The post about (very) young Afghan brides reminds me of the fact that underage marriage happens here in Canada too. Like polygamy, it's illegal, and like polygamy, it nonetheless happens because certain conservative interpretations of Islam create an environment where doing it seems not only reasonable and logical, but even virtuous.
Fifteen years ago, I encountered a girl who was to be married---in Canada---to a man in his early thirties. The match was arranged by her father and an influential man in their immigrant community. The girl's father subsequently married off two additional daughters---again, in Canada---at thirteen. The second married a man of 28. I don't recall the age of the third girl's husband.
My husband assured me that there was nothing we could do. The girls' father was determined to marry off his daughters before they had the opportunity to end up having boyfriends and committing the (allegedly) unforgiveable sin of zina (fornication). If he was somehow prevented from marrying his daughters off to these men, he would end up finding some other husbands for them, who might not be such good brothers (as these men supposedly were).
I expressed my opposition to a number of women who also knew what was going on, including the wife of Brother Influential. The only result was that I was labelled a trouble-maker, and the girls themselves resented my involvement in their personal business.
After all, they were dying to leave home, by any means possible. Their father had kept a very tight rein on them---they had few if any friends, and had to stay indoors except when they were at school. I ended up having to apologize to them for what they saw as unwarranted meddling. They accepted the apology, but were carefully distant in their dealings with me forever after.ÂÂ
The second daughter gave birth to a baby, at fourteen. I went to see her in the hospital along with a friend of mine, wondering how the hospital staff didn't realise what was going on---or maybe they didn't care? What about their high-school teachers---hadn't they wondered why a fourteen-year-old girl in full hijab was pregnant? What about her doctor?
I knew that the local child welfare authorities had been watching the family. Why hadn't they stepped in?
Why wasn't I more proactive? For several reasons: My in-community attempts came to nothing, and even the girls themselves hadn't wanted me to speak out. Also, I felt pretty sure that others (teachers, medical professionals, social workers) also knew more or less what was going on. Presumably, they hadn't acted because they, like my husband, had concluded that there was no point. But also (let me be honest here), I was afraid to call the police, or the child welfare services. I was afraid to turn in a Muslim to the kuffar. Not only had I been taught that such an act was sinful in the extreme, but I felt that I would be betraying the trust of everyone around me if I did it.
The three girls tried to finish high school, although the older two had gotten pregnant almost immediately after they got married. The second had dreams of becoming a psychologist. Last I heard, she was still trying to complete a few outstanding high school credits.ÂÂ
Brother Influential married off his daughters---in Canada---at the ripe old age of 15, to grown men. I wasn't told about it until much later, for obvious reasons. That was five years ago. Now, one of the girls in divorced; the other is still married, and has a child. While both Br. Influential and his wife are very highly educated people, neither of their daughters has so far managed to go beyond high school.
And it's not only (a minority of) conservative immigrants who do this sort of thing. There are some converts who also believe in underage marriage, especially for girls. The idea is that teenagers need an outlet for sexual desires, and so they need to get married as soon as possible. Some people see early marriage as some sort of panacea.
But such marriages are often not stable, so we have single mothers with toddlers who are still in their teens, and haven't yet finished high school. What sort of job prospects do they have? What parenting skills have they developed? And what sorts of resentment do they bear Islam and the Muslim community?
A common rationalization for early marriage is that is supposedly protects young people from pre-marital sex. But, given the common reluctance of men to marry divorcees, such women may have a great deal of difficulty marrying again, even though they are still quite young. And the result is... ???
The result is young women, in their late teens or twenties, that have limited prospects for the life they were groomed for, and little preparation for any other kind of life. I would sometimes answer the "Why aren't you married yet?" question with, "Because I don't want to be a 21 year old divorcee." Preparing young women to pursue higher education and career goals wouldn't harm their chances of finding a suitable husband- but it would help them when they realize that "happily ever after" only happens in Disney movies. I know and know of girls who were married off at shockingly young ages. Most were divorced after a year or two, and the remainder are on public assistance. Not what a parent dreams of for their children.
I have a very close internet friend, a young woman medical student in Tehran, who speaks with me at length, at times on a daily basis, at other times on a weekly basis, for several years now. She and I have spoken at some length about child marriage. She often encounters women who are married by the age of 13 or 14.
