Marriage of underage girls in Morocco: A typological study of adult husbands

Marriage of underage girls persists in Morocco. While article 19 of the Family Code states that girls become marriageable at the age of 18, article 20 of the Code allows the family judge - who is responsible for marriage - to authorise the marriage of minors under certain conditions. In 2022, 13,652 requests for marriage of underage girls were accepted, i.e. more than 70% of all requests. Moreover, this figure does not take into account religious marriages, which are still numerous and difficult to count.

The persistence of these marriages leads us to ask the following question: What factors encourage the marriage of underage girls in Morocco? On the one hand, the analysis of socio-economic factors seems relevant insofar as certain social norms and certain economic situations, such as access to education, can favour these marriages. The question that then arises is as follows: What socio-economic factors favour the marriage of under-age girls in Morocco?

On the other hand, customs, cultural practices and interpretations of the Muslim religion are in many cases at the root of these marriages. The question is therefore as follows: What cultural and religious factors encourage the marriage of under-age girls in Morocco?

Finally, the legal system contains laws and loopholes that make the marriage of under-age girls possible. This leads us to ask the following question: To what extent does the legal system encourage the marriage of under-age girls in Morocco?

This research is part of an intersectional feminist materialist theoretical framework and is essentially based on Collette Guillaumin's theory of appropriation. In the context of this research, the marriage of under-age girls is seen as a relationship of domination and a socially and historically constructed fact. As a result, the marriage of under-age girls will be studied primarily from the perspective of the dominant group, i.e. the adult men who marry the under-age girls.

This research is based essentially on individual interviews with adult men who have married under-age girls. The aim is to determine the factors that encourage these men to marry under-age girls and to come up with ideotypes of these husbands. These individual interviews will be combined with participant observation in the field in order to detect the practices and discourses that have the effect of keeping underage girls in subordinate positions and that push them to marry at an underage age. This study is taking place in the rural communes of the High Atlas, which are the regions most affected by the marriage of under-age girls.

All the studies carried out on the marriage of under-age girls are unanimous on the dangers of this practice and its consequences for under-age girls and their children. Yet this phenomenon persists in Morocco despite numerous efforts by the government and civil society. However, all the research carried out to date on the factors that encourage the marriage of under-age girls in Morocco focuses on under-age girls and their families, and does not take into account the husbands who are of age. All the efforts made to combat these marriages therefore completely neglect the husbands, who remain the main players in these marriages. This research will not only shed light on the factors that encourage the marriage of under-age girls in Morocco, but also create ideotypes of adult husbands who marry under-age girls. This will enable us to sharpen our interventions to put an end to this phenomenon by taking into consideration the husbands who remain the main protagonists in the marriages of under-age girls.