Child Bride

Not long ago, an Egyptian court refused to officiate a marriage contract between an Arab, a 92 year old millionaire from Saudi Arabia, and an Egyptian girl of 17, for the huge age difference of 75 years. The Egyptian law established that age for marriage between a national and a foreigner should not be more than 25 years. Unless - so there's a way around that; unless the future husband deposits a substantial sum of money in a bank account under the name of the wife to be. That makes my busy mind wonder whether this law also applies to the marriage of 2 nationals.

The law was so established, apparently, because a great number of men from the Arabic country regularly go to Egypt to seek out young brides. The why of this was not explained. Feminists classified this as prostitution.

During one of my several trips to India, for fashion assignments or pleasure, I met a young local girl during a photo-section. She was amongst the dozen or so other villagers following us, me and the photographer, to watch the fashion shoot. She was so very beautiful I couldn't keep my eyes off her. Very sweet too, each time our eyes met, she would give me the brightest smile. During one of the pauses, while the photographer was busy scowling for another ideal spot, I asked her whether she would like to have a picture taken with me. She said yes happily. Then, out of a blue, she proudly told me she was going to get married in 3 days. Three days? She looked no more than 12 or 13! Yes, she said she was 12. That was in Mumbai (Bombay in the past) Her intended was 16.

Mercifully not any more nowadays, but in the old China, same as in India, teen marriage were common. I have heard of tales, likely facts, that some baby girls, one or 2 years old, were 'married' off to the young groom's family, and it was not unusual to see a 'husband' of 10 or 12 years old, carrying his baby bride, piggy-back fashion, and occasionally complaining that the 'wife' had wet his back.

These marriages were often because the girl's family was very poor, and the boy's much better off. There would be a marriage ceremony when the new bride was fetched over, as an announcement to everyone, relatives and friends. The children/couple were raised together until they were of age, in those days, 16 years old. Then there would be another ceremony and a grand feast to officiate the consummation of the marriage. Trust the Chinese, any excuse for a feast.

But old man of 92 marrying a teenager was unheard of. Chinese males are too proud to be labelled dirty old man. There are no more teen marriages in China either. In fact quite the contrary, nobody seems to want to get married till after 25 for girls and 28 or 30 for men apparently. They are all very career minded now, too busy building up a future and enjoying their freedom and the new found prosperity.


Tags:ChildBride,Arabia,Egypt,India,China

• Current Mood: awake

Some Mothers Do Have Them!

• Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets. I asked for a half dozen nuggets. "We don't have half dozen nuggets," said the teenage girl at the counter. "You don't?" I replied. "We only have six, nine, or twelve," was the reply. "So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?" "That's right." So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets
• Checking out at the local Wal-Mart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine. I picked up one of those "dividers" that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the "divider", looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. Not finding the bar code she said to me, "Do you know how much this is?" I said to her "I've changed my mind, I don't think I'll buy that today." She said "OK," and I paid her for the things and left. She had no clue to what had just happened.
• A lady at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM "thingy."
• I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. "Do you need some help?" I asked. She replied, "I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?" "Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm, too?" I asked. "No, just this remote thingy," she answered, handing it and the car keys to me. As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries. It's a long walk."
• Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?" "Just use copier machine paper," the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five "blank" copies.
• I was in a car dealership a while ago, when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in "Twister." I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the "cruise control" and then went in the back to make a sandwich.
• My neighbour works in the operations department in the central office of a large bank. Employees in the field call him when they have problems with their computers. One night he got a call from a woman in one of the branch banks who had this question: "I've got smoke coming from the back of my terminal. Do you guys have a fire downtown?"
• Police in Radnor, Pa, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.
• A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid was eating ants. The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and it should be fine, the mother says: " I just gave him some ant killer... " Dispatcher: " Rush him in to emergency room! "

Life is tough. It's tougher if you're stupid

Tags:stupidity,femalelogic

• Current Mood: amused