The Lived Experience of Early Marriage in Jordan: The Perspective of Adolescent Girls and Young Women

Child or early marriage, primarily due to cultural factors, continues as a tradition and seems to be a growing phenomenon in Jordan. This research explores the lived experience of early marriage from the perspective of adolescent girls and young women. A qualitative research design and in-depth face-to-face interviews in the Arabic language were conducted with 36 female subjects, married before the age of 18 and all newlyweds, married for less than 3 years. Six major themes emerged from the interviews to describe the experience of the participants: Feeling remorse about getting married early; Loss of authority and feeling powerless; Reasons behind early marriage; Feeling pressure to have the first baby; Early marriage and pregnancy health consequences; and The positive aspects of an early marriage. The lived experience revealed in this study confirm the overall negative effect of girls entering marriage at a young age, Early marriage is a violation of human rights, and robs girls of their childhood, education, work, and other life choices, in addition to the reported adverse psychological and physical effects.

Automated summary

The study shows that early marriage has brought many negative impacts to females, including feelings of regret, loss of authority, pressure, and health consequences. Early marriage violates women's rights and deprives them of their childhood and various life choices.