User:William Ortiz/Aisha bint Abi Bakr

Until recently, child marriages and young adolescent marriages were common and they did not cause trauma for the person. Not all child marriages have been harmful. In fact, Aisha bint Abi Bakr was married to Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah, founder of Islam, when she was six and the couple first consummated when she was nine and he was fifty-three. She became his favorite wife. Marriages that young were fairly common in those days and she had no trauma from a marriage that young; instead Sunni historians found that Aisha was a learned woman, who tirelessly recounted stories from the life of Muhammad and explained Muslim history and traditions. She is considered to be one of the foremost scholars of Islam's early age. In these societies, including China, the intragenerational relationship of the family is much more valued than the marital relationship. The whole purpose of the marriage is to have a family. Ibn Warraq writes that Muhammad's example encourages the practice of child marriage in Muslim communities: "child marriages continue to be practiced, and the fact that the Prophet himself married Aisha when she was only nine and he was fifty-three encourages Muslim society to continue with this iniquitous custom." However, the novel The Color Purple disagrees, painting such young marriage as harmful.