Exploring the Far-Reaching Consequences of Early Marriage on Children

This essay examines the detrimental effects of early marriage on children, highlighting the various social, economic, and health-related consequences. It discusses how children born to adolescent parents often face numerous challenges, including physical and mental health issues, malnutrition, and developmental delays. The essay also explores the impact on the teen parents themselves, who may lack the maturity and resources to properly care for their children, leading to harsh parenting and further social inequalities. Furthermore, the analysis extends to the broader societal implications, emphasizing the need for legal reforms and increased awareness to prevent early marriages and protect the well-being of children. The essay references studies and reports from organizations like the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and Girls Not Brides to support its arguments and underscore the urgency of addressing this global issue. Desklib provides this essay as a resource for students, offering access to similar solved assignments and essays.

Impact of Early
Marriage on Children
Running Head: LAW OF BUSINESS ORGANISATION 0
Student’s Name
Corporate Culture

Impact of Early Marriage 1
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Impacts of Early marriage...............................................................................................................2
Impact to the Child.......................................................................................................................2
Impact to the Parents....................................................................................................................5
Additional Learning:-......................................................................................................................6
Documentary available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4v3vq5-z8Y...........................6
Documentary available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGny2EabhvM.......................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

Impact of Early Marriage 2
Introduction
Marriage in early age is a danger for everyone related thereto. People who get married in early
age have to face many of the issue. Further, this does not only affect the person who gets married
in early age, but in addition to this also has adverse impact on society as well (Girls not Brides,
2018). Most of the nations are facing these issues but in Kuwait there many of the related case
are reported frequently.
Teenage Marriage or Marriage in early age has only negative impacts, and for this reason this
may be treated as a social evil. As in such kind of marriage, both of the person i.e. girl and boy
are physically and mentally immature; they are not ready for having a child (Islam, 2012). Such
babies born very week in comparison to normal babies. In addition to this, such marriage has
also it is negative impacts on other factors such as education, finance and quality of life (Plan
international, 2018).
Impacts of Early marriage
Impact to the Child
Children born to adolescent parents have health issues throughout their live. A girl, who get
pregnant in teenage cannot give birth to a healthy baby. In teenage, there are many changes
happen to a human body. In such circumstances one cannot expect to have a baby in her womb.
Lack of proper nutrition is also a major issues, this is the reason why doctors recommend parents
to plan a baby later on. This is very general understanding that it is not possible for an unhealthy
mother to give birth to a healthy child.

Impact of Early Marriage 3
According to world health organization, in Kuwait, in year 2016 there were only 9 mothers on
1000, who were minor. In year 1960, this number was 165 per 1000 (World Bank, 2018). Such
pregnancy from teenage marriages is one of the leading reasons of death of child during the first
one or two years of their birth. Teenage marriage is one of the leading reasons. Although, due to
awareness and adverse results of adolescent pregnancies, this issue is decreasing year by year but
still it is present in a very dangerous number.
This will be wrong to state that adolescent or teenage marriage only affects parents but also,
child from these marriages also faces issues. Such children along with physical, faces several
mental issues. Such children are under developed and usually become victim of malnutrition; and
their brain also remain undeveloped (World Health Organization, 2018).
Teen Parents are usually children themselves. They have not a developed and matured mind. In
addition to this they also do not know that how to up bring a child properly. It is reviewed and
noted in case of teenage marriages that pregnancy causes thereafter are unplanned often. In such
situation, these parents use way of harsh parenting. They get irritate soon and start yelling and
spanking to baby.
In case of a new born child, teen parents are not aware with their responsibilities towards such
child and they also are unaware about the caring requirements of the same. There are also some
other factors like financial issues, education drop out and unnecessary expectations of society in
adolescent marriages, which increase level of frustration and anger of teen parents. Teen parents
become mad at their child as they cannot control their emotional issues and such child become
victim of physical and mental harassment by their parents.

Impact of Early Marriage 4
Further, according to one of the report issued by The Urban Child Institute, children from teen
marriages have more health problems during their life cycle, due to social inequality and
financial issues of their teen parents, they are forced to drop out school and at the end somewhere
they are also likely to become teen parent (The urban child institute, 2014).
There is no doubt in stating that child to a teen mother is usually born unhealthy and even after
his/her birth the health conditions remain the same. The reason behind this is that teen mothers
are unhealthy herself (Unicef, 2018). They cannot give proper nutrition to her child. But here it is
also necessary to know that what others issue such child has to face. Child born to a minor
mother has to face many of other issues than to only physical one.
A child from teen marriage has to experience a whole range of problems. Since such child has
poor health and also his/her parents cannot afford services of a good hospital, he/she has to rely
upon public health centers, which does not provide good quality services. Due to financial and
social issues, this child has lower educational achievements. Being less educated, he/she
becomes fail to get a qualitative employment, which gives birth to further more problems.
As earlier mentioned, teen parents behave in an ethical manner with their child, such child has
developed behavior problems with him/her. They always remain in search of emotional support
and when they cannot get the same, the same turns into unsocial elements. They start to face
such frustration on daily basis and sometimes turn into criminal. They also have to face social
issues when they do not get equal treatment from surrounding. Many of the times it has observed
that such child in their teenage give birth to a child i.e. become teen parent (Youth.Gov, 2018).

Impact of Early Marriage 5
Impact to the Parents
Adolescent marriages are a dangerous challenge to society. Such marriages can be results of
immaturity of teenagers or can be the consequence of sense less social factors. Because of the
immaturity of teenagers such marriages results the cases of separations and divorce
(Reachout.com, 2018). Teenage marriages has it is social, economic, psychological and health
related effects. Being teenagers, such couples do not have proper sex knowledge and they
practice sex at very young age. Pregnancy from early marriages has huge harmful impacts.
During teenage, body of a girl does not allow her to get pregnant and to carry a baby (Healthline,
2018). According to National Institutes of Health, in a teenage pregnancy there is a risk to have
diseases like preeclampsia, anemia and pre-mature delivery. It is not expected from a teenage
mother to give birth to a healthy child (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, 2018).
Pregnancy due to early marriage is bug threat for the health of mother and child. It also gives rise
to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and HPV infection. Girls under 15 are more likely to
die in childbirth five times more in comparison to an adult mother (International Women’s
Health Coalition, 2018).

Impact of Early Marriage 6
Additional Learning:-
Documentary available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4v3vq5-z8Y
After watching aforesaid documentary made on the subject “Effect of Child Marriage”, it may
state that early marriage has many adverse impacts and this need to be stop as soon as possible.
Many of the time people say that this cannot be stop as this is a tradition but it seems not be a
tradition. It is simply a practice which people follows blindly without knowing the impacts.
Further, if the same is tradition then also this need to be stops. Teenage marriages carry poverty
and carry forward the same to next generations. It has come to know that mostly teenage
marriages happen due to inherent reasons. To stop a social evil like teenage or early marriage,
the said chain needs to be brake. For this amendments in law are required. Not only Girls but
every person in the society needs to understand the requirement to stop early Marriages.
Documentary available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGny2EabhvM
It has come to light after watching the aforementioned documentary that globally 25000 girls get
married per day and 10 million over year. It is not necessary in an early marriage that girl and
boy both is teenager. In many of the case, girls had to get marry to a matured and old man. Such
kind of marriages brings more negative impacts. In this marriage due to huge age difference
between bride and groom, their thinking does not match. In many of the cases, people forced
their daughter to an old man without her will and later on she has forced to get pregnant at very
low age like 14-16 years. In some if the cases, girls were child herself, yet they got pregnant and
died during their pregnancy or at the time of childbirth. Early marriage also put psychological

Impact of Early Marriage 7
impact on girl’s mind and they start to feel fear from every aspect of society. It also happens
when a girl see another one suffering from dangers impacts of early marriage.
Conclusion
To conclude the topic studies, it may state that early marriage is a curse for the society. It is one
of the major issues that need to be resolve at earliest. There are many of the problems occur due
to early marriages such as poverty, undulation and unhealthy pregnancies. Unhealthy and
immature pregnancy is the most dangerous impact of early marriage. In teenage, physical
structure of a girl does not allow her to get pregnant. Children who take birth due to early
marriage are often born light weighted and faces so many health and other issues during their life
cycles. In the recent era, it is necessary to update more laws in order to prevent early marriages.
References
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2018)
What are the factors that put a pregnancy at risk? [online] Available from:
https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/high-risk/conditioninfo/factors#f12 [Accessed on
03.06.18]
Girls not Brides. (2018) What is the impact of Child Marriage? [online] Available from:
https://www.girlsnotbrides.org/what-is-the-impact/ [Accessed on 03.06.18]

Impact of Early Marriage 8
Healthline. (2018) What Are the Effects of Teenage Pregnancy? [online] Available from:
https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/teenage-pregnancy-effects [Accessed on 03.06.18]
International Women’s Health Coalition. (2018) The Facts on Child Marriage. [online]
Available from: https://iwhc.org/resources/facts-child-marriage/ [Accessed on 03.06.18]
Islam, M. M. (2012) Effects of consanguineous marriage on reproductive behaviour, adverse
pregnancy outcomes and offspring mortality in Oman. Annals of Human Biology, 40(3), pp 243-
255. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3109/03014460.2012.760649
Plan international. (2018) Child Marriage. [online] Available from: https://plan-
international.org/sexual-health/child-early-forced-marriage [Accessed on 03.06.18]
Reachout.com. (2018) Make separation or divorce easier on your teenager. [online] Available
from: https://parents.au.reachout.com/common-concerns/everyday-issues/things-to-try-family-
conflict/make-separation-or-divorce-easier-on-your-teenager [Accessed on 03.06.18]
The urban child institute. (2014) How Adolescent Parenting Affects Children, Families, and
Communities. [online] Available from:
http://www.urbanchildinstitute.org/articles/editorials/how-adolescent-parenting-affects-children-
families-and-communities [Accessed on 03.06.18]
Unicef. (2018) Child Protection from violence, exploitation and abuse. [online] Available from:
https://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58008.html [Accessed on 03.06.18]
World Bank. (2018) Adolescent fertility rate (births per 1,000 women ages 15-19). [online]
Available from: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.ADO.TFRT [Accessed on 03.06.18]

Impact of Early Marriage 9
World Health Organization. (2018) Adolescent pregnancy. [online] Available from:
http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-pregnancy [Accessed on 03.06.18]
Youth.Gov. (2018) Adverse Effects. [online] Available from:
https://youth.gov/youth-topics/pregnancy-prevention/adverse-effects-teen-pregnancy [Accessed
on 03.06.18]