claim he did, does not mean that we today can’t reevaluate the evidence and come to the correct conclusion that despite the fact that such marriages were accepted at his time he himself did NOT do so.

Since Aisha was considerably older than 9 when she was married, Muhammad was not a pedophile. The fact that Muslims in the past have not bothered to question the matter because child marriages were not considered strange to them does not change the fact. Case closed.

http://www.loonwatch.com/2012/03/jihadwatch-zombie-eric-allen-bell-and-glazov-gang-lose-debate-with-nadir-ahmed-want-rematch/comment-page-2/#comment-155919
Nur Alia

I think one take away from this article is to realize that some Muslim families also force thier children to marry early, and that we MUSLIMS must address the part of the problem that is under our control.

Saying that ‘someone else does it more’ is not an excuse to justify that it does happen to Muslim girls too.
Haddock

Great article, Ilisha. A lot of the loons say that Muslims are inherent “pedophiles” because it is widely believed that the Prophet Muhammad married Aisha when she was six years old, and since Muhammad is the “perfect example” of how Muslims should live, that means Islam promotes child marriage; which they call “pedophilia”, which is unrelated to the historic concept of child marriages.

If you’re interested, there is (I believe) a great article by a Muslim lay-scholar which suggests that Aisha was no younger than 17 when she married the Prophet Muhammad.

http://www.ilaam.net/Articles/Ayesha.html
Halal Pork

Child marriage is a world problem.It has been quite common in India but it is fast disappearing among Hindus with better education and prosperity.The Muslims can not get out this problem because Mohammad set a very bad personal example by marrying Ayesha when she was a minor aged 6 and Mohqammad was 50.Even Abu Bakr was not happy but Mohammad persuaded him and was given the title{ABU BAKR}as reward and later became the first Khalifa.There is nothing for nothing in Islam.
http://thepenofawanderingstranger.com/personal/ Jack Cope

VRM, I suggest a tactical withdrawal here, perhaps change your name and then come back pretending nothing happened like most of your fellows do. Or not, you can keep on digging that hole, again it seems a rather popular pastime amongst your maties.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GargamelGold?feature=mhee CriticalDragon1177

@VRM

If you had read the article you would see what Ilisha was getting at. You really need to read the thing you’re commenting on, before you say anything about it or ask a question relating to it. It doesn’t make you look good when you assume things, or ask question that the very thing you’re commenting on already answered.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GargamelGold?feature=mhee CriticalDragon1177

@Believing Atheist

You Wrote,
————————————————————————
Unfortunately one of the reasons child marriage is common in India is so that girls can avoid becoming prostitutes
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/04/indian_girls_become_child_brides_instead_of_prostitutes_.html
————————————————————————

That’s really upsetting. I would hate to be a poor little girl living in an Indian village.
mindy1

How sad to marry off girls before they can enjoy life
Ilisha

@VRM

Did you read the article before commenting?

…In fact, most Muslim-majority countries have legal age limits for marriage comparable to Western countries. According to the United Nations, in Algeria, Bangladesh, Iraq, Jordan, Malaysia, and Morocco, the legal age a female can marry is 18, and in Tunisia, it’s 20. Most of the remaining Muslim-majority countries have ages set for females ranging from 15-17, and in all of these countries, the age for boys is either the same or slightly higher. India has also set the legal limit to age 18…

There is also a link to UNdata, which has a full database you can search and filter.

Minimum legal age for marriage without consent
http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=GenderStat&f=inID:19
JT

“Now can you show in which muslim majority country , child marriage is illegal?”

How about looking across the border, in Pakistan.
Believing Atheist

@VRM,

That’s ridiculous. Child marriage is illegal in several Muslim-majority countries. Here is a list of marriageable age in many of these countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age
VRM

There is a difference.
There is a law in India which says that marrying a girl below 18 or boy below 21 is illegal and people taking part can be prosecuted and punished.
Authorities in India are serious about this problem and they try to stop the practice, as you have mentioned in your article that some officials who went to stop a child marriage were attacked by villagers.
Child marriages are taking place in India, that is fact and they are illegal, that is also a fact and efforts are going on to stop them is as well a fact.
Now can you show in which muslim majority country , child marriage is illegal? and what efforts are going on to curb the menace?
truth

I don’t believe there is anything called child marriage in as much as the girl in question is not force into the marriage.
For a 10yrs old girl to be having boyfriends and having pre-marital sex then I see no big deal about a 15years old girl getting married provided she is not force or cajole in to it.
Believing Atheist

Unfortunately one of the reasons child marriage is common in India is so that girls can avoid becoming prostitutes
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/04/indian_girls_become_child_brides_instead_of_prostitutes_.html

Sadly, it is a necessary evil.
Sam Seed

Great article Ilisha, but watch out the loons will still go after Islam and blame it on the Muslims, there is no pleasing some people. Ah well…
http://thepenofawanderingstranger.com/personal/ Jack Cope

Ahhh… you didn’t per chance read my article on this topic last year (I think)?

It is interesting to note how many famous people married as children, Gandhi for one married at 13 and fathered at least one child before he left school. Going back through history we of course find thousands of examples, royal families in particular would wed their daughters when they came of age. Then in the ‘developed’ world of course we get the huge numbers of teens who lose their virginity at a very young age, even having children in their teens which isn’t really much difference… one could argue it was worse with the huge numbers of single teen mothers out there.