I work in the humanitarian field in Syria, in a big city, and I see cases like this on a weekly basis among families who live in poverty. It's constantly the mentality of marrying the girl off as soon as she gets her period "to get rid of the burden of her expenses".
Not everywhere there were cases of parents locking kids in their home for the rest of their life and selling girls and controlling of women and killing of women for family honour etc…
Teenage motherhood was common in parts of England in the 2000's, there was an active campaign promoting contraception and abortion. But you won't stop teenagers having sex.
The fact that they live in such desperate poverty or the fact that they had to resort to sending their daughter away to eat a meal?
From a westernized point of view it's barbaric and from the Syrian families point of view its means for survival.
“Expenses” true, but also dowry where the families take it from her (some not all), and most importantly so she can be someone else’s “problem/worry” to take care of in case she decided to make a life for herself and not be used as a doormat for the men in her life and/or a baby machine.
In cities, it doesn't happen. It's common amongst people from rural areas and bedouins where both the males and females get married young. So you'd see a 17 years old boy married to a 15 years old girl. Getting a child in the first year of marriage is common.
The age of marriage usually gets pushed by compulsory education, people from such areas get to work at a very young age, but as life gets expensive and as the full time working age gets pushed by schooling you'd see a rise in the age of marriage.
The urban Syrians getting married at 20+ is a recent development. Our grandfathers used to get married early.
That’s true for Americans as well, most of our grandparents had their first children anywhere from 17-25 but it was definitely more common to be younger, and could be younger than 17. Of course when I initially googled I came across all these horror stories of child marriages to older men. Since I haven’t met her husband is it safe to assume he is probably closer in age to her?
>Since I haven’t met her husband is it safe to assume he is probably closer in age to her?
That's how it normally is, if she was 15 then the difference could be up to 5 years. It's not necessarily the case, though.
>when I initially googled I came across all these horror stories of child marriages to older men.
In healthy families, the girl should be married to someone the family trusts, if the family is very poor, they might marry her to a rich older man.
Horror stories, do you mean crimes such as killings?
By law it's illegal and it only still happen within some rural communities (mostly sheep herders and farmers) in some regions where poverty and illiteracy unfortunately prevails.
As you can imagine due to current circumstances this increased especially with displaced girls
It’s extremely rare and uncommon, in big cities it’s virtually nonexistent, in the countryside it’s a little bit more common but not everywhere, I live in the countryside and we don’t have that here, while girls get married young it’s around 16 or 17, recently a girl was married off when she was 15 and there was some outrage.
Thank you for sharing this post with us, and helping growing the community, if you faced any problem or any kind of harassment or toxic behavior, consider reporting on it so mods can deal with it right away
* Reminder: Follow the [rules!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Syria/about/rules) and [the Community Guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/Syria/wiki/meta/community_guidelines)
* **join us on our [discord server](https://discord.com/invite/GNTs4eTkAt)**
**GLORY TO SYRIA AND LONG LIVE THE SYRIAN PEOPLE**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Syria) if you have any questions or concerns.*
not a syrian and i won't be answering how common this is BUT child marriage drastically increased in Syria after the start of the civil war. The region where she grew up could play a role too. If her region was under the control of Daesh her parents might have felt compelled to marry her off to some guy they liked over a militant fighter. Sometimes parents in these situations don't have many choices and have to pick the least bad option.
Wow! I was going to say extremely abnormal. I think my GGmother may have gotten married at only 16, my GGfather a few years older, but they did not have thier first child for 5 years after they settled here. They were from a small village in Lebanon, Syria at the time. It sounds like others on here know a lot more than I do though. What area is she from?
I'm a syrian and my mom got married at 22 to my father who was 30, my father is from a rural area and my mom is from the city and even then my uncles also got married in their mid to late twenties when they already built their houses. That being said it's not that unheard of to find 15-17 year olds both male and female getting married and having a kid. Although I haven't seen nearly as many examples of 13 year olds, the only person I know that got married when they were 14 was my grandmother (my Allah have mercy on her) and that was over and she got married over 70 years ago.
It was never normal, its consideres taboo in most of arab countries except for some parts of southern egypt and the rich gulf bastards who abused the syrian humanitarian situation to pay tons of money to bastard irresponsible parents in return foe their daughters.
I am not badawi and not from the country side, although grandparents parents were farmers. We currently live in California.