It was some years ago that I first read, in a New Yorker Magazine article, that the age for marriage under the Shah in Iran had been fifteen, but after the Revolution, under Khomeini, the marriage age had been lowered to age nine. Upon reading that, I went into a state of shock and disbelief. I began taking notice of those girls around me, age nine, and trying to imagine the practicality of one of them, physiologically, assuming a conjugal role.
I asked my medical student friend, as well as an engineer in Tehran, if they were ever aware of a nine year old bride. I was informed that one might find such a young bride only among nomadic tribes who are remote from large cities, but that yes, such child marriages take place.
I am aware of the reasoning behind the setting of the marriage age to nine. It is my understanding that the Prophet contracted a marriage with his youngest wife when she was age six, and consummated the marriage at age nine. There is supposedly some mention in Hadith about his wife still playing with dolls at that time.
Some of you might enjoy reading Gandhi's autobiography, in which he describes his own marriage to Kasturbai when they were both age six, and the consummation of his marriage when the were age twelve. It should be noted that towards the end of the 19th century, child marriages were outlawed in India. In one passage, Gandhi mentions that child marriage is a monstrous practice, and in another passage he relates how, at age twelve when his family instructed them to cohabit, he felt suddenly cast upon an ocean of bliss.
When I watched the very long DVD movie of Gandhi's life, I noticed that the above mentioned facts had been altered so as not to scandalize or confuse the viewing audience. In the movie, Gandhi mentions that he was married to his wife at age twelve. The actuall wedding ceremony was at age six. Kasturbai was the third wife that his parents had engaged for him. Two other other marriage contracts had been arranged, but those two betrothed girls died before a wedding could take place. In the 19th century, child mortality in India was very high.
You might also enjoy reading a short story by Rabindranath Tagore entitled "The Girl Between", which is about a child marriage, and also a polygynous plural marriage.
Time permitting, I will post in my blog in greater detail on these topics, rather than make this comment overly lengthy.
I will close by mentioning an old Greek saying that "a marriage is the beginning of either heaven or hell." There are no easy formulas for either a happy marriage or a happy life. There have been child marriages which have happy endings, and there have been plural marriages which have happy endings. And of course, there have been such marriages which are unhappy.
The personal happiness or misery of one individual's life is not a good measuring stick of ethics, obviously.
I shall perhaps continue these thoughts in my blog later, when time permits.
If the reasoning is to provide the girls with a sexual outlet, I want to ask this: how much do they enjoy the sex after these early marriages? Why is it that we so often hear that a group of women had to explain to the girls what they had to do on thier wedding night, with some girls breaking down into tears out of disgust? Or, worse yet, traumatized, out of ignorance, when the new husband starts taking off clothes and touches her? I think answering these questions would give lie to the parents' excuses.
Don't get me started on the weakness of contemporary ideologies that guide government workers with regards to prioritizing respect for cultural practices over people's welfare. Seems fairly irrational to me.
- A Salafi in worship, a Sufi in society, a Secularist in government.
Ginan Rauf
What about the fundamental right of girls to just exist?
One notes a notable lack of interest in embodied matters
such as the economic forces that drive families to push girls
into early marriages as they interact tragically with long standing
cultural prejudices. I have seen many poor women- domestic
workers who after years of struggling to educate daughters, with
haggard bodies literally break down- finally give up because they
know that the education system pretty much leads nowhere
lucrative i,e - there are no jobs. Finally, they marry them off,
considering them lucky that they might get by in a world where
survival is an all-consuming concern and people are not always
superheros but imperfect human beings who break down. What
needs to also be considered is how material conditions also
reinforce inhumane practices.
Ginan, I think that's how it goes in many countries where such economic factors play a big role. But, in the West? In Canada? Among educated and middle class immigrants? I think this may be more a case of how enviromental conditions become so embedded in culture, that when individuals depart that environment, they nevertheless still practice things for which the original reason no longer exists for them.
- A Salafi in worship, a Sufi in society, a Secularist in government.
"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people"
Ginan, many Muslims aren't ready to consider their children individuals yet, and until then, appeals to edification of the individual will fall on deaf ears. If young women are well-educated, they may be able to find their way to self-determination. It's better than nothing, and the best chance that many girls have.
Omar, I was clearly speaking about women in poor Muslim
majority countries. I never disregarded the obvious ancient
prejudices at work. I merely tried to draw attention to how
they may interact.
