Early Marriage: Boom or Doom
Friday 29th September 2006

One of the gravest ills to have permeated the Gambian society must be the apparent and growing spectre of early marriage. This social phenomenon has been known to relate to, if not resulting from any of the following factors:

parental greed, ignorance, naivete or poverty, and on the part of the usually bewildered young girls (some as young as eleven and twelve) the infuriating and scourging experience of subjugation, unwanted love, frustration, mental blocks or even aberrations, health related risks and many more.

While some have found ways of escaping this horror trap by, for example, disappearing from home as was the case of a particular under-aged girl who was forced to marry a man who was old enough to be a father to her. In that case the girl kept running away from the man three to four times and seeking help with all the will and effort she could muster. In spite of her desperate efforts she was always taken back to the old man. At the end she had no choice but to poison the man to death, and was arrested and detained at the police station. The question is, after all what will the parents of this little powerless girl gain from that so called marriage? It will be appreciated that any marriage that takes place without the wish of one of the parties can never be blessed or crowned with happiness, and a marriage without mutual happiness will not last long. Such a marriage can only be a mere semblance, for all happy and loving partners hope that only death could break their marriages.

If one should think deeply of this problem, one will consider that other ways exist to get out the situation other than applying poison on one’s partner but only an elderly or mature partner can have that knowledge, but not a small under aged girl like this one. This leads me to believe that early marriage is really doing more harm than good in our society.

Some victims have however been known to become trapped in such nightmarish relationships, and continue to be bedevilled and traumatised under the most depressing of circumstances. Is this what we want for our girl children? Are we being fair, considerate and sympathetic with them?

In many noted cases, young defenceless girls on preparing or getting to terms with early marriage have wept their eyes out and grieved for several days lacking the support of equally powerless mothers. Some who have succeeded in passing that thresh hold into the actual marital home (so called), have deteriorated to skin and bones straining hard to adapt to an unpleasant harrowing existence completely devoid of marital bliss. They have ended envying their more fortunate friends who have married the husbands of their choice at least, if even not rolling in joy and luxury; and have themselves gone further to hate their situation even more, hate the parents who plunged and sacrificed them into the marriage, hate the very husbands they are supposed to love and share marital happiness, and even spill out or vent their feelings on the children of the marriage. There have similarly been noted cases of victims contracting sexual diseases transmitted by infected and unscreened husbands who, by the way are usually much older than the sacrificed bride and with vast exposure to other women, be they wives or just casual lovers. And what is worse and most disheartening is that these imposed husbands of enforced marriages have at times been known to be later heartless and uncaring towards their young wives when the novelty wears off, and new desires and attractions begin to replace the old ones. Is this what truly loving parents want for their daughters? It makes one wonder deeply.

All of these pathetic and sad happenings should also awaken Women’s and Children organizations to strong and sustained action against their continuation. In this respect these organizations are seriously urged to invoke and apply pertinent protocols and national legislations, and all legitimate means and programmes, to put an end to what can be termed an abominable, undesirable, and shameful exploitation of girls.