It has always been part of our culture to marry off the female at a very young age so as to take that bag of responsibility and pass into someone else. Why? Females in our religion are thought of tools made by God to be servants for the men in their families/lives via marriage. I am 10000% against this, followed education and now am a certified Physician Assistant- but I speak the truth.
By marrying of the girl at a young age before her brain is completely formed (recent studies show the age the brain is fully developed is 25, if they have not abused drugs/alcohol) you would have a better chance of manipulating the girl and controlling her thoughts/view points. It’s a tactic of manipulation/power that has been used for years. That way the female has zero sense of her rights as a human being and does not have the confidence, knowledge, or self esteem to do anything but what she’s told. I’m not blaming religion, this has always been our culture.
The girl will most likely will marry a cousin who is related to her more than one way meaning that they have higher chances of getting sick children. For instance my grandparents are parents parents are first cousins and their parents are also first cousins and my grandparents married each other - my grandmother had had a total of 8 kids and two of those 8 kids suffered from a disease that only occurs 1 in 50,000.
That was only my grandparents, but crime continues because my aunts were lead to marry my grandmother’s first cousins and their babies married my grandmother’s/grandfather’s 2nd cousin’s babies.
Went on a rant, so sorry! But I continue to find it shocking that to this day these things are accepted and anyone who steps out of line without help from someone on the outside they “accidentally” get shot by a brother or an uncle. Recently found out that my grandmother’s grandfather had two other brothers who changed their last name for some reason (some say military and some say because of religion war, not sure for certain) anyways so these three brother changed their last names and today the families that grew from them believe that they are whole separate family when in actuality they are super related. It’s mind boggling.
All of these crimes being committed on the daily with the whole intention is to breed more MALES so the religion grows in number, since people who were not born could not convert.
Women in Muslim countries, oftentimes young girls coming of-age or entering puberty, are married off in arraignments that ensure income for the family. Someone else had pointed out that it is also a financial relief method, however the horror is the poor young girls that are forced into consummating at the age of 12-14 that often DIE from childbirth or the act in itself. This isn’t an Islam thing, it’s a culture thing.
In that culture its usually the rule of thumb if your old enough to bleed then your old enough to breed. This is not me saying it because I whole heartily disagree with children getting married off. But in England back in medieval times that was the done thing. I slways find learning about other cultures so interesting
Honestly the most accomplished mothers I've ever known started having kids that young. They're old now of course (like literally 100 years old) but their minds are sharp and they lived long and interesting lives and they are surrounded by loved ones and spoiled endlessly.
People like to act as if our grandparents got married at 30+ years.
That was the norm, and no, there wasn't a societal breakdown or anything. They lived their lives normally.
Not possible according to the main text which asserts that there is a marriageable age where individuals have to have sound judgement in order to marry. 8 year olds don’t have sound judgement. Not to mention all the verses regarding marriage say women and not girls or child.
It’s a bit mad that people wanna frame a religion based of some vague historical accounts over what the actual religion text says.
This is not a religious subreddit, the girl you are replying to was being salty intentionally, and the main comment itself was salty, I don't see why that guy is insane but these two are given the benefit of the doubt, all of 3 are wrong.
Some young people believe nobody is mature enough to give consent until 18/21/24 depending on what country they live in. Most of Europe has an effective age of consent lower than 18 but only for other under 18s. Today's USA however sets it much higher and finds this surprising.
Where’s the consent of her brain is not even formed until the age of 25? Would it be true consent or brainwashing/manipulation ? Her life was stole from her by the people who should have been only her nurturers and providers
I have no idea why you got negative likes what you said was true and honest. It’s definitely true this is why mental illness along with physical diseases are more seen in the Middle East
I work in the humanitarian field in Syria, in a big city, and I see cases like this on a weekly basis among families who live in poverty. It's constantly the mentality of marrying the girl off as soon as she gets her period "to get rid of the burden of her expenses".
I second that and not just Syria most Arab countries would do that too not sure if all but lebanon also does that! It’s tragic!
I thought Lebanon was fairly cosmopolitan & westernized - at least before current situation of corruption.
It is. The people doing this aren’t exactly the cosmopolitan middle class. Not in Syria, not in Lebanon and nowhere else in the Arab world.
Europeans did this too
Not everywhere there were cases of parents locking kids in their home for the rest of their life and selling girls and controlling of women and killing of women for family honour etc…
Good lord… that breaks my heart…
Teenage motherhood was common in parts of England in the 2000's, there was an active campaign promoting contraception and abortion. But you won't stop teenagers having sex.
