Anjali Menon
Each year, 15 million girls around the world are married before their 18th birthday (Laoiza & Wong, 2012; Roest, 2016). Globally, there are currently 720 million women who were married as children or adolescents, and more than a third of these women were younger than 15 years old on their wedding day (Laoiza & Wong, 2012; Roest, 2016). Child marriage – defined as marriage before the age of 18 – is not only a child and human rights violation (United Nations Population Fund, 2018), but is also the source of trauma for many girls and women (Chaudhuri, 2015; Nour, 2006; Roest, 2016).
Trauma is often understood as an emotional response to an event or circumstance that is deeply distressing (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The experience might be life threatening, or one that seriously violates an individual’s integrity as a human being and threatens the their trust in how the world works, how relationships should operate, and the extent to which they can trust people around her (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Chaudhuri, 2015; Roest, 2016). Experiencing trauma often leads to the development of a number of disorders, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, adjustment disorders, and other attachment and anxiety disorders, and has a high comorbidity rate with mood disorders such as Major Depressive Disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Child marriage can be traumatizing in multiple ways – it removes school-aged girls from a developmentally appropriate environment, interrupting healthy adolescent development, and forcing the child bride into adult responsibilities such as childbearing and other domestic duties far before she is ready (Chaudhuri, 2015; Nour, 2006; Roest, 2016). However, one particularly deleterious form of trauma for child brides is their increased likelihood of experiencing intimate Partner Violence (IPV; Garcia-Moreno, Guedes, & Knerr., 2012; Parsons et al., 2015). Although IPV spans physical, emotional, and verbal abuse, recent findings suggest that sexual IPV is one of the most under-researched yet psychologically harmful forms of IPV that child brides experience (Kamimura, Ganta, Myers, & Thomas, 2015). As such, this literature review selectively focused on child brides’ experiences of sexual IPV.
Moreover, while sexual IPV in child marriage is a global problem, almost half of all child brides live in South Asia, and of these girls, a third of them live in India, mostly in rural villages (Laoiza & Wong, 2012). Furthermore, rates of IPV are particularly high for young brides in India (Garcia-Moreno et al., 2012; Parsons et al., 2015). Given the high prevalence of sexual IPV among child brides in India, this literature review examined the societal and interpersonal mechanisms through which sexual IPV is traumatic for Indian child brides in India.
Child Marriage in India
There are several cultural and contextual factors that heighten the risk for IPV among Indian child brides (Roest, 2016). Culturally, much of Indian society associates the onset of puberty and menarche, as well as the development of secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts, with a girl’s readiness for marriage (Chaudhuri, 2015; Roest, 2016). Furthermore, this assumed readiness for marriage is associated with an equally strong expectation of subsequent childrearing; a wife who does not produce children quite early on in the marriage is likely to be shunned as an outcast (Chaudhuri, 2015; Jejeebhoy, Shah, & Thapa, 2005; Nour, 2006; Roest, 2016). These cultural associations, in turn, produce an environment in which sexual intercourse is expected of married girls, even at a young age (Chaudhuri, 2015; Roest, 2016), thus increasing their likelihood of experiencing IPV-related trauma.
Before examining experiences of trauma among child brides in India, however, it is important to note that existing research surrounding trauma has been completed through a Western lens and on a Western population (Wilson & So-Kum Tang, 2007). Notably, though, while terms such as “rape” and “trauma” are not used in communities in India, findings from in-depth interviews indicate that the experiences of child brides are consistent with Western definitions of trauma (Chandra, Satyanarayana, & Carey, 2009; Jejeebhoy et al., 2005). In these interviews, girls report crying, screaming, and begging for the sex to stop, and talk about not having their wishes honored or their needs accommodated. They recall the encounters being so painful that they fainted during the act and had nightmares afterwards. They describe being pushed down to the bed and having men tell them it does not matter whether the girl wants it or not, as they have to oblige to their husband’s wishes (Jejeebhoy et al., 2005). With regard to mental health symptomatology as a result of sexual IPV, many of these girls report intrusive thoughts about the sexually traumatic experiences they endured, poor concentration, flashbacks, irritability, nightmares, hyperarousal (Chandra et al., 2009), intense sadness, and hopelessness about themselves and their future in the marriage (Chaudhuri, 2015). These symptoms are largely in line with how most of Western psychiatry characterizes depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, thus exemplifying the deep psychological burden of sexual IPV among Indian child brides.
Interpersonal Mechanisms of IPV-Related Trauma
These symptoms occur due to several specific reasons and mechanisms. Foremost, many Indian women who were married as children report being unaware of sex prior to marriage, and were forced into sex by their husbands (Chaudhuri, 2015; Jejeebhoy et al. 2015). Additionally, more than 47% of child brides say they did not know their partners before wedding day, suggesting that sexual violence is oftentimes perpetrated by someone completely unfamiliar to the child bride (Chaudhuri, 2015; Jejeebhoy et al., 2015). This lack of familiarity is compounded by the girl’s unfamiliarity with sex, and in turn produces severely traumatizing effects on the girl’s mental health (Roest, 2016). Her husband is thus established as someone who violates the girl’s autonomy and trust from the very beginning (Jejeebhoy et al., 2005), which is problematic given that the negative outcomes of IPV are worse among when victims have a low sense of autonomy (Calvete, Estévez, & Corral, 2007).
