Why marry early? Parental influence, agency and gendered conflict in Tanzanian marriages

Abstract

Global health interventions increasingly target the abolishment of 'child marriage' (marriage under 18 years, hereafter referred to as 'early marriage'). Guided by human behavioural ecology theory, and drawing on focus groups and in-depth interviews in an urbanising Tanzanian community where female early marriage is normative, we examine the common assumption that it is driven by the interests and coercive actions of parents and/or men. We find limited support for parent-offspring conflict. Parents often encouraged early marriages, but were motivated by the promise of social and economic security for daughters, rather than bridewealth transfers alone. Moreover, forced marriage appears rare, and adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) were active agents in the transition to marriage, sometimes marrying against parental wishes. Support for gendered conflict was stronger. AGYW were described as being lured into unstable relationships by men misrepresenting their long-term intentions. Community members voiced concerns over these marriages. Overall, early marriage appears rooted in limited options, encouraging strategic, but risky choices on the marriage market. Our results highlight plurality and context dependency in drivers of early marriage, even within a single community. We conclude that engaging with the importance of context is fundamental in forging culturally sensitive policies and programs on early marriage.

Keywords: Sexual conflict; bridewealth; child marriage; human behavioural ecology; parent–offspring conflict.

Graphical abstract

Figure 1.

Who benefits from early marriage? Venn diagram illustrating the interests of adolescent girls and young women (AGYW), their parents and husbands following marriage. We conclude that early marriage of AGYW occurs under a range of scenarios in this setting (indicated by the letters A–D), but that early marriage always serves the interests of the husband (within the blue circle). In some of these cases, an AGYW and her parents also benefit (scenario A, where all circles overlap). In other cases, parent–offspring and/or gendered conflict are implicated, with marriage coming at a cost to the AGYW (scenario B), both the AGYW and her parents (scenario C) or just the parents (scenario D). Further complexity can be added by recognising that the wellbeing consequences and fitness consequences (i.e. production of descendants) may not overlap, such as when marriage is costly for the wellbeing of AGYW, but leads to higher reproductive success.

Figure 2.

Women walking in the Mwanza region, Tanzania. We estimate that approximately one third of adolescent girls and young women marry under 18 years in the study area, meeting the definition of ‘child marriage’. Image credit: Susan Schaffnit.