ABSTRACT
This study aimed to identify women's opinions regarding early marriage of girls This study was conducted in all out patient clinic at Assiut University Hospitals, Assiut General Hospital [Elshamla Hospital] and El-Eman hospital at Assiut City. Also at El- Minia University Hospitals, El-Minia General Hospital and Susan Mobark Hospital at El-Minia city. The study subjects were married women ,both from rural and urban areas who attended the out patient clinics in previous setting there total number was 3600 women divided to 1800 women from each city .Inter view questionnaire form was developed by the researchers to collect the data needed for the study. It consisted of three parts. The first one was concerned with personal and socio-demographic characteristics of studied women and their husbands. It included age, education, job, husband age and education, as well the type of family, whether nuclear or extended. The second part involved marriage characteristics such as age at marriage of both woman and husband, the duration of marriage, and the number of children. The third part covered women's opinions about early marriage of the girl. It included questions about the causes of early marriage of girls, agreement upon it and the reasons of agreement of disagreement, the suggested suitable age for marriage of females and males with the reasons underlying it, and the effect of early marriage on the health of rite woman and the family. All the questions in this third part were open-ended .Data was collected during the period from the beginning of January to the end of May 2004 .The study revealed that the majority of the women in the sample married at the age between 16 and less than 25 years the, most important cause of early marriage is tradition according to [83.5%] of studied women's opinions. As for the women who disagreed upon early marriage, the main reason was girls' psychological immaturity [66.7%]. The study illustrates that [74.5%]of the sample agreed that early marriage negatively affects women's health and [71.5%] agreed that early marriage negatively affects family health. Also the study shows statistically significant differences between the age at marriage of studied women and their residence, education, job, and family type [p<0.001]. The results indicates that agreement upon early marriage was statistically significantly higher among women from Minia [p<0.001]. The study recommended that educational interventions target those women at higher risk of early marriage and who could have more intention to give their daughters to marriage at early age. These specifically include poor uneducated rural women. Thus, educational and counseling sessions should be provided by nurses in health care settings. The role of the media should also be emphasized