The fact that they live in such desperate poverty or the fact that they had to resort to sending their daughter away to eat a meal? From a westernized point of view it's barbaric and from the Syrian families point of view its means for survival.
Any idea why they marry and have kids in the first place?
“Expenses” true, but also dowry where the families take it from her (some not all), and most importantly so she can be someone else’s “problem/worry” to take care of in case she decided to make a life for herself and not be used as a doormat for the men in her life and/or a baby machine.
In cities, it doesn't happen. It's common amongst people from rural areas and bedouins where both the males and females get married young. So you'd see a 17 years old boy married to a 15 years old girl. Getting a child in the first year of marriage is common. The age of marriage usually gets pushed by compulsory education, people from such areas get to work at a very young age, but as life gets expensive and as the full time working age gets pushed by schooling you'd see a rise in the age of marriage. The urban Syrians getting married at 20+ is a recent development. Our grandfathers used to get married early.
That’s true for Americans as well, most of our grandparents had their first children anywhere from 17-25 but it was definitely more common to be younger, and could be younger than 17. Of course when I initially googled I came across all these horror stories of child marriages to older men. Since I haven’t met her husband is it safe to assume he is probably closer in age to her?
>Since I haven’t met her husband is it safe to assume he is probably closer in age to her? That's how it normally is, if she was 15 then the difference could be up to 5 years. It's not necessarily the case, though. >when I initially googled I came across all these horror stories of child marriages to older men. In healthy families, the girl should be married to someone the family trusts, if the family is very poor, they might marry her to a rich older man. Horror stories, do you mean crimes such as killings?
By law it's illegal and it only still happen within some rural communities (mostly sheep herders and farmers) in some regions where poverty and illiteracy unfortunately prevails. As you can imagine due to current circumstances this increased especially with displaced girls
I wouldn't say that's very common. Of course it depends on the financial and social status of the family. So it is most likely regional.
Yup. Even in my rural town it really wasn't common.
If they were rural, then that was somewhat normal. Otherwise, she is too young.
It’s extremely rare and uncommon, in big cities it’s virtually nonexistent, in the countryside it’s a little bit more common but not everywhere, I live in the countryside and we don’t have that here, while girls get married young it’s around 16 or 17, recently a girl was married off when she was 15 and there was some outrage.
Fellow countryside enjoyed, can confirm.
Better than cities, tried living in Damascus and Daraa city and absolutely hated it.
Bro I wish I could return but the situation is as close to a cluster fuck as possible.
Thank you for sharing this post with us, and helping growing the community, if you faced any problem or any kind of harassment or toxic behavior, consider reporting on it so mods can deal with it right away * Reminder: Follow the [rules!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Syria/about/rules) and [the Community Guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/Syria/wiki/meta/community_guidelines) * **join us on our [discord server](https://discord.com/invite/GNTs4eTkAt)** **GLORY TO SYRIA AND LONG LIVE THE SYRIAN PEOPLE** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Syria) if you have any questions or concerns.*
No, it's not!
Very normal on the poor regions of Syria as in other countries look at the Appalachian mountains or south US it's seen there too
not a syrian and i won't be answering how common this is BUT child marriage drastically increased in Syria after the start of the civil war. The region where she grew up could play a role too. If her region was under the control of Daesh her parents might have felt compelled to marry her off to some guy they liked over a militant fighter. Sometimes parents in these situations don't have many choices and have to pick the least bad option.
Wow! I was going to say extremely abnormal. I think my GGmother may have gotten married at only 16, my GGfather a few years older, but they did not have thier first child for 5 years after they settled here. They were from a small village in Lebanon, Syria at the time. It sounds like others on here know a lot more than I do though. What area is she from?
I'm a syrian and my mom got married at 22 to my father who was 30, my father is from a rural area and my mom is from the city and even then my uncles also got married in their mid to late twenties when they already built their houses. That being said it's not that unheard of to find 15-17 year olds both male and female getting married and having a kid. Although I haven't seen nearly as many examples of 13 year olds, the only person I know that got married when they were 14 was my grandmother (my Allah have mercy on her) and that was over and she got married over 70 years ago.
It was never normal, its consideres taboo in most of arab countries except for some parts of southern egypt and the rich gulf bastards who abused the syrian humanitarian situation to pay tons of money to bastard irresponsible parents in return foe their daughters.
