Many parliamentarians argued it violates sharia
A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, died during a painful childbirth that also killed her baby, a children’s rights group said Monday. Fawziya Ammodi struggled for three days in labor, before dying of severe bleeding at a hospital on Friday, said the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children…Born into an impoverished family in Hodeidah, Fawziya was forced to drop out of school and married off to a 24-year-old man last year.
Well it was life for awhile and then it was premature death after three days of torture.
The Yemeni parliament tried in February to pass a law, setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But the measure has not reached the president because many parliamentarians argued it violates sharia, or Islamic law, which does not stipulate a minimum age.
And that of course is the important thing, not the health and survival and education and chance for some modicum of happiness of little girls.
“it violates sharia, or Islamic law, which does not stipulate a minimum age.”
Like my friend said: do you think they have speed limit in Yemen?
“it violates sharia, or Islamic law, which does not stipulate a minimum age.”
That’s a stupid argument – if Sharia doesn’t stipulate a minimum age, it also doesn’t say that there must be no minimum. Are they really willing to argue that there should not be a minimum at all? Do they think marrying toddlers and babies would be fine? I doubt it.
@Tea: yeah, even though Sharia doesn’t stipulate a speed limit either, I’m sure Yemen has one. I like that one.
This is slightly related, but yesterday in my local library (in Spain) I saw a copy of The Jewel of Medina (in the “recent acquisitions” display).
It says on the cover that it will shortly be published in the USA and the UK. (Perhaps the idea is to see what happens in the foreign-language market.)
(This is the novel by Sherry Jones about the “Prophet” Mohammed’s 9-year-old “wife” Aysha. The book was dropped by Random House amid fears of violence. The affair was covered by B&W.)
I use double quotes because there is no such thing as prophecy, and there’s no such thing as a 9-year-old wife in civilised society.
But we all know – don’t we? – that this has nothing to do with Sharia minimums. It’s all about Muhammed and his example. If he could marry at 7, and consummate that marriage when the girl turned 9, and his example is the perfect example of a good and holy life, then of course nothing should be considered unusual if his followers follow his example. You can add all the qualifications you like, but if your holy texts say that this is what the ‘Prophet’ did, then this is something that is canonical and fixed so long the words are considered holy. That is the danger of all ‘revealed’ religions, no matter how heavily reinterpreted they may be, and the texts of Islam are not heavily reinterpreted, and cannot be, since, at their core are words which are (thought to be) a direct transcription of the words of God himself, and these words are, as Edmund Standing has pointed out, addressed to men.
Makes me weep. The world is a shitty place, frankly.
….
The world is a wonderful place, but as Ophelia has pointed out: generically speaking: religions has made i shitty for women in particular.
It is double frustrating to observe the number of females apparently finding some sort of consolation IN RELIGION, when at a deep level their predicament is a consequenses of the very religion they seek consolation from.
Cassanders
In Cod we trust
Child brides were common in all virulently patriarchal cultures — from Athenian Greece to medieval European nobility to the upper Hindu castes.
I wrote a more general article about how the West is cravenly allowing such issues to go by largely uncontested, in a mixture of belated guilt and geopolitical convenience:
And Ain’t I a Human?
“That’s a stupid argument – if Sharia doesn’t stipulate a minimum age, it also doesn’t say that there must be no minimum.”
Yes and it’s also a stupid argument because so what if sharia stipulates or doesn’t stipulate – if sharia said you should jump off the roof would you do it?
In short this is the eternally-wearying problem with theocracy: some arbitrary moth-eaten ‘rule’ is supposed to trump all human judgement, so it’s just not permissible to say ‘hey young girls shouldn’t be impregnated or forcibly married or taken out of school for the following list of reasons.’
I agree with Eric – however if they were Mormons, they could just get their “prophet” to claim new “revelations” have set a minimum marriage age.
I also am reminded of the movie “Water” by Deepa Mehta on the lives of Indian widows – a child of 7 faces a life on isolation and deprivation.