In Western societies, marriage is typically viewed as a joyous event. When my wife and I got married nearly 33 years ago, it was a truly joyful and memorable day. I have also had the privilege of accompanying three of my four daughters on their wedding days, all of which were moments filled with happiness and love. However, this perception of marriage is specific to Western cultures.
It’s not just one world.
In Iraq, the government’s lawmakers are considering legislation to lower the acceptable marriage age for girls into single digits. Yes, that’s correct; they are proposing to allow nine-year-old girls, who should be playing with dolls and having tea parties, to be married, with all that entails. “Batta” (not her real name) is one that this happened to, at age 11, and her account is horrifying.
She was just 11 when she was sold into wedlock with a man 36 years her senior. In the nine years since, she said, she has been r***d, beaten, divorced and returned to her family, who hid her away out of shame and forced her into servitude.
Today she is a sex worker in the Iraqi city of Erbil, having moved there recently from the capital, Baghdad
Batta said her husband r***d her on their wedding night and regularly beat her before he sent her back to her family three years after they were married. Instead of offering sympathy, they treated her as a pariah, she said.
In other words, this old pervert used her until he no longer found her titillating – and then sent her back to her family. Her family didn’t exactly kill the fatted calf on her return, either.
It’s not just one world.
This is what these Iraqi “lawmakers” want to permit – for girls as young as nine.
Batta said she “had just turned 11 when my father asked me to take a shower and wear nice clothes.” Afterward, she said, he took her to a gathering of a group of men, including a cleric. “I later learned that one of them was the man who would be my husband, while the other two were witnesses to the marriage,” she said.
Later, she said, she learned that her father had received 15 million Iraqi dinars, or around $11,300, from the man, part of which he used to buy a new taxi. “I also learned that my husband was 47 years old,” she added.
“On the first night, the night I lost my virginity, I didn’t know what this man was doing. I felt immense pain, and I cried as he knelt over me without being able to move my hands or feet,” she said. “I want to forget this day, even though I will never forget it.”
Imagine, if you will, what must have gone through the mind of this child, at age 11, who was put through this. Remember what it was like to be 11 years old? As near as I can remember, at this distance in time, at 11, I was a huge “Star Trek” nerd (still am, but that’s beside the point) and wanted to be a fighter pilot when I grew up. An 11-year-old is in no way physically or emotionally prepared for marriage, much less a nine-year-old.
What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with this culture, that it sees this as acceptable?
This is not a mere “cultural” difference. This isn’t something that may be considered wrong in one society and not in another. This is wrong in essence; it is wrong no matter where, when, or to whom it happens. And the sad part is that the current law isn’t nearly as, well, savage.
Adopted in 1959, the current law unifies all segments of society under a single code while enshrining the rights of women and children. As well as setting the age of marriage, it addressed child custody, inheritances and alimony payments focused on the welfare of both children and women.
The law “was one of the most progressive in the Middle East,” according to Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at the London-based Chatham House think tank. It had survived “regime changes, wars, civil wars and conflicts throughout many, many decades,” he said.
The newly proposed amendments would take a large amount of decision-making power away from both families and the courts and place it into the hands of clerics, some of whom set the age of puberty at 9.
It’s not just one world.
So, all of this begs the question, “What can we do about this?” Well, sadly, the answer is “not much.” The United States doesn’t wield a lot of cultural influence in that part of the world, and whatever leverage we had over majority-Muslim nations has largely evaporated with the Biden administration’s disastrous abandoning of Afghanistan. But this story, Batta’s story, should serve as a cautionary tale, as we have been importing thousands upon thousands of people from this part of the world, for who knows what reason, for years now. They are setting enclaves in places like Dearborn, Michigan, and Minneapolis, Minnesota – and some among them might agree with these Iraqi lawmakers and clerics.
It can happen here, and if you think some of these people might not try it, well, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
