The thing that sat on the balcony railing was strange. Curious – and not a little afraid – I turned back around. I’d made up my mind to go back inside and was halfway to the door when I heard something behind me. I thought that there was a small chance I might survive, and I didn’t want to think about what might happen to me if I did. Briefly, I considered throwing myself off the ledge, but I was too afraid. The night was freezing cold and there was a light snow falling, slowly covering the ground below. My parents must have been proud to marry me off to someone so rich. I eyed it with disgust before throwing it on the floor and stalking out to the balcony that I discovered behind some thick floor-to-ceiling curtains. Before leaving the room – and locking it for good measure – he told me to dress in the lingerie that he had left for me on the bed. He told me he wanted nothing more than to “attend” to me the way a proper husband should – and we all know what that means, don’t we? – but that he had to take care of some business first. Once he brought me home, he ushered me into the master bedroom and, thankfully, left me there on my own for several hours. Instead, I’ll tell you this: everything changed on the balcony. I won’t bore you with details about my wedding, or the first time meeting my husband, or the ride to our new “home” – I had to be dragged into the car, kicking and screaming. Apparently my soon-to-be husband was in a rush because we were married only a month later. They didn’t wait as long for my wedding as they did with my sister. It still poisoned something deep inside me. The man they gave me to was forty-three years old.Ĭan you imagine that? Can you imagine your own parents just… giving you away to someone like that? Even though I always knew it would happen to me, it still hurt. I was so upset I actually vomited when I saw the proof, those stained sheets that I couldn’t pray away. It came during the night and stained my sheets and there was no hiding it. When I was twelve, my father checked my panties every night to make sure I wasn’t hiding anything from him.īut then, halfway through my fourteenth year, it came. For a while, it seemed that something had answered my prayers, because year after year passed and it didn’t come. I prayed and hoped to our version of God that I would never “come of age.” It was like a curse to me, to meet the same fate she did. Since the day I turned nine, I lived in mortal fear of ending up like my sister. She cried herself to sleep every night until her wedding.
Because only a few months later she was married off. My sister saw all that blood and really thought she was dying. I still remember her screaming in the bathroom when it happened – my mother hadn’t told us anything about periods, or our bodies. My older sister got hers at nine years old. See, in our cult, a girl “came of marriageable age” when she had her first period.
I was sold into marriage when I was fourteen. That would make it almost understandable, wouldn’t it? “Young woman” does not mean a twenty-year-old, by the way. Our leaders really emphasized the idea of “pure” brides and virginity and virility… I was taught, as a child, that only a young woman embodied these traits. Guess what? I didn’t grow up in one of those ten states. In fact, only ten states actually have laws against it. It’s not true, though, is it? Child marriage may not be as common here, sure. As though America is some kind of utopia where things like that just don’t happen.
When people talk about child marriages, most of the time they aren’t thinking of America.