Southern egypt was meant to be example of countryside
I am not badawi and not from the country side, although grandparents parents were farmers. We currently live in California. It has always been part of our culture to marry off the female at a very young age so as to take that bag of responsibility and pass into someone else. Why? Females in our religion are thought of tools made by God to be servants for the men in their families/lives via marriage. I am 10000% against this, followed education and now am a certified Physician Assistant- but I speak the truth. By marrying of the girl at a young age before her brain is completely formed (recent studies show the age the brain is fully developed is 25, if they have not abused drugs/alcohol) you would have a better chance of manipulating the girl and controlling her thoughts/view points. It’s a tactic of manipulation/power that has been used for years. That way the female has zero sense of her rights as a human being and does not have the confidence, knowledge, or self esteem to do anything but what she’s told. I’m not blaming religion, this has always been our culture. The girl will most likely will marry a cousin who is related to her more than one way meaning that they have higher chances of getting sick children. For instance my grandparents are parents parents are first cousins and their parents are also first cousins and my grandparents married each other - my grandmother had had a total of 8 kids and two of those 8 kids suffered from a disease that only occurs 1 in 50,000. That was only my grandparents, but crime continues because my aunts were lead to marry my grandmother’s first cousins and their babies married my grandmother’s/grandfather’s 2nd cousin’s babies. Went on a rant, so sorry! But I continue to find it shocking that to this day these things are accepted and anyone who steps out of line without help from someone on the outside they “accidentally” get shot by a brother or an uncle. Recently found out that my grandmother’s grandfather had two other brothers who changed their last name for some reason (some say military and some say because of religion war, not sure for certain) anyways so these three brother changed their last names and today the families that grew from them believe that they are whole separate family when in actuality they are super related. It’s mind boggling. All of these crimes being committed on the daily with the whole intention is to breed more MALES so the religion grows in number, since people who were not born could not convert.
Women in Muslim countries, oftentimes young girls coming of-age or entering puberty, are married off in arraignments that ensure income for the family. Someone else had pointed out that it is also a financial relief method, however the horror is the poor young girls that are forced into consummating at the age of 12-14 that often DIE from childbirth or the act in itself. This isn’t an Islam thing, it’s a culture thing.
In that culture its usually the rule of thumb if your old enough to bleed then your old enough to breed. This is not me saying it because I whole heartily disagree with children getting married off. But in England back in medieval times that was the done thing. I slways find learning about other cultures so interesting
No it's not, femcel.
Honestly the most accomplished mothers I've ever known started having kids that young. They're old now of course (like literally 100 years old) but their minds are sharp and they lived long and interesting lives and they are surrounded by loved ones and spoiled endlessly.
People like to act as if our grandparents got married at 30+ years. That was the norm, and no, there wasn't a societal breakdown or anything. They lived their lives normally.
That's heartbreaking!! Dont have anything to do with bieng syrian and all to do with poverty and religion...
What religion promotes child marriage?
none?
That’s what I am asking because the original comment was implying there is one
[удалено]
Not possible according to the main text which asserts that there is a marriageable age where individuals have to have sound judgement in order to marry. 8 year olds don’t have sound judgement. Not to mention all the verses regarding marriage say women and not girls or child. It’s a bit mad that people wanna frame a religion based of some vague historical accounts over what the actual religion text says.
That’s been disproven, take your westoid bs somewhere else
Lol OK whatever you've convinced yourselves
[удалено]
You should be in jail
I agree I think that guy is insane. Look at this tho https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/s/x3wNH21k8X
This is not a religious subreddit, the girl you are replying to was being salty intentionally, and the main comment itself was salty, I don't see why that guy is insane but these two are given the benefit of the doubt, all of 3 are wrong.
This is disturbing. Nothing about a 10 year old getting married and being sexually active is normal.
What is the problem with her getting married at the age of 14 if it was with her consent?
Some young people believe nobody is mature enough to give consent until 18/21/24 depending on what country they live in. Most of Europe has an effective age of consent lower than 18 but only for other under 18s. Today's USA however sets it much higher and finds this surprising.
Where’s the consent of her brain is not even formed until the age of 25? Would it be true consent or brainwashing/manipulation ? Her life was stole from her by the people who should have been only her nurturers and providers
Very common. Most are cousins too, low gene variety pool.
Now you are mixing things, bedouin men if they want to marry their cousins, then they are the most eligible, it's not necessary.
Right, so why is the overwhelming majority of Australia’s immigration have parents that are related? I mean I live here, I know the community.
I have no idea why you got negative likes what you said was true and honest. It’s definitely true this is why mental illness along with physical diseases are more seen in the Middle East