Another major mechanism behind the trauma associated with sexual IPV is the stark age differential between child brides and their husbands. Husbands of child brides in India are an average of 7.3 years older than the girls themselves (Jejeebhoy et al., 2005), with 12% of girls being married to men who are at least 12 years older (Roest, 2016). This often means that young girls have very low negotiating power with regards to how decisions are made in the household, including what is done to their bodies in a sexual context, because of how much younger they are than their husbands and the greater degree of power given to older men in the family unit (Chaudhuri, 2015). Child brides have very little autonomy over how often they have sex, what kind of sex they have, and whether they use protection. In fact, research suggests that only 21% of child brides report using contraception, as opposed to 61% of Indian women who were married after reaching 15 years of age and who have more agency in negotiating contraception use given their older age (Chaudhuri, 2015). The child bride’s inability to make decisions about contraceptive use can be traumatic because unprotected sex – when one party does not understand the possible consequences, or has requested to use protection – is considered rape, as true informed and ongoing consent has not been given by both parties.
Societal Mechanisms of IPV-related trauma
Moreover, there are several external factors (i.e.,
beyond the child and her husband), that perpetuate traumatic experiences for child brides. For many survivors of intimate partner sexual violence, marital rape is socially sanctioned by community members (Chaudhuri, 2015; Jejeebhoy et al., 2005).
When girls go to older women in the community seeking support about the feelings they experience after IPV, their own family members (e.g., grandmothers and aunts), often tell them that
their experiences are normal, and that they must accept them as part of their married life (Chaudhuri, 2015). Such statements invalidate the post-traumatic feelings these girls experience, while also sanctioning and normalizing the violence that the girls endure (Chaudhuri, 2015). In fact, research suggests that young women with higher social support are less likely to experience sexual IPV (Kapadia, Saleem, & Karim, 2010), indicating that the
lack of support that many child brides receive might be a particularly important factor in perpetuating their experiences of trauma.
Furthermore, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse
does not end with the girl’s husband. Many brides report some level of abuse from their in-laws, such as receiving beatings from their mothers-in-law for not performing domestic duties to a certain standard, even while the girls are with child (Sahoo,
2014). This abuse at the hands of second parties other than the girl’s husband is particularly common for widow brides, who face a host of retraumatizing life circumstances even after their first marriages end (Kamimura et al., 2015; Pandey, 2014). For example, young widow brides are particularly common in India, given that child brides’ husbands tend to be much older than the girl (Sahoo, 2014). Though one might expect that being widowed would free a child from her husband’s abuse, these women still often experience social restrictions and forms of violence even after their husbands have passed. Widows are socially expected to publicly mourn their husbands for the rest of their lives through everyday choices like clothing and food. Many stay away from foods like onion and garlic that are thought to fuel sexual energy, as they can no longer be seen as sexual beings after their husbands die, without experiencing shame and humiliation; many also avoid wearing bright clothing, as it would be seen as a sign of disrespect to her late husband (Sahoo, 2014). Given that widowhood is seen as a form of social death, some widows are forced by their relatives to marry their husband’s brothers or cousins in order to maintain their social status as a married woman, rather than an a widowed outcast (Sahoo, 2014). The cycle of IPV often continues with these new partners, rendering the girl’s first marriage as the first of many traumatic episodes throughout her lifetime (Sahoo, 2014).
Conclusion
While the consequences of early marriage for Indian girls are often examined with regard to physical health, sexual and psychological health often remain overlooked (Chaudhuri, 2015; Jejeebhoy et al., 2005; Nour, 2006; Roest, 2016). In addition, few have investigated the psychological burden of child marriage (Nour, 2006; Roest, 2016), and the role of IPV as one of the many factors that make child marriage traumatizing for millions of people across the globe (Jejeeboy et al., 2005). Thus, a nuanced and culturally sensitive approach that takes into account the complexities of rural Indian society, and the ways in which trauma is not only initially experienced, but how it is sanctioned, normalized, and perpetuated for young girls (Jejeeboy et al., 2005), is integral in mitigating the negative effects of sexual IPV on Indian child brides.
Future research and intervention efforts must be
mindful of the fact that child marriage often occurs because girls and their parents living in deep poverty see marriage as a channel for upward mobility (Jejeeboy et al., 2005), especially when girls marry outside of their caste (Roest, 2016). Thus,
while the bulk of the interventions addressing child marriage to date have attempted to prevent such marriages from occurring, these interventions are often unsuccessful because of the deeply ingrained cultural and economic factors that perpetuate child
marriage. Therefore, further research should seek to better understand the psychological impact of marriage on young Indian girls, as well as how to build resilience in girls and women who experience IPV-related trauma (Jejeeboy et al., 2005).
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