Early Marriage

Term Paper in Sociology

“Early Marriage”

Submitted to: Mr. Abraham Diopenes
Submitted by: Nikko B. Fernandez
BSHM III
TTH ( 2:30 – 4:00 )

Introduction:
Early marriage is also known as teen marriage and it is typically defined as the union of two adolescents, joined in marriage from at a young age starting from the age of 14 years old. Until the late 20th century, teen marriage was very common and instrumental in securing a family, continuing a blood lineage and producing offspring for labour. Many factors contribute to teen marriage such as teen pregnancy, religion, security, family and peer pressure, arranged marriage, economic and political reasons, social advancement, and cultural reasons. Studies have shown that teenage married couples are often less advantageous, may come from broken homes, may have little education and work low status jobs in comparison to those that marry after adolescence.

Although a majority of teen marriages suffer from complications and often lead to divorce, some are successful. For example, in India, where teenagers are sometimes forced to marry by arrangement, more than 90% of these marriages will not end in divorce. In the United States, half of teen marriages dissolve within 15 years of the marriage. The rate of teen marriage, however, is decreasing due the many opportunities that are available now that previously were not available before. Presently, teen marriage is not widely accepted in much of the world. Teen marriage is most prevalent in culturally or geographically isolated parts of the world and it is decreasing where education is the focus of the population. Marriage, as a fundamental social and cultural institution and as the most common milieu for bearing and rearing children, profoundly shapes sexual behaviors and practices. It is undeniable that early marriage is a controversial yet hot topic that gets the attention of the professionals across many fields such as economy, psychology and sociology. The age at first marriage variegates across the globe. Being married before the age of 18 has been a social norm in third world countries. The percentage of women being married before age 18 is estimated from 20 to 50 percent in average in developing countries.

But then, developed countries are unlikely to experience the resembling pattern of matrimony. The marital union is normally delayed too long although this practice is believed to bring the most apparent reason for the breakdown in sexual ethics (Orsi, 2001). Out of its wealth and egoistic, western society chooses to marry later in life until they have built a decent maturity in age, education and financial state.

As early marriage is widely practiced in developing countries, a global issue has arisen as to whether early marriage does really hinder self development due to the consequences it brings to young girls. The practice is believed to bring several benefits to some extent. However, the adverse effects it brings can impede the self-development of young adolescences in many aspects including health consequences, character building and education as well as career opportunities.

Body Paragraph:
Causes:
According to UNICEF's Innocent Research Centre, the "practice of marrying girls at a young age is most common in Sub-Saharan African and South Asia". There are specific parts of West Africa and East Africa and of South Asia where marriages before puberty are not unusual. However, the Centre also notes that marriage shortly after puberty is common among those living traditional lifestyles in the Middle East, North Africa and other parts of Asia. Marriages of female adolescents between sixteen and eighteen are common in parts of Latin America and Eastern Europe.
Some are forced into this union, others are simply too young to make an informed decision. Consent is made by somebody else on the child's behalf. The child does not have the opportunity to exercise her right to choose. For this reason, early marriages are also referred to as forced marriages. In its most extreme form, forced marriages are the result of abductions. In Uganda, young girls are abducted and forced to marry senior leaders in the guerrilla movement known as the Lord's Resistance Army. The marriages are used as a reward and incentive for male soldiers.
There are a number of reasons why tradition of child marriages continues. Fear of HIV infection has encouraged men in many countries to seek younger 'partners'. Early marriages is one way to ensure that young girls are 'protected'. Families in rural Albania encourage their daughters to marry early to avoid the threat of kidnapping. In conflict torn Somalia, families married their daughters to militia members in exchange for protection for the girl, as well as for themselves.
Where poverty is acute, early marriage is also seen as a strategy for economic survival. In Iraq, early marriages are on the increase in response to poverty inflicted by the economic sanctions that have been imposed on the country.
The main problem of all early marriages is a financial one. Young couple is just depressed by their low income. Lack of proper education, inexperience & youth do not help the young to receive a large payment for the jobs they do. Some young people decide to get married even without any sources to existing.
Usually young couple with low income lives because of the help of their parents who try to give their children everything they need: they allow them to use their car, give money for buying products, spend time with grandchildren & so on. The reason for lack of money in a young family is not only a low income but also radiant expectations of the young. Teenagers think they will be able to buy all that things immediately while their parents have needed years for achieving such wealth.
All young fellows desire to have a car. In spite of the low income of a family nearly 86% of the young bread winners (at the age of 18-24 years) have a car. They do not realize, they need money to keep the family, but they spend it to buy a car & then to take care of it, so as a result, various conflicts appear because of the lack of money.
Sometimes there are cases when a husband is just not able to earn a proper sum of money: he is trying to find a job with all his strength, but he just can not. So, there is the other type of financial problems, connected with family in a whole: when a wife earns more than her husband does.
A husband who earns less than his wife is doomed to an early divorce, a poor sex life & early death. Money in marriage means power & while women have crashed through the psychological barriers to the top jobs, men have been unable to cope with the position of the lower wage earner. The hard factors are that wives who out-perform their husbands in the employment arena set a domestic scenario for disaster. Sex lives suffer & feelings of love diminish. The couples run a high risk of mutual psychological & physical abuse, which leads to abortion.
Study: Early Marriage Likely Cause of Divorce in UAE
Published September 2nd, 2001 - 05:00 GMT

Early marriage is probably the main cause of divorce in the UAE; some 31.5 percent of divorced women of all nationalities in the Gulf state were married before age 14, according to a recent ministry of labor and social affairs study.
The study said that 23.7 percent of the divorced men married between the ages of 20 and 24.
“This and other statistics feature in a recent study on divorce carried out by the ministry of labor and social affairs which found, for instance, that 43 percent of the time it was the woman who sought divorce,” said the study, cited by the Gulf News.
“With men, the figure stood at 39 percent. Twelve percent of divorce cases were arrived at on mutual agreement.”
The study stressed that in many cases couples were divorced after they chose to share accommodation with their families. Thirty-four percent of divorced women lived with their husbands' families, and 8.7 percent of divorced men lived with their wives' relatives.
Financial reasons were another key reason for divorce, said the study: 45 percent of divorced people demanded independent budgets and allegedly refused to render any financial help to the other partner.
According to the paper, the study warned that the ease in obtaining divorce papers from Sharia Courts was another reason for the UAE's rising divorce rate.
Some 67 percent of divorced people said they found it very easy to obtain divorce papers and process their separation without any requirements or conditions.
The study said the cultural and intellectual level of divorced couples played no role in the divorce. It found that 78 percent of divorced people had virtually equivalent cultural standards.

Purpose:
The main purpose of this research is to discover students’ opinion about early marriage. Do they agree with early marriage or not. The second goal is to know whether early marriage brings either benefits or harms to students. Even though early marriage is already becoming a social norm in the third world countries the society still does not...

Conclusion: