This Norwegian Preteen Is 'Marrying' A 37-Year-Old For One Important Reason

[geardaddy]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/09/thea-norway-child-bride-plan-international_n_5954802.html?utm_source=salon.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange_facebook

Thea is 12 years old. She's a seventh-grader at her school in Norway, and she loves riding horses and listening to One Direction. According to her blog, she's also marrying a 37-year-old man this weekend.

But Thea and her impending wedding aren't actually real. They were fabricated for a viral marketing campaign aimed at raising awareness about the forced marriages of underage girls around the globe.

One in nine girls worldwide are married before they turn 15, and one in three are married before they turn 18. The group that launched the Thea campaign, Plan Norway, an offshoot of anti-child marriage organization Plan International, sought to use the fictional girl's story to highlight this issue for Norwegians.

Olaf Thommessen, national director of Plan Norway, said of the project in a post on his organization's website:

We want to show how horrible the practice of child marriage is and put it in a context that is familiar and normally associated with love, happiness and hope for the future. Many girls dream about their wedding day and this day is often referred to as one of the happiest days of their lives. But for 39,000 young girls who get married every day, their wedding day is the worst day of their life.

more at link.

[Andy823]

1. K&R nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. The mere thought makes me shudder. nt

[Blue_Tires]

23. +1

[Nay]

29. Jesus. Me, too. That such marriages are made anywhere is a disgrace to the

human race.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. kick

[ZombieHorde]

4. Damn.

One in nine girls worldwide are married before they turn 15, and one in three are married before they turn 18.

I didn't realize the numbers were so high. Thanks for posting.

[SoCalDem]

5. Not that long ago in the US, girls were married off in their teens as well

Last edited Thu Oct 16, 2014, 11:27 PM - Edit history (1)

Most of my mother's peers were married before their 19th birthday... and in rural communities, it was not uncommon to marry at 15 or 16.

In large families (before reliable birth control), marrying off the girls was a way to save some money and free up space.

[BobbyBoring]

11. My FILs mother had him when she was 13

It was common to marry in early teens then.

[jwirr]

18. I was married at 16. And I was not forced. The day we were married my father asked me if I really

wanted to get married. But times were different then (1958). Girls were not encouraged to go to college and many of us were already pregnant. And most of us were not marrying someone older than us. It was often our high school sweetheart.

I am not in anyway encouraging that practice again. Most of us (unlike the girls who are forced today) were divorced sometime in the next 10 years. We had children (birth control was not as available as it is today and was not that good). We are the generation that learned rapidly that being a single mom meant poverty. Some of us were lucky enough to go to college after the grants and loans came into being.

As to our young husbands. Many of them did not get to go to college either because they had to take a job to support their new family. We were children growing up and apart until we were actually happy to end the marriage. The only way the young men had it better than we did was that they often did not have the children and many of them had very little child support required. It was not their fault - the courts did not ask for much because they often considered us better off on welfare. Yeah, I know but back then jobs were not that easy for women to get in rural areas like I lived in.

[jmowreader]

19. In ancient societies early marriage had another justification

You needed as many babies as possible to overcome the child mortality rate, and to have lots of kids to work the farm. (A couple days ago I ran an obit for a 95-year-old man who was "one of eighteen children, nine of whom survived childhood. He grew up on a farm, so I can only assume a combination of infant mortality, accidents and poisonings killed half his siblings.) A popular way to achieve the maximum family size was to marry daughters off at the earliest possible opportunity.

I have the suspicion the Amish and Mennonites would continue this if the law would let them.

[cstanleytech]

20. Mmm I kinda doubt that the Amish or Mennonites would still be doing it now if the law allowed

it.
After all as you pointed out back long ago it was needed due to a high child mortality rate yet thats rate has come down alot and the Amish do use doctors and hospitals as do the Mennonites so the pressure to marry them young due to a high mortality rate isnt as pressing.

[jmowreader]

21. The Amish still do most of their work by hand

Large families are still necessary for the life they lead.

[cstanleytech]

24. Yes they do most of it by hand but when needed they do use machinery.

For example if one of them becomes to old or ill to farm in the more traditional way they have been known to buy modern farm equipment like a tractor to use they just prefer to do most of their farming and crafting without such things whenever they can.

