The Bride Price

In many societies, the term "child bride" calls to mind impetuous sweethearts, a ladder cautiously positioned beneath a bedroom window, a silent kiss in the moonlight and a young couple making an anxious getaway to a justice of the peace. But this is not a ready image the world over. In Afghanistan, a child bride is very often just that: a child, even a preteen, her innocence betrothed to someone older, even much, much older.

Rather than a willing union between a man and woman, marriage is frequently a transaction among families, and the younger the bride, the higher the price she may fetch. Girls are valuable workers in a land where survival is scratched from the grudging soil of a half-acre parcel. In her parents' home, a girl can till fields, tend livestock and cook meals. In her husband's home, she is more useful yet. She can have sex and bear children.

Afghanistan is not alone in this predilection toward early wedlock. Globally, the number of child brides is hard to tabulate; they live mostly in places where births, deaths and the human milestones in between go unrecorded. But there are estimates. About 1 in 7 girls in the developing world (excluding China) gets married before her 15th birthday, according to analyses done by the Population Council, an international research group.

In the huge Indian states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, the proportion is 36 percent; in Bangladesh, 37 percent; in northwest Nigeria, 48 percent; in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, 50 percent. Tens of millions of girls are having babies before their bodies are mature enough, increasing the likelihood of death from hemorrhaging, obstructed labor and other complications.

Stephanie Sinclair's striking photographs of child brides in Afghanistan remind me of my own travels over remote landscapes during the time of the Taliban, when recurring years of drought had parched the final resources from millions of the destitute. Fathers then were especially keen to convert their daughters into brides. It was a way to deliver the girl from hunger — and a way to at least temporarily ward off famine for the rest of the family. Young boys were sold into bondage with the same painful practicality. Rarely have I seen anything more heartbreaking than the tears of a relinquished child.

The drought has since passed, but the poverty remains, as does the widespread custom of early marriage. Some Afghans readily use their daughters to settle debts and assuage disputes. Polygamy is practiced. A man named Mohammed Fazal, 45, told Sinclair that village elders had urged him to take his second wife, 13-year-old Majabin, in lieu of money owed him by the girl's father. The two men had been gambling at cards while also ingesting opium and hashish.

But the practice of early marriage stems as much from entrenched culture as from financial need. Bridal virginity is a matter of honor. Afghan men want to marry virgins, and parents prefer to yield their daughters before misbehavior or abduction has brought the family shame and made any wedding impossible.

Unfortunately, there are no reliable data about the age of Afghans at marriage. Husbands are not ordinarily old enough to be their wives' fathers or grandfathers, but such February-September couples as those pictured here are hardly rare either. In such marriages, the man is likely to view the age difference as a fair bargain, his years of experience in exchange for her years of fecundity. At the same time, the girl's wishes are customarily disregarded. Her marriage will end her opportunities for schooling and independent work.

On the day she witnessed the engagement party of 11-year-old Ghulam Haider to 40-year-old Faiz Mohammed, Sinclair discreetly took the girl aside. "What are you feeling today?" the photographer asked. "Nothing," the bewildered girl answered. "I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?"

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Tipsy taboo

IT IS Ramadan, Islam’s holy month of fasting. But even now Suleiman, a Muslim hotel worker in the Turkish town of Antakya, sees no reason not to drink alcohol, widely considered by Muslim believers to be forbidden by the Koran and the Hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. “The Koran bans getting drunk, but a beer or two doesn’t hurt,” Suleiman says. “This is a matter between me and Allah.”

Centuries ago many of his co-religionists would have agreed (although not on the need for moderation). Historians believe alcohol originated in the Middle East. Indeed, the word may come from the Arabic al-kohl, eyeliner made by mixing distilled ethanol and antimony salts. Similar substances without the powder soon became popular drinks. Debauched nights in the courts of caliphates were enshrined in the khamriyaat, or odes to wine, by Abu Nuwas, an eighth-century poet.

That has long since changed. Nobody knows exactly when Islamic scholars decided that booze was sinful. In the 1970s political Islam led some countries such as Iran and Pakistan to ban alcohol (see table), although many do not and exceptions are made for non-Muslims. In some countries the punishment for Muslims caught quaffing are severe: 80 lashes in the case of Iran. Things may get more arid yet as Islamist parties from Indonesia to Tunisia moot restrictions on alcohol.

Prohibition has pushed imbibing behind closed doors, but many Muslims still admit to enjoying a tipple. How many people drink varies, but some put the total at 5% of those identifying themselves as Muslim. The black market for spirits flourishes in Libya. Iranians are adept at producing home brew. And in Pakistan “drinks can be ordered to the door quicker than pizza,” says Sadaqat Ali, who runs Willing Ways, a chain of clinics to treat alcoholics.

Drinking may even be on the rise, reckons Humphrey Serjeantson of IWSR, a London-based market-research firm. Between 2001 and 2011 sales of alcohol in the Middle East, where Muslims dominate, grew by 72%, against a global average of 30%. That rise is unlikely to be accounted for by non-Muslims and foreigners alone.

In some Muslim circles drinking is about status. Secular-minded Beirutis like to boast of Lebanon’s wineries. In the Gulf rich people serve imported spirits to impress their guests. Emulating the rich and famous—as well as coping with stress—accounts for a burgeoning drinking culture in Pakistan, says Dr Ali.

Could Islam become more tolerant of drinking? A handful of scholars permit alcohol as long as it is not made from grapes and dates, because these are specifically mentioned in the Koran. But nobody dares open the debate. “No religious scholar is ready to accept the consequences of a fatwa by now saying that beer, spirits, vodka are halal,” says Anas Aboshady, a scholar at the influential al-Azhar University in Cairo.

What is more, since the scrutiny of Islam in the wake of the September 11th 2001 attacks, piety has risen in some quarters. “For many Muslims, alcohol is a question of identity,” says Sami Zubaida, a sociologist at Birkbeck College in London. “Not drinking has become part of a backlash to decadence in the West, where alcohol is associated with loose living.”

Yet Muslim countries will have to face reality. In June health officials in Iran warned of rising numbers of alcoholics and drink-drivers. Since Dr Ali set up Willing Ways in 1980, he has treated hundreds of the 1m Pakistanis he estimates are alcoholics, including judges, politicians and sportsmen. “Most aren’t keen to seek treatment because drinking is still taboo,” he says. “We need to change that.”