Marriageable

And in Mauritania, the age-old practice of force-feeding young girls-a life-threatening process that is intended to make them round and therefore "marriageable" - has seen a renaissance. ❋ World Affairs (2009)

Mortality, incarceration and unemployment -- compounded by the statistically rare but symbolically damning greater tendency for Black men than women to marry Whites - leave not enough "marriageable" Black men, especially in urban areas where segregation further limits cross-racial social interaction. ❋ Unknown (2009)

"The blonde guy shooed her nubile fingers from his manhood." nubile 1642, "marriageable" (said of a woman), from Fr. nubile, from L. nubilis "marriageable," from stem of nubere "take as husband." ❋ Unknown (2006)

The painful tradition, seen as controlling female sexuality and making a girl more "marriageable", involves cutting off the clitoris and other parts of the genitalia in girls and teenagers. ❋ Unknown (2003)

The more modern system, which separates the sexes while infants, and never suffers them to come together again until they are "marriageable," was not then introduced; and we think it would have been no great misfortune to the country had it remained in Spain, whence it would seem to have been imported. ❋ J. L. McConnel (N/A)

It is anyone's guess how possessive she would feel when they reach the 'marriageable' age but how does she takes care of the parenting part while busy on a shoot? ❋ Unknown (2010)

Religious customs play a part, but all over Africa, girls are routinely mutilated so they will be "marriageable", and wherever dowries are legal, they are sold into arranged marriages, traded for cows, whatever. ❋ Unknown (2009)

The more women moved into traditionally masculine spheres, such as higher education, medicine, law, and other white-collar positions, which also thrust these marriageable women beneath their noses, the more men retreated behind barriers which would relieve the pressure of buckling gender barriers. ❋ Unknown (2009)

With a female coworker of marriageable age and reasonable attractiveness at the next desk, males no longer had the buffer of “work” to separate them from the proscribed times for courtship. ❋ Unknown (2009)

He was not a marrying man; nor could Saxon blind her eyes to the fact that he was eminently marriageable. ❋ Unknown (2010)

And when you consider that a lot of them, through ill looks and ill luck, are foredoomed old maids and are foredoomed to teach all their lives, you can see how they cut down the period of teaching of the marriageable ones. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting FGM/C is usually carried out between infancy and 15 years of age to keep women "pure," marriageable and unable to enjoy sex. ❋ Evelyn Leopold (2011)

Fu Yee Po had a marriageable, properly small-footed daughter whom he was willing to import from China, and sell to him for eight hundred gold, plus the costs of importation. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Marilyn sez, The Wall Street Journal reports on the overabundance of Chinese men of marriageable age (currently 32 million more men than women, roughly the population of Canada). ❋ Unknown (2009)

Approximately 750,000 men of marriageable age were killed in the war, and about 1,350,000 came home seriously wounded and shell-shocked. ❋ Unknown (2010)

By the year 2020, there will be 30 million more men than women of marriageable age in this giant empire, so large and so different (its current population is 1,336,410,000) that it often feels more like a separate planet than just another country. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Harmless and innocent, in marriageable heat, returning to the mind like an image or cult figure of the tidal marsh, tidal creek or inlet, a goddess of the returning year. ❋ Jerry Ratch (2011)