The History of Sex: Istanbul -- Islam's Model Child Bride -- (Chap. II, Pt. 16)

For traditionalists, the Prophet's marriage to a child bride also serves as a potent role model, Mehmet says.

'Many families give their daughters to older men when they're young. I've heard people say, "Aisha married when she was nine, so thirteen is fine for her."'

A 40-year-old groom poses next to his 11-year-old bride in Afghanistan
(photo by Stephanie Sinclair)

Even if the man is much older. 'When they come together on their wedding night, the girl is crying and shaking. For her, sex is a torture. It's kind of like rape.'

Traditionally, the newlyweds also have sex on a special piece of cloth to prove that her hymen is intact. 'If there's no blood, sometimes they send her back and say she is not a virgin.'

And thanks to mass migration from the countryside—encouraged by Muslim hardliners—this isn't just a rural problem.

Mehmet knows a family in Ankara, the capital, where the bride failed to bleed on her wedding night.

After their first night together, the groom wanted to send her back to her parents—a potentially lethal move.

However, the woman swore that she'd been a virgin, so both sides agreed to seek an expert opinion: 'Three people went to the doctor with her.'

A SMART MAN

The physician examined the bride and told her inlaws that she had a very deep hymen, which was why it hadn't broken.

'But if her hymen was that deep and blocked her vagina, how did she manage to become pregnant later?' Mehmet asks. 'I think the doctor was a smart man and lied to them.'

In doing so, he may very well have saved her from death—or a genelev.

As a father myself, I can't imagine murdering one of my daughters for sleeping with someone she shouldn't have. And purely from a selfish, propagation-of-the-species point of view, you'd think people would instinctively stop short of killing their offspring simply because it lessens the chances of their own genetic survival.

'Is virginity really all that important?' I ask.

Mehmet sighs patiently before explaining the paradox.

'Every man wants to have sex with a woman, but no man wants to marry a woman who isn't a virgin. It's very rare that a woman would have sex before marriage because if she's caught, that means her life is over. She can never marry.'