To Marry at 15
I sit against the cinderblock wall in the light of the bare lightbulb. The faint whine of a mosquito haunts the room, and a scorpion skitters across the floor opposite me. It’s searing hot in the windowless room full of people.
I’ve traveled significantly throughout Mexico and seen its rainforests, both hot and cold, its deserts, its pine forests, its mountain ridges above timberline, its beaches. I’ve stayed in dozens of its cities, little towns, and tiny villages, but this is the roughest place yet.
The village is minuscule, comprising a handful of tin-roofed cinder block huts clustered together in the mountains. There’s one microscopic store with the bare essentials, including toilet paper and lukewarm Coke. It’s extremely humid, and temperatures hover between 90 and 100, while the breezes pass just over our heads along the mountaintops refusing to visit our hollow. And the worst part is that there’s no water. Well, there is a spring that trickles into a little river. But the villagers have used it as their dump for generations, so clean water is brought daily in barrels, which means it’s limited to one bucketful per person for showering. It does little good, for even as the cool water is running over your body, you’re already sweating again.
We’ve been outside all day, trying to get the kids involved in the camp activities. But we’re so far in the mountains that the culture is completely different here than the cities or even other villages I’ve been to. Most of the youth are tremendously shy. During the music, you can barely hear a whisper. For the games, they tentatively follow instructions, giggling uncontrollably if they are brought near someone of the opposite sex during the game. The plastic chairs on the basketball court are dotted with solidified yellow beads of sweat, and insects swarm in clouds, waiting for distracted passersby.
Now I’m in the little room designated for us girls, and a friend that came with me, whom we’ll call Liz, and I have gotten one of them to speak more than two words in a row to us. After a few get-to-know-you questions and answers, Liz asks the girl, Claudia, “So do you have a boyfriend?” (The word for boyfriend in Spanish may also refer to fiancé).
A giggle quivers through the crowd of girls that presses around us, curious but too shy to talk to us. Claudia grins timidly. “No, of course not.”
“Really? Why not?” Liz presses.
Claudia grows serious and confused, realizing we’re not kidding her. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“My father hasn’t chosen one for me.”
Liz and I look at each other.
“What do you mean? Your father chooses for you?”
“No, of course not. The man must be interested in me. He goes to my dad and asks for me in marriage. If my dad approves, he agrees, and we’re engaged.”
I couldn’t find anything to say.
“So you don’t even have to know him?”
“Why no,” Claudia answers matter-of-factly. “The girl doesn’t even get to talk to him until they’re married.”
There’s a pause.
“What do you do during your engagement?” I venture.
“He goes to the girl’s house and eats dinner with her father. The girl and mother cook for and serve them their meal. Then the man will stay talking with her father until late. The girl must stay up to wait on them should they want coffee or anything. Eventually, the man leaves, and the girl may go to bed. Until they’re married.”
Our faces must have spelled out the shock in our minds because she looked at us questioningly and said, “Why? Isn’t that how it is where you’re from?”
“Um… no. Not really.”
She leans forward, any vestiges of shyness slipping off. The crowd around us gathers closer.
“How does it work, then?” she asks.
“Well, if a boy likes you, he can ask you out to dinner or to do something fun- just the two of you. On a date.”
Claudia’s face lights up with wonder.
“Yeah.” Liz takes up my thread. “You can go with him. And if you like him back, you can keep going out and eventually become boyfriend and girlfriend. If it gets serious, he’ll ask you to marry him.”
“So…” Claudia’s brows lift nearly to her hairline. “So you get to choose for yourself?”
“Yeah, we do.”
She asked for details about dating and having boyfriends and what marriage is like in our world. We described as much of it as we could in detail, and she savored every detail as though she heard a fairy story.
“At what age can you start dating?” she asks, trying out the new word.
“Depends on the parents,” I say, turning to Liz for affirmation. “But usually in their teens. But most people don’t get married until they’re in their twenties.”
“We usually get married at fifteen.”
We say nothing, knowing full well Claudia’s currently fourteen. She sits for a few minutes in a daze, staring off into space. I wonder if she’s imagining a reality where dating is the norm and arranged marriages are inexistent.
At week’s end, I said goodbye to bright-eyed, smiling Claudia. She loved to draw but had little to no time at home because of constant housework. She loved to learn but had no schooling beyond grade school available to her. She was unafraid to break the mold of shyness her culture seemed to demand.
I don’t have a way to contact her. It’s been years since, and I expect she is already married. Her reality probably consists of cooking and cleaning for her husband. She probably waits on him as he eats, waiting to eat until he’s done. Part of me feels grieved for her, yet there is no pity, for even in her obvious longing for more, she was proud and willing to take up her cultural burden. I only hope her father found her a good man who can learn to love her and whom she can learn to love.
