Ages of Muhammads Wives at Marriage: Difference between revisions

Ages of Muhammads Wives at Marriage (view source)

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 [[File:Kahla.png|left|thumb|An “elderly” Arab lady (''kahla''), c. 1890.|200px]]
-The texts do not say that Sawdah “was old” but that she “became old”, i.e. that she was only at the beginning of the “old age” period of her life. In the modern world, this would suggest that she was 65 or 70, which may explain why modern historians have assumed she was very elderly. But this is clearly impossible in the light of the fact that she lived another fifty years.
+The texts do not say that Sawdah “was old” but that she “''became'' old”, i.e. that she was only at the beginning of the “old age” period of her life. In the modern world, this would suggest that she was 65 or 70, which may explain why modern historians have assumed she was very elderly. But this is clearly impossible in the light of the fact that she lived another fifty years.
 In the culture of the medieval Arabs, when a woman’s value to society depended on her capacity to bear children, a woman only had three life-stages: childhood (before she could bear children), adulthood (childbearing age) and old age (when she was past childbearing). So an “old” woman was simply one who was too old to have children – possibly a healthy, active, sharp-minded woman as young as 40. It is practically certain that the sentence “Sawdah became old” really only means “Sawdah reached menopause.”