Taliban Formally Recognizes Child Marriage

When faith rules the state.

The Taliban’s latest family law regulations in Afghanistan are a brutal reminder of what happens when Islam completely absorbs the state.

A newly introduced 31-page regulation titled Principles of Separation Between Spouses sets out rules governing marriage, divorce, adultery, and the treatment of women and girls. Most horrifyingly, it formally accepts marriages involving minors and establishes specific guidelines for “virgin girls.”

Under the regulation, a female child can be married to an adult man. The girl may later seek annulment only after “reaching puberty,” and even then only through a court order. The marriage can be arranged by relatives other than the father or grandfather, provided the groom is deemed “socially compatible” and the dowry acceptable.

One especially disturbing clause states that the silence of a “virgin girl” may be interpreted as consent to marriage. In other words, fear, confusion, or the inability of a child to object can legally be treated as agreement.

Afghanistan no longer has an official minimum marriage age after the Taliban rolled back the previous limit of 16 established following the 2001 Western intervention. The consequences are already visible. According to the organization Girls Not Brides, almost 10 percent of Afghan girls marry before the age of 15. A United Nations report published last year found that Taliban rule has contributed to a 25 percent rise in child and forced marriages.

The most grotesque example may also be the most revealing. Taliban authorities reportedly intervened when a 45-year-old man married a six-year-old girl. Yet even this was not condemned outright. Instead, the man was merely ordered to wait until the child turned nine before taking her home. That is the moral horizon of a regime governed by religious absolutism.

History repeatedly shows that no society becomes freer when priests, militants, or self-appointed guardians of faith gain total political control. Afghanistan is merely one of the clearest modern examples.

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