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In response to the recent forced marriage of an 11-year-old Saudi girl to an 80-year-old man, who thought nothing of having carnal relations with his pre-pubescent wife, young enough to be his great, great, great grandchild, a Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Manie has publicly declared that these kinds of marriages can not be justified.
A senior Saudi cleric said the Prophet Mohammed's marriage to a nine-year-old girl some 14 centuries ago cannot be used to justify child marriages today, a Saudi newspaper reported Thursday.Manie told Okaz newspaper that circumstances are different today from when Islam's Prophet Mohammed married young Aisha.
Aisha's marriage "cannot be equated with child marriages today because the conditions and circumstances are not the same," Manie said.
Although commendable, merely making a comment is not going to curtail this reprehensible practice. There need to be laws instituted in Saudi Arabia that make it illegal to marry a child under 18. Unless there are consequences, religious fatwas or commentary is not going to make one bit of difference. But I am glad to see that someone over there is coming to the obvious conclusion that what happened centuries ago, during Mohammed's time is in no way relevant to the current times.
The problem is that the practice has become so culturally ingrained it's going to be difficult to re-educate the Saudi people. The father who, in essence, sold his daughter for the equivalent of approximately $22,000 saw nothing wrong with it, in spite of protestations by both the mother and child.
"I don't care about her age," he told the paper. "Her health and her body build make her fit for marriage. I also don't care what her mother thinks."The father added that marriage at such an early age has been a custom in the Saudi society for a very long time and that he saw no reason why it should be a problem now.
"This is a very old custom and there is nothing wrong with it whether religiously or socially."
The mother is seeking a divorce for her young daughter, with help from the government's Human Rights Commission. Thankfully they have someone advocating for the child, although no decision has been made yet.
