Child Marriages
Child marriage and child betrothal customs occur in various times and places, whereby children are given in matrimony - before marriageable age as defined by the commentator and often before puberty. Today such customs are fairly widespread in parts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America: in former times it occurred also in Europe. It is frequently associated with arranged marriage. In some cases only one marriage-partner is a child, usually the female, due to importance placed upon female virginity, the perceived inability of women to work for money and to women's shorter reproductive life relative to men's. An increase in the advocacy of human rights, whether as women's rights or as children's rights, has caused traditions of child marriage to decrease in many areas. In 2011, The Elders formed Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of more than 190 non-governmental organisations committed to addressing child marriage.
Read more about Child Marriages: Rationales, List
Famous quotes containing the words child and/or marriages:
“All of the assumptions once made about a parent’s role have been undercut by the specialists. The psychiatric specialists, the psychological specialists, the educational specialists, all have mystified child development. They have fostered the idea that understanding children and promoting their intellectual well-being is too complex for mothers and requires the intervention of experts.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“If marriages were made by putting all the men’s names into one sack and the women’s names into another, and having them taken out by a blindfolded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have here in England.... If you can tell me of any trustworthy method of selecting a wife, I shall be happy to make use of it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)