Background: While the age of marriage is generally on the rise, early marriage below the age of 18 is still widely practiced. According to UNICEF's State of the World's Children 2016, one out of five girls was married before the age of 18 y in the Middle East and North Africa. The most contributed factors for early marriage are poverty, cultural traditions, laws that allow child marriage, religious and social forces, patient ignorance, fear of being unmarried, illiteracy, and women's perceived inability to earn money. So, girls are often committed to an arranged marriage without their knowledge. A cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample size of 200 married females aged (18-50) years old, attending Zagazig university hospital, Sharkia governorate, Egypt.
Results: In the current study, ¼ of the studied females get married younger than 18 years old, 52.5% were against early marriage, 95% of them disagree with the idea that early marriage is protective for female, 80% had satisfactory knowledge about motives and sequel of early marriage with statistically significance in relation to education, occupation, social class, and the age of marriage.
Recommendations: For families, stop depriving their children of their childhood and not exposing them to early marriage's harmful effects. For government: application of penalties to those who violate the early marriage. For the community: show multi-sector cooperation to improve the community's socioeconomic status to eradicate early marriage. For other researchers: provide health education about hazards of early marriage.