Marriage
Women may legally marry at age 18 and men at age 21. The marriage code allows girls under age 15 to marry with parental consent or special permission from a judge. Women's rights organizations have opposed this provision as contradicting international conventions that protect children through the age of 18. Underage marriage is a problem throughout the country with parents in some cases arranging marriages for girls as young as nine. A Malian NGO reported that at least 10 girls-—some below the age of 13—-lost their lives between 2005 and May 2007 because of medical complications resulting from early marriage. Medical specialists have noted that child brides were often the victims of Female genital mutilation, which exacerbates the possibility of complications from infection and childbirth.
Read more about this topic: Women In Mali
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“Let a man do what he will by a single woman, the world is encouragingly apt to think Marriage a sufficient amends.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“What is marriage, is marriage protection or religion, is marriage renunciation or abundance, is marriage a stepping-stone or an end. What is marriage.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“We lov’d, and we lov’d, as long as we could,
Till our love was lov’d out in us both;
But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:
‘Twas pleasure first made it an oath.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)