[VanillaRhapsody]

28. I come from a very large rural family....I have 56 first cousins....

Most of my female cousins were married by age 15......our grandmother was herself married to a much older man at the age of 12...she had her first of 16 children by the age of 13. She was a Grandmother by 26 because her oldest daughter got married and pregnant at the age of 13. I myself married at 19 and in my family that was like being a spinster! Needless to say....I don't think any of my female cousins that married at 14 or 15 ever finished High School....most in my family male or female did not...to this day.

And this is in America....

[snooper2]

30. And it was mostly done by Christian Fundies, just like Muslim Fundies do it today

The #1 Reason-


GET THEM WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG-

If you get your virgin-not-fully-educated wife when she is young then she can be brainwashed so she stays- It is a pretty simple formula actually- Same thing with Mormon Fundies today as well---

[SoCalDem]

34. A 25 yr old woman with 6 kids is unlikely to ever leave

and those 6 + kids will grow into fine farm hands

WWII is what really changed it all.. Young women found ways to get to town for real jobs and the young men went to war.. when they returned, their "thank you" benefits allowed them to move out on their own and marry whomever they wanted to.

many of the young women who did not marry, did manage on their own even if their good jobs went away as young men flooded back into the workplace... once they knew they could manage their own lives, they were able to choose their own future spouses..

[Puzzledtraveller]

6. k&r

[grahamhgreen]

7. Apparently, our close freinds in Saudi Arabia allow 1 year olds to be married:

There are no laws in Saudi Arabia defining the minimum age for marriage. Though a woman's consent is legally required, some marriage officials do not seek it. For example, a father can marry off a 1-year-old girl as long as sex is delayed until she reaches puberty, said one marriage official, Ahmad al-Muabi.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26042107/ns/world_news-mideast/n_africa/#.VEAxZeeMrgU

[geardaddy]

8. Chattel wives. n/t

[beam me up scottie]

10. Well at least they delay sex until the kid reaches puberty...

Can you imagine how horrible it must be for teenage mothers? Not only are they victims themselves, they know that their future daughters will be doomed to the same fate.

[grahamhgreen]

14. I can't understand why we are defending them from their own Frankenstein (ISIL).

[beam me up scottie]

16. Because muslim victims of religious crimes can't defend themselves?

[grahamhgreen]

25. No, I mean the kingdom.... defending the kingdom from ISIL seems absurd to me.

[beam me up scottie]

26. Oh, sorry. Gotcha.

I agree.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Oh, I'm sure it's Allah's will, though.

Fucking religion.

[hifiguy]

32. No matter how bad things ever get in North Korea

whoever is in charge can always say "We're not as bad as the Saudis" and be forever right. What a pestilential hellhole SA is.

[Demeter]

9. to tell the truth, I'm not too keen on Adult Marriage, either

Once burned....

[eggplant]

12. It's the #1 cause of divorce. n/t

[Demeter]

15. Thanks, I needed that!

[valerief]

13. That practice so, so, soooooo twisted. nt

[blm]

17. The Duck Dynasty crew will find this exciting

and the biblical thing to do.....according to their church.....of the poisoned mind.

[SoapBox]

27. K&R

[Le Taz Hot]

31. I had a student that was supposed to marry

a man her parents had chosen for her. She was in her 20's and the groom in his 30's and pretty wealthy. The family thought it was a great match. Her? Not so much. She was actually in love with someone else. She did her duty and went as far as to celebrate the engagement ceremony which was incredibly elaborate. She finished her credits to graduate but never picked up her diploma because she ended up running off with the guy she was actually in love with. She told me where she was going, gave me the address and warned me not to tell anyone that I even knew where she was as she was in fear for her life. I didn't, of course, even though her family called the institution and came down several times demanding to know where their daughter was. She told me point blank that if her family found her, they would kill her. Absolutely mind-numbing.

[Blue_Tires]

33. I knew a girl in my high school

whose parents gave her away in marriage when she was only 4...

Her parents were dirt poor and trying to emigrate to the U.S. from the Philippines, and they had to make a deal with some wealthy businessman to get their trip financed plus some start-up money...The agreement was the girl was to be sent back to him once she turned 18 to be 'officially' married...The girl found out about the arrangement at 16 because she was constantly grilling her parents about not allowing her to date anybody...

Luckily, her parents had thrived financially after coming here (Thank you, Clinton's economic boom era), so last I heard, they were negotiating some monetary agreement to pay off their debts...