Nakia some strands of feminism have also been radically
attentive to how material conditions empower women to
be autonomous independent subjects not behold to the
monied masters in terms of intellectual autonomy.
It is a lesson that could be applied in many different realms.
I refer you to Virginia Woolf's 500 a year and a room of one's own.
The visionary Virginia Woolf warned women about the lure
of careerism and the loss of autonomy that seems to draw
less attention. Point being; there are myriad ways of
suppressing autonomy, some not as flagrantly obvious as
others. As Helene Cixious notes, We who are freee are we
really free? people don't just sell their daughters you know.
people sell their souls and minds, a fact of which Woolf took
note. I follow the feminism of Woolf, a woman who was horrified
by war.
Ginan, I'm not entirely sure that those who see their daughters as goods to be marketed are going to go for that. I suggested education because it's a form of making daughters "marketable" that can lead to daughters seeking greater freedom for themselves. A girl who is not allowed an education won't be able to read Woolf, let alone use Woolf's ideas to improve her life. A girl who is sent to university at least has a fighting chance.
Ginan Rauf
Let me disentangle the issues here. I am clarifying the kind
of Feminism that makes sense to me, not suggesting that
uneducated girls can read Woolf.
Having said that, I have talked to enough poor Muslim women
in Cairo to recognize that they didn't need to read Woolf to
have similar thoughts. For many the dream is to perhaps have
a small vegetable stand, or kiosk that frees them from the back
breaking drudgery of physical work as domestic servants and so
forth. these same women who suffer endlessly, sometimes at
the hands of their university educated sisters and the world of petty
tyranny, don't need to be told that holding a university degree enables their daughters to achieve a modicum of social respect.
The larger social question becomes what happens, as is happening
in various Muslim majority countries, when there are no jobs even
for the educated?
My sense here is that there is no monolithic Muslim about which we
can speak. Many of the cases cited are anecdotal. I would like for
instance to see statistics to see how many Muslim girls in the U.S
or Canada, for instance, actually go to college, to graduate schools
as compared to other groups in these countries. It would also be
highly instructive to see average marriage age as compared to the
rest of the population, something that I would suspect can be correlated with income and so forth. These are complext matters.
Incidentally, what do you make of women in the West who are marketing themselves a la Paris Hilton, you know selling videos and
1-8000 numbers while having sex- to gain celeberity and earn even more money. They are, of course, being mimicked by women in
the Arab world who are getting all kinds of plastic surgery in order
to compete. While I understand that there is an element of agency
here, it makes me wonder how many heavy, unattractive women a la
umm kalthum, Egypt's legendary singer- with real talent would have
a chance in such a cultural climate. The net result is that so much
individuality is being destroyed, there is a hum drum conformity with
all the singers sounding the same. Again, for me the question becomes what are the conditions that promote bland conformity.
Naturally, one can't speak of experiences of Muslim women in too general terms, which is why my thoughts have gone along the lines of focusing on women residing in North America.
Society tends to foster conformity, and I'm not sure what could be done to encourage greater diversity of thought and expression. Even in these United States, most folk are like sheep, listening to the top 40, and doing what's expected. Introducing people to ideas outside their cultural mold can induce greater freedom of expression and demand tolerance of difference, but it can be a lot harder to get to that stage if one shies away from edifying experiences due to their provenance.
Once upon a time, I refused to listen to certain types of music, because of the rather unfortunate characters of the composers. Until I did, I was locked in a certain level of musical development. Only when I decided to take the risk, and learn from those composers, could I become a better, wiser musician, better able to express who I was. Did I become like those detested musicians? No, not even close, in technique or character. Do I despise them as people? A little. Am I grateful for the lessons I learned about music and life from them? Very.
Ginan, I firmly believe that educating girls is far better than not educating them, and will reduce the risk of the dreary lives several of my friends are leading. It is risky, but what in life is not?
Yes, this post is highly anecdotal. Naturally.
I have no way of knowing how many Muslim girls marry in North America under the age of 16. This isn't the sort of thing CAIR does surveys on, after all. Like polygamy, we don't like to speak frankly about underage marriage, especially if we think that non-Muslims might be listening.
Several things we do know for sure, though:
-It is taking place.
-It is being advocated by certain people, ranging from conservative parents petrified by the thought of their daughters having boyfriends, to conservative community leaders.
-When it is advocated, few Muslims speak up.
-When it takes place, few Muslims do anything about it.
