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The House of Habsburg was highly inbred — estimates are that over 80% of marriages within the Spanish branch of the dynasty were between close blood relatives — and both the king and his child bride, an uncle and niece, sported the same long nose, protruding lower lip and so-called “Habsburg jaw.”

The last queen of France, Marie Antoinette was born in Austria in 1755 and sent to France to be the child bride of the future King Louis XVI.

These pieces of paper are more important to Bibi Nazdana than anything in the world: they are the divorce granted to her after a two-year court battle to free herself from life as a child bride.

And she had thus far survived this journey without her family, who hoped she’d make it to Malaysia, where she was promised as a child bride to a man she had never met.

And she had thus far survived this journey without her family, who hoped she’d make it to Malaysia, where she was promised as a child bride to a man she had never met.