It’s 7 years later but I appreciate this a lot as a non Muslim, I like to debate and this argument felt like the Rebecca one so having this is insanely helpful More on reddit.com

I'm going to try and approach the usual argument of "it was the cultural norm" from a slightly different angle to hopefully offer a better understanding of it. To begin with, I think you'll agree "most jurisdictions [today] set the age of consent in the range 14 to 18" . On the same page, you will find that this age has been increasing steadily over the past centuries. Starting at around ~7 years (with recorded exceptions as young as 2) before moving up to 10-12 through most of Europe and America. This went through multiple reforms before we reached today's status quo of around 14-18 in most parts of the world. My question is, what do you find morally palatable as an age of consent? 14? 17? First, it should be pointed out, putting a hard number on this is an incredibly arbitrary delineation and an entirely subjective evaluation. Both of these disqualify it from being a valid moral stance useful as a universal law for humanity (hence why different governments differ in their laws on the subject). More importantly though, how do you react if, in the next 100 years, society progresses once more and decides that actually 18-19 is a much more reasonable evaluation? I'm in Europe where all but 4 countries set their age of consent to 14-16. Assuming you've legally consummated with a 14 or 15 year old in accordance to today's societal values, do you feel it's fair if in a century's time, society determines that you were a paedophile for doing so? More on reddit.com

Welcome to r/AskHistorians . Please Read Our Rules before you comment in this community. Understand that rule breaking comments get removed . Please consider Clicking Here for RemindMeBot as it takes time for an answer to be written. Additionally, for weekly content summaries, Click Here to Subscribe to our Weekly Roundup . We thank you for your interest in this question, and your patience in waiting for an in-depth and comprehensive answer to show up. In addition to RemindMeBot, consider using our Browser Extension , or getting the Weekly Roundup . In the meantime our Twitter , Facebook , and Sunday Digest feature excellent content that has already been written! I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns. More on reddit.com

First of all this has only come up to debate the last century, before that people did not seem to have anything against it, not even the Prophet's contemporary enemies criticized him for it. Second, exact age is not something that Arabs usually kept track of in a similar manner we do in this age. If you physically were "fit for fight" you're a man, even if you're 14 or whatever etc. Third, Aisha was definitely not mad or pissed or rejected it not in her youth nor her adult life, in fact all of this is based off her own testimony of the Prophet Fourth, these "acceptable" ages of marriage changes all the time, in 40 years the normal age could be 40 or 50 or even 10 we don't know. Fifth, I find this a good page until proven not People try to find things to attack the prophet and they are very ethnocentric and disregarding of his time, society and reasons/motives for marriage and also disregarding the personality of the Prophet and this very much great moral character which is even testified by Allah Himself . More on reddit.com