However, focus group participants expressed enough similar viewpoints that some generalizations may be relevant to help guide reproductive health programs for the Central Asian region as a whole. Age at first marriage . Throughout the region, participants say it is customary for men to marry women three to five years younger than themselves. They feel that men should marry by the age of 25 years for beyond that age they may become too set in their ways. Men younger than 21 were thought to be too emotionally immature, wild in spirit, inexperienced, and financially unsettled to take on the responsibilities of supporting a family.
Participants feel that women become emotionally mature at an earlier age than men.
Since they are mentally and physiologically prepared for marriage three to five years before men, they should be married by age 20 or 21. Women at this age are perceived as being mature enough to take on the responsibilities of family life, and in most parts of the region this meant that a woman was ready to manage a home and children. A woman should be able to contribute to the family income, but only in the more cosmopolitan areas of the region did this mean she should have a professional career. More often, participants consider domestic skills like tailoring or craft work as acceptable sources of income for a woman contemplating marriage. Participants indicate that earlier marriages are traditionally the result of strong tribal or kinship pressures or strict prohibitions against extramarital sex.