JEDDAH, 21 September 2005 — It’s not uncommon to find old men marrying young girls. Despite age gaps of 30 or 40 years or more between the two spouses, some men expect it in their old age.

One extreme case of such a marriage involved a 15-year-old girl being married off to a man more than 100 in Jizan. For honeymoon they came to Jeddah. In another case, a man above 60 married an 11-year-old girl.

Saudi Arabia has no legal age for marriage, making it legal for a girl of any age to get married to man of any age. There is little the authorities can do to protect a young girl from being married off by her family unless they are directly asked to intervene.

Lawyer Mohammed Jabir Nader said only a Shariah court judge can overrule a marriage with a big age gap. Police can’t get involved, and cradle-robbing husbands supposedly aren’t doing anything wrong.

In most cases, these young girls are forced to get married. They are young and unprepared to go against their parents’ wishes.

“Forced marriage is against Islamic law,” said Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, “and those responsible for it should be jailed.” Yet there is no one to protect young girls from being married off unless the girls protest formally.

Girls may protest such marriages on grounds of kafa’ah (compatibility), Nader said. A husband and wife must be compatible in age, education, social upbringing and wealth. When spouses feel they are not compatible then they have the right to protest the marriage. “These are the grounds a young girl can take if she wants to get out of a forced marriage or a marriage with a large age gap,” said Nader.

It’s often a matter of money. The family of a young bride needs money and is willing to bail themselves out by marrying a girl child to a rich man in exchange for a big dowry.

“Money is the main factor that pushes older men to marry young girls,” said Salwa Hussein Badawi, vice president of the Women’s Supervising Office of Social Affairs in the Makkah region. “When men get to a certain age, they want to use that money and power. For many that means showing off a young beautiful bride.”

One such case involved a 17-year-old married to a man in his 70s. The father agreed to the marriage because the husband provided a dowry of SR100,000 and a 400-square meter plot of land in exchange for the daughter’s hand in marriage.

“There are many cases of this sort going on in the Kingdom, especially in the Southern region,” said Badawi.

The problem of men wanting young girls for marriage also lies in traditional practices. Parents who have been raised in that tradition assume their forefathers must have been right.

Social position is another reason that men choose to marry younger women. Men feel that their social status will change if they have a young wife to flaunt, Badawi said.

Fawziya, a woman now in her late 40s, was married before she turned 14 to a man in his late 20s. Her father had died when she was younger, and her mother felt marriage was the only answer.

“I wanted to get married,” Fawziya said. “I was too young to know any better. I thought I’d have a better life if I was married than if I wasn’t.”

She is still married to her husband, and they’ve had four children. They also have six grandchildren. “I am content with what I have now,” she said. “Still, I do at times regret being married so young.”

But the custom of marrying children off remains despite its questionable legality and conflicts with the tenets of Islam, prompting some to wonder if in this modern age it’s a tradition that should be relegated to the history books.