It's a complex problem. I have no magic solutions. But I think that a good first step is to start talking critically about the practice.
BTW Nakia, I loved your line: "Because I don't want to be a 21 year old divorcee." (!!!)
Ginan Rauf
Nakia- I hope you don't think that I am not advocating education
for women. I AM %%%% MY MAJOR point is that often, particularly
for the poor majority, when resources are scarce that gets sacrificed
first. So if we care about women's education- then our analysis has
to take things like poverty into account. Big time. Often, for instance,
mothers who lack health insurance or access to safety nuts, will
try to repress their daughter's ambition/education because of the
need for a caretaker in old age. YOu know the whole daughter track
thing. these can be tragic human dilemmas and until we gain a better
understanding of all the factors at work it won't help matters much.
Again, I would love to see comparative work done here. I love reading studs Terkel - and am struck for instance by how conservative families in the south might have reservations about
colleges because of conflict between religious values and what
is taught at universities. I have might protestant women who have
memories of parents tellling them that college is just a finishing
school where you go to find a husband. So really the question becomes what are the conditions that encourage women to pursue
an education. Of course we have to speak about these things. But
we also have to listen.
by the way- come to think of it- the Egyptian cinema which I am
familiar with people are beginning to openly explore sexual problems. The name that comes to mind is of a box office director anais degady who deals very boldly with young girl's sexuality and
there was another film that dealt with how one girl was forcibly circumscised. Then there was another one that
depicted a young couple going to a psychiatrist, the wife goes in order to make her husband more sensitive to things like foreplay and
so forth. there was another one- summer nights- cann't recall exact
name that also dealt with sexual problems between young couples.
So i think people are beginning to be a bit more open, slowly and
belatedly but the question becomes how does one do so in ways
that are constructive. I would love to know more about internal debates within other communities, or artistic expressions. I've seen
a couple of Israeli films about sexual issues in conservative families
and always find the comparative perspective useful.
The issue of how to serve the needs of the elderly is huge, and regardless of who gets married to whom and when, needs better resolution than it gets. Better social services, from cradle to grave, are sorely needed, and in some cases, starting in the early years will help prevent some of the worst cases that crop up in later years.
What encourages people to continue education, I'd suppose, would depend at least partly on society-specific factors. Since I've no family abroad, and I'm pretty deeply entrenched in the US, I can't speak from a worldwide perspective. However, among American Muslims, since some education is compulsory, that's given rise to certain views on education. What is not common, however, is for education to be viewed as a lifelong pursuit, especially among the working class. So: what causes Americans (or Canadians, since there are many parallels) to continue education, and how does being Muslim affect that?
Nakia - it gets very complicated with migration.
Ginan,
Bless you for this statement: I follow the feminism of Woolf, a woman who was horrified
by war.
This is the kind of feminist history and herstory will remember. Anyone listening????
MH:
A common rationalization for early marriage is that is supposedly protects young people from pre-marital sex.
MH: isn't pre-marital sex a form of zina? the conservatives, such as Brother Influencial, put god's requirements before and above possible social dislocations.
Ginan:
Migration prior to or after 1900? About half the Muslims in the US arrived before 1900, and most of the other half after 1960. If we want to examine this as a migration issue, we'll have to compare willing vs. forced migrants, migrants that formed nationality specific enclaves (e.g. Irish, Greek, etc.) vs. those who couldn't/didn't (Africans, some Eastern Mediterraeans), and a host of other factors (endangerment of home languages, etc.). Where to begin?
Ginan Rauf
absolutely, I was just making a general statement and thinking
of my own community. Many of us came here in the 80's. i would
never speak on behalf of anyone. But there is the pain, anguish,
guilt of not being there to care for parents, of burdening siblings.
I would love to hear about other perspectives, the forced and brutual
separation of families during slavery.
Wow so much hypocrisy here!! Some of the comments do not make sense at all. What people do is their culture. It has nothing to do with Islam. You guys are confusing Islam with 'Muslims". Forced marriage is invalid in Islam.
Now regarding the young girls who were married, if it was by force then it is not valid.
And all of you ignored the fact that many 13-16 year old girls get pregnant and have babies here in Canada without knowing who the child's dad is! Atleast these girls officlally got married. You should go to Stat Canada's website and see the number of single teen moms. I live in Canada. So I know what is going on. My point is that instead of pointing fingers at others first look at your own backyard.
And you said that to say what?
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