Child Marriage in the Qur'an: Difference between revisions

The subject of child marriage per se never arises in the Qur'an. Yet the Qur'an deals indirectly with the topic. The subject of the [['Iddah]] or "(waiting) period" of a woman is dealt with frequently in the Qu'ran. Summarized briefly, the Qur'an lays down strict rules (based largely on the women's menstruation cycles or lack thereof) for how long a woman must wait in between the end of one marriage and the beginning of another, and the purpose in the pre-modern, patriarchal societies in which the [[Shari'ah]] was codified was to ensure that a woman would not marry a new man while pregnant from her last husband and impute fathership of her baby to the wrong husband. Pursuant to these rules the  Qur'an in verse 33:49 states that no [['Iddah]] is prescribed for a woman who has ''not'' had intimate contact with her husband, but goes on to stipulate an [['Iddah]] for pre-pubescent girls in verse 65:4, implying that pre-pubescent girls can be divorced, with the implication that it is possible to marry them. This has been interpreted in the orthodox Sunni Muslim tradition to mean that the [[Qur'an]] supports marrying and having sex with prepubescent girls. Despite the discomfort that this causes for modern readers, the conclusion (which is drawn explicitly in sahih hadith and tafsir traditions around this and related Qur'anic verse) seems to be that the Qur'an endorses sexual intercourse (as a part of Islamic marriage) with pre-pubescent girls.