“I married because …”: Motivations to marry early among female spouses in child marriages in northern Ghana

Child marriage is practised in Ghana with a prevalence rate of 27.2 %. This high prevalence is due to how marriage is conceptualized and constructed in communities that practice child marriage. Though reasons for the practice of child marriage are well documented, empirical studies of the married adolescent girls’ reasons for marrying early in the Ghanaian context are scant. This study, therefore, sought to present experiential factors that influenced the early marriage of adolescent girls. Twenty-one married girls aged between 13 and 17 years were recruited from selected communities in the Northern region of Ghana using purposeful, convenient and snowball sampling techniques. Individual face-to-face in-depth interviews with a semi-structured interview guide were adopted for the collection of data. A generic inductive qualitative analysis method was used to analyse the accounts of their experiences. Three core themes emerged as reasons influencing participants’ decision to marry. Personal motivating factors focused on adolescent girls’ personal need for children, idleness, peer group comparison and love. Economically motivated reasons include poverty, the quest for a better life and enticement by men. Sociocultural reasons include teenage pregnancy, family pressure and societal views on marriage among others. Information on the motivations for marriage among adolescent girls may be relevant to policymakers and interventionists in developing measures and interventions that are tailored to the needs of individuals affected by the practice of child marriage.