Early Marriage: How a Girl’s Childhood Ends

Child marriage is one of the most common ways a girl’s childhood ends. More than half of girls from the poorest families in the developing world are married as children, and a girl from a poor family is more than three times as likely to marry before 18 as a girl from a wealthier family. Where a daughter costs dowry and brings in no income, marrying her off early is treated as reducing the family’s burden.

The drivers are the causes above. Dowry makes a daughter look like a financial liability, and marriage — however young — is seen as ending that liability. Poverty makes it worse: a daughter is one less mouth to feed, and economic desperation makes families more willing to give a girl away. Misplaced social beliefs complete the picture: a girl is expected to belong to her husband’s household, so her own education and choices are not considered important.

What a child bride loses is everything that follows — her school years, her health, her choices and her chance to become her own person. A girl married young is more likely to drop out of school, to suffer poor health and to be powerless to change her circumstances. The reverse is also true: when a girl stays in school she is far less likely to be married as a child.