The Ripple Effect Of Child Marriage

In Australian society, childhood is a time of innocence and learning, when we prepare those little people for the big journeys they will make during their adulthood. It’s a time to spend learning about the world, and enjoying the freedoms that only children can have.

Sadly, this isn’t true in the rest of the world.

We have long been aware of the cultural trend of child marriages overseas. Australia has even seen some of its own citizens shipped off as young people and forced into uneven power relationships with individuals much older than themselves. It is a challenging situation, especially because of the effects that child marriage can cause far beyond the individual involved. There is a ripple effect, and we’re going to trace it.

Child Brides

When people think about child marriage, child brides are usually at the forefront of their minds. There are two types of child brides, those who marry older men, and those who marry boys of a similar age. In both cases, the girls are at risk for a  number of reasons, but we tend to think of older grooms as being worse.

The reason for this is that older grooms will tend to pressure younger brides into a sexual relationship at a much earlier age, which in turn leads to earlier pregnancy for which the girls are mentally and physically unprepared. Child brides, especially those who live in areas of poverty, are at a much higher risk of having complicated pregnancies and childbirths. Indeed, the rate of death in childbirth among child brides is very high.

In child marriages of any sort, child brides are almost always deprived the chance to get a full education. In many cases, due to the age where brides are considered to be most desirable, girls will not get a chance to finish (or even start) higher education. This means that if anything should happen to their husband, they will be without education and work skills. Additionally, child brides are usually taken into the home of their new grooms, and can be worked like slaves by their in-laws, with nobody to protect them. It is a hard life, and one that shouldn’t be suffered by any girl, no matter her background.

Child Grooms

Many outsiders mistakenly assume that young girls are the only ones at risk of being forced into marriage at a young age. But in reality, it is very common for boys as young as seven to be marriage off in countries like Nepal. In countries like this one, parents consider it both normal and necessary to marry off their sons early into child relationships. However, the effects of this on the boys involved are traumatic and life-long.

As with girls, many young boys who are forced into marriages as child grooms do not get the chance to finish their education. Instead, before they’re even teenagers they are expected to be providing for their wife, and by the time they’re 13 both families expect that a child should be on the way. This is a lot of stress for one boy to take on, especially as in these cultures men are considered the heads of the household. Being the head of your family when you’re just entering your teenage years is a very stressful experience. For most child grooms, widespread poverty means they have no choice but to enter the workforce, and maintain long working hours to support their wife and children. This isn’t the childhood that boys should have, regardless of where they come from.

Second-Generation

The sad part of this entire situation is that many parents do not really want to marry off their sons and daughters at young ages, but they feel as though they have no choice. In poor areas like Nepal, parents feel as though their neighbours and their village expects them to marry off their sons and daughters. They worry about how their reputation and social standing may be affected if they do not. In poor families where parents marry off their daughters, it is often because they do not have the money to support them, and they need the bride price she will bring.

However, as these child marriages have continued, even the adult victims feel the same pressure to marry of their own children, knowing full well that they’re condemning them to the same life. Now in some areas of Nepal and India, grown-up child brides and grooms are making a stand against this cultural pattern by vowing they will not marry off their children. In doing so, they will be able to stop the vicious cycle of child marriage that sees so many children suffer unnecessarily.