Anyone Else See NYT article on Child Brides in Afghanistan?

[leftyladyfrommo]

Heart rending. Pictures of these little girls (11 and up) with their years and years older husbands. Some of these children are second wives.

But it is not just the girls I guess the young boys are sold off, too. Families are just too poor to sustain very many family members.

There are a lot of cultural and economic reasons for this - but it is mostly due to poverty and no education. Young girls can work in the fields and around the house. But, unlike young boys, they are also good for sex and child bearing.

There is a high premium on virgin brides in Afghanistan so families want to get their girls married off young before they get interested in sex.

Lordy, Lordy.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Another reason might be

so that these girls have protection. I could see a poor, aged farmer with no sons making sure his young daughter is married off to a powerful neighbor. That way he would know she had protection from wandering warlords , who would not attempt to rape a girl if they knew she had a powerful husband, etc. etc.

[napi21]

2. Most of that is cultural, and it's not only in Afghanistan.

I suspect it's also a result of avg. life expectancy.

Many, many years ago, it was perfectly acceptable for very young girls to marry here in the US too!

My grandmother got married when sh was 14, but the avg. life expectancy was 38 in many areas of the Country.

[Warpy]

3. Yes, and it's not unique to Afghanistan

and was a practice here until the last 100 years or so, although child brides here usually hit menarche before they were married off.

The practice is alive and well in some polygamous families here in the southwest. It's also alive and well among some Gypsy clans in the east.

In patriarchal societies where virginity is prized and male ownership of women and offspring is complete and unquestioned, keeping a daughter around much past puberty is risky. It's much better to hand her off to the first marital prospect that appears. If it's a rich old man, so much the better, an advantageous match that will keep her fed and maybe she'll throw you a few coins in your old age.

Yes, it's deplorable. But in cultures where males are overvalued and females are unvalued, you've got to expect it.

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. I hate it that our money is paying to sustain this.

But who am I?

[Warpy]

7. Our money has also opened schools for girls in the capital

and possibly in other big cities. That's where the hope is, getting some girls there educated.

They've been sunk into patriarchy for a very long time. Change is not going to happen overnight and it's not going to happen at the point of a gun.

Change happens one woman at a time, and we're supporting that, too.

[helderheid]

5. It's happening here too - front page of my newspaper today:

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_4029966

1st FLDS case may pave way for rest
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
More than three years ago, Arizona authorities had a pile of birth certificates that showed underage girls from a polygamous sect were giving birth to children fathered by older men - but nothing else that might help them prosecute the cases.
And then, Warren S. Jeffs inadvertently helped them out.
Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, began a massive purging of men he considered unworthy of belonging to the polygamous sect that straddles the Utah/Arizona state line.
Some say more than 200 men have been exiled. Of those, only a handful have spoken out about the restrictive authority Jeffs wields over his followers.
Among them: Richard Holm and Isaac Wyler, whose testimony proved key last week in winning a conviction against Kelly Fischer on two sex-crimes charges related to his "spiritual" polygamous marriage to a 16-year-old girl.

<snip>

[leftyladyfrommo]

9. That guy and his group are really bad.

I live in SLC for years and saw a whole lot of very young girls getting married. And then having a lot of children. It was just the Mormon way.

I hope it is better now that people in the valley have a lot more access to the outside.

[INdemo]

6. With this mid-evil style culture it just shows

the Taliban is still in control.And to think American tax dollars are supporting this............

[msongs]

8. tribal culture goes back thousands of years nt

[leftyladyfrommo]

10. That doesn't mean we should support it.

It is still really hard for Afghan women to go to school - there have been cases there where the teachers were shot in front of the classroom.

The women there have so much courage to just try and break out of the history of that region.