Marriage !!

While we debate all the time with members of our family and friends about when is the most suitable age for marriage, we suddenly hear about the engagement of a 12-year-old boy in Egypt’s Al Fayoum governorate to a girl four years older than him.

While we debate how both men and women should only tie the knots when they are prepared both emotionally and mentally, two kids are engaged to each other and the issue sparks outrage on social media. The engagement photos went viral on social media, leading to a heated debate over the issue of child marriage there.

Both the children are underage and their parents will of course stand to face legal consequences if they marry before they reach 18 years of age which is the legal minimum marital age in Egypt.

Seriously? you can’t help but ask that question. We do understand that in many countries where people are uneducated, these are practices that may take place and once exposed, the proper measures ae taken against the children’s’ parents. When it comes to this case, we are certainly looking at an uncultured community and illiterate and uncultured parents but the problem isn’t with the uncultured or illiterate, the issue of marriages that have failed and led to an increase in the number of divorces all around the Arab world is the issue we need to address.

The question we should ask ourselves is Why.

Why are divorce rates higher than ever? Why do marriages among adults fail. Do people just get married to start and end families and why in many cases aren’t these partnerships lasting.

I know many who have, a few years after marriage, divorced because of financial issues. I love him but he couldn’t afford the life I wanted.

Why wasn’t this an issue before you tied your knots. Why did it become an issue when the first child arrived?

Others says.

We don’t love each other anymore and they refuse to acknowledge that love after marriage isn’t the same feeling you had for each other when you didn’t live under one roof.

Others says, we mentally don’t click and we all know that mind sets never change. The person you are married to is the same person he or she was five years ago.

All these are excuses adults use when they want out, when they realize they rushed into the most important agreement they would ever sign in their lives and when this agreement reaps children, adults become responsible for ruining those children’s lives too.

 So when two children are engaged and this sparks an outrage on social media, you can’t help but wonder why doesn’t an increase in the rate of divorce spark an outrage on social media. After all, these decisions are taken by literate and cultured adults and are paid for by the children who end up deprived of a basic right, a family, and the idea of a roof under which both parents live. This is the issue we need to closely look at and not just address but find a solution for, a solution for our own irresponsible decisions.