Peer-reviewed article
The Lived Experience of Early Marriage in Jordan: The Perspective of Adolescent Girls and Young Women
Lina Mrayan, Salwa Obeisat ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This qualitative study looks at what early marriage was like for girls and young women in Jordan. Researchers held in-depth face-to-face interviews in Arabic with 36 women who married before age 18 and had been married for less than 3 years. Six themes came out of the interviews, including remorse, loss of authority, pressure to have a first baby, and pregnancy-related health consequences. Participants also reported some positive aspects. The authors conclude that the overall effect of early marriage on girls is negative.
Key points
- Interviews were held with 36 females who married before age 18 and had been married for less than 3 years.
- Six themes emerged: remorse about marrying early, loss of authority and feeling powerless, reasons behind early marriage, pressure to have the first baby, pregnancy health consequences, and positive aspects of early marriage.
- The authors state that early marriage in Jordan continues mainly because of cultural factors and seems to be a growing phenomenon.
- The authors report adverse psychological and physical effects of early marriage.
- The authors state that early marriage violates human rights and robs girls of their childhood, education, work and other life choices.
Limitations
The abstract describes only 36 newlywed participants, so it cannot show how common these experiences are or how they change for women married longer. It does not evaluate any intervention, and the abstract gives no detail on how participants were recruited.
Abstract
Child or early marriage, primarily due to cultural factors, continues as a tradition and seems to be a growing phenomenon in Jordan. This research explores the lived experience of early marriage from the perspective of adolescent girls and young women. A qualitative research design and in-depth face-to-face interviews in the Arabic language were conducted with 36 female subjects, married before the age of 18 and all newlyweds, married for less than 3 years. Six major themes emerged from the interviews to describe the experience of the participants: “Feeling remorse about getting married early”; “Loss of authority and feeling powerless”; “Reasons behind early marriage”; “Feeling pressure to have the first baby”; “Early marriage and pregnancy health consequences”; and “The positive aspects of an early marriage.” The lived experience revealed in this study confirm the overall negative effect of girls entering marriage at a young age, Early marriage is a violation of human rights, and robs girls of their childhood, education, work, and other life choices, in addition to the reported adverse psychological and physical effects.