By definition, child marriage happens when a girl below the age of 18 is married to either a minor like her age or with a much older man. The latter is why most people react negatively to it. According to UNICEF, child marriage violates the rights of children; it affects both boys and girls, but it is more common among girls.
Child marriage, among others, is one of the allegations that Islamophobes throw against Islam in their wish to paint Islam as the religion of terror, chaos, and oppression especially against women. They talk about child marriage in Islam as if it is purely a Muslim practice and this has been further fuelled by their argument that Muhammad himself – peace be upon him, started this abomination.
MUHAMMAD’S MARRIAGE TO A SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL
Let’s cut to the chase, in 620 CE, Muhammad married a six-year-old girl named Aishah. She is the daughter of his closest friend Abu Bakr who also became the political successor or Caliph of Muhammad when he died. However, this marriage was not consummated or to paraphrase, no sexual intercourse happened between her and Muhammad until she was 9 years old in 623CE. Aishah stayed in her parents’ house before the consummation of their marriage. Aishah remained like any normal girl before the consummation of marriage.
Scholars are unanimous that the consummation of marriage only happened after she reached the age of puberty which we know begins with girls upon the start of their menstruation regardless of their age. A girl reaching the age of puberty is biologically ready for marriage and any other activity beyond that such as sexual intercourse, pregnancy, breastfeeding, and others.
Getting married early is common. Even here in the Philippines, some are married as early as 14 years of age or roughly a few years after reaching the age of puberty. The designation of the 18 years of age as legal marriage age is only an estimate made by our modern society which is much later than the biological standard of what makes a female ready for married life. Different societies do permit earlier marriage with parental consent or in special circumstances, such as teenage pregnancy. In certain countries, even when the legal marriage age is 18, cultural traditions take priority over legislative law.
To summarize, Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to a 6-year-old girl and consummated it when she was 9 years old is perfectly moral in the Arab society those days and is biologically acceptable too even by modern standards. Girls reaching puberty at a younger age than usual is also not an uncommon event even today in any society.
MISINTERPRETATIONS ON PROPHET MUHAMMAD’S MARRIAGE
IT WAS CHILD MARRIAGE: Yes it is but Aishah’s marriage to Prophet Muhammad was only consummated upon reaching the age of puberty which technically meant that Aishah was no longer a child during the consummation.
AISHAH WAS MARRIED BY FORCE: Force marriage is highly prohibited in Islam. Aishah was married to Prophet Muhammad at a young age may mean that she was married off without her consent but it does not mean that forced marriage is allowed in Islam. In fact, forcing a woman to marry someone she does not like may invalidate the marriage because one of the conditions of Islamic marriage is the acceptance of both parties, male and female. For a girl, the father gives the consent on her behalf.
PEDOPHILIA IS ALLOWED IN ISLAM: Some anti-Muslims who are hell-bent in demonizing Islam use harsh word in order to describe events, teachings, and beliefs in Islam. Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. As we have already emphasized, a girl even when she’s married before puberty may only have sexual relationships with her husband upon reaching puberty. And reaching puberty means that she is no longer a child but is biologically considered a woman.
MUHAMMAD MADE CHILD MARRIAGE LEGAL: It is common in many Muslim countries to have older men marry very young women who may not even reach the age of 18 but this does happen in other societies as well such as the Chinese, Africans and others. Are they following Muhammad? Of course not. Also, if we look at Muslims especially here in the Philippines, it is not customary or obligatory for women below 18 years of age to marry. According to Girls Not Brides, an international society that criticizes child marriage, there are 12 million girls who are married worldwide yearly before they reach the age of 18. So this is a worldwide norm and not only practiced by Muslims.
THE REAL PROBLEM
To be blunt and honest, the real problem with those who criticize Muhammad in her marriage with ‘Aisha at the age of 6 and consummating it after her puberty by the age of 9 is not the marriage itself but the desire of the anti-Muslims to capitalize on everything they could criticize about the teachings of Islam and the events in the life of Prophet Muhammad. They believe that if they are able to destroy the credibility or the honor of Prophet Muhammad – they could easily destroy Islam once and for all.
Let me quote Afif A. Tabbarah, from the book, The Spirit of Islam, “The trouble started with early medieval Christian polemicists. They chose not to attack Islamic theology, which was too seductive in its simplicity and clarity, and which raised too many awkward questions about Christian dogma. Nor could they cast doubt on the pious practice of ordinary Muslims. Instead, anticipating the worst excesses of tabloid journalism, they personalized the issue and attacked the Prophet of Islam, dispensing with all but the barest knowledge of any facts and inventing falsehoods. Muslims could not reply the same way since they are told by the Qur’an to revere Jesus as a holy prophet.”
SUMMARY
Islam existed long before any standardization of legal age of marriage and has since followed natural biological rules of reaching the age of puberty to decide whether a female becomes suitable to marry and consummate it the way prophet Muhammad did. But even if this does happen, child marriage is not obligatory in Islam and most Muslims don’t do it.
