Child Brides Quotes
Thiese were children under 18, the minimum legal age to marry. See the Related Quotes for more insight into the American Child Marriage Problem.
Later in the same document, he calculates the age by which a girl should be married as nine (9) years old. However, many Islamic countries have been under pressure from their educated populations and women’s groups to set a higher age as a minimum. Sharia scholars in the latter part of the 20th century tend to have moved the age up to 12, but many countries will not even make that a minimum. Yemen for example ‘recommended’ 15 but leaves it up to the girl’s parent to pick the exact age which very often is under 15 and in some cases as low as the 9 that Khomeini recommended.
Physiologically a very young girl is often capable of getting pregnant, but physiologically is not able to bear children without high risk to both children. A similar risk pattern exists with women over the age of 40. While there are a number of Islamic countries that do sanction pedophilia within marriage, there is nothing inherent in Islamic theology that justifies this. Modern Islamic nations like Turkey and other Muslim majority nations do not allow marriage at such a young age. Also, it was not to long ago, in historical time, that Christian nations also sanctioned marriage to very young girls.
