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in the age at marriage Adolescent Sexuality |
Voluntarism
and Marriage Marriage customs are part of the fabric of any culture's life, and they differ from place to place. But it is necessary to examine these customs in the light of internationally agreed-upon stan dards of sexual and reproductive rights. People should be free to marry or not to marry. There are customs that endanger the right of the parties to freely enter and partici pate in the marriage contract: child marriage, dowry and bride price arrangements, consan guineous marriage, women's inheritance rights, the timing and frequency of pregnancy, and polygyny. Changes in the age at marriage: Overall, the age of first marriage, for both women and men, has been rising in many parts of the world, most rapidly in Asia and North Africa. The proportion married by age 20 has remained comparatively stable in Latin America and the Caribbean over the past 20 years, declining only from 50 to 42 per cent. Western Europe and North America have also seen steady rises in the age at marriage, to the mid-to late twenties. In all regions, less-educated women are likelier to marry young. The age of the man, and the gap in ages between spouses, also reflect social expectations and affect marital and other social relationships. Larger age differences between husbands and wives rein force stereotypes of wifely dependency and powerlessness. These age differences tend to be highest in West Africa (commonly six to nine years). South Africa's age gap is a good bit lower, at over two years. Girls have traditionally been deemed ready to marry at the onset of menstruation, while men customarily are expected to wait until they can support a wife and family. Such rules reinforce male power and the predominance of women's domestic roles, as does women's comparative lack of education. Child marriage: In a wide variety of societies in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, marriages are arranged by parents during their offspring's child hood or adolescence. In some but not all societies, the young couple have the opportunity to accept or reject the arrangement once they have met. All nations have marriage laws. These may or may not be enforced, and some are superseded by custom or family decisions. They vary widely in any case. And parents can and do marry off their children in practice, as laws often do not protect young people (even when over the age of consent in some cases) from forced marriages. Early childbearing: Young couples often face strong pressure from their families and communi ties to begin childbearing immediately. Marriages can be secured by a quick pregnancy or wrecked by lack of one. Teenage brides often feel pressure to prove they can bear sons. Women aged 15-19 face four times the risk of death during pregnancy or childbirth than women 25-29 years old. Polygyny: The custom of taking more than one wife used to be widespread in Africa, parts of the Muslim world and parts of Asia. Defenders of the practice claim that it benefits wives, who have co-wives to help with the chores and share the burdens of childbearing, and that it confers status upon senior wives. Women in these unions, when asked, say they strongly disapprove of the custom, however. Competition, favouritism, and jealousy, they say, create serious problems. A study of the Kaguru people of Tanzania found that the majority of the women there rejected the practice of polygyny. Some respondents were fatalistic, saying they had little power to prevent their husbands from taking another wife. Other responses indicated that women threaten to, and sometimes do, divorce their husbands in such cases. Although the Kaguru women have a substantially heavier workload than the men, the study found no indication that women perceive polygyny as a way to reduce their workload by sharing it with co-wives. |
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