population appears to be the least willing, among the populations of the 12 countries surveyed, to accept the idea that women’s rights and roles in society should be equal to that of men’s.

Sudan’s patriarchal customs tend to be stronger in the country’s poorer rural areas **.** Consequently, they tend to start shaping the life courses of the females living in these areas at a younger age. Early marriage is an important determinant of women’s role in society. In patrilocal societies, once a girl is married, she moves to live with her husband and, frequently, his family members. At that point, the girl (who is now deemed to be a woman) ceases to be the economic responsibility of her parents, primarily her father, and instead becomes the economic responsibility of her husband—in exchange for the domestic labor she provides. Poor families with large numbers of unmarried daughters will often see early marriage as the only viable economic option for the family. As of 2014, 38 percent of Sudanese women aged 15 to 49 had been married before the age of 18, and 12 percent had been married before the age of 15.<sup>14</sup> In some rural areas, the numbers are even higher; 45 percent of the girls in Kassala State are estimated to be married before the age of 15 (Tonnessen and El Nagar 2018).

Child marriage occurs for a number of reasons, and while poverty is often cited as one of the principal reasons driving early marriage, the role of customs seems to be a more important driver behind this practice in Sudan **.** According to a study on the relationship between cultural norms and child marriage in Algadaref State, poverty was one of the five reasons cited for child marriage, but it was not the most common response and in a similar study in neighboring Red Sea State, poverty was not mentioned at all.<sup>15</sup> Four of the five reasons respondents in the Algadaref State study cited had to do with patriarchal customs: control of girls, fertility, protection of girls from immorality, and protection of girls from the stigma of being unmarried. Protection from immorality, which was the most common response, can mean any number of things. In a review of the three related studies conducted in Red Sea State, Kassala State, and Algadaref State, protection from immorality included discouraging, if not outright forbidding, girls from attending school since school uniforms, public transportation, and mixed-gender classrooms challenge patriarchal customs regarding female modesty—the subject of the public order laws—and the idea that the public sphere is the male domain. In some parts of Red Sea State, an estimated 70 percent of girls stopped going to school by the sixth grade (Tonnessen and El Nagar 2018).

The stigmas of being unmarried and not being able to have children, perhaps because one waited too long to get married, also motivate the choice of early marriage over education. That said, the Algadaref State study revealed that this patriarchal custom appears to be weakening. When respondents were asked, “What are the consequences to families of delaying the marriage of their daughters?” 57 percent of the female respondents said, “There is no stigma, as their daughters are educated and can work to support the family.” That view was shared by 50 percent of the male respondents (El Nagar, Eljack, and Tonnessen 2017, 31).

Both Sudanese women and men have internalized Sudan’s patriarchal customs and norms. Kathleen Fincham, who has conducted research on youth, gender, and school dropout across several states in Sudan, notes that, “Particularly important in determining whether girls would continue their education

> 14 United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) database on child marriage. 15 UNICEF database on child marriage; El Nagar, Eljack, and Tonnessen 2017.

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