Egyptian cleric involved in new constitution wants girls to marry at 14

@Ivan: Yeah, Shakespear had a pair of star-crossed lovers who were probably only 14 each.
BUT……In the 16th century, the lifespan was MUCH shorter than it is today.
The average lifespan of an adult male was 47 years, while the life expectancy of people in London was 35 years for the richer ones, and only 25 years for the less affluent ones.
Death in infancy or early childhood was common, with about 40% of the population dying before their middle teenage years.

The whole of human history before the 20th century was 1st you were a baby, then, when you could talk, a child.
Then you hit puberty and became an adult.

The whole concept of ”adolescence” is man-made.
And, to be fair to Ivan, infantalzing of our youth paved the way for a paternalistic Obama to say, stay at home on mommy and daddy’s insurance until you are 26, and our ”youth” to accept it!

However, Islamic leaders in Sharia countries never came out from the 7th century.
They are not interested in allowing females to grow up or ever think for themselves.
For instance:
Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: “Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed.”

The Ayatollah Khomeini married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight and called marriage to a prepubescent girl “a divine blessing.” He advised the faithful: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.”

More recently: (in 2012) Saudi Arabia‘s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh, okayed marriage for girls starting at age 10 and criticized those who want to raise the legal marriageable age, according to news reports.
The Saudi National Human Rights Association (NHRA) stressed that underage marriages are a breach of several United Nations treaties including the Child Rights Treaty, which Saudi signed in 1996 and the Treaty for the Rights of Women that the kingdom joined in 2000.

Back in April this lowering the age for Egyptian girls to be married was part of a package deal whereby men could also have sex with their dead wife’s body for a number of hours after she died.

But most importantly to females is the right to divorce which is pretty much non-existent in Sharia states.
Even in semi-sharia states a women might be hunted down and ”honor killed” for divorcing her husband.
Meanwhile a man may divorce his wife simply by saying, or texting, ”I divorce you,” three times to her.
I think the inequality of the two situations is the real troublesome part.