Well I have personal experience in this regard. Both my grandmothers married very young and were "given away" to their husbands, who were older. One had 13 children the other had 3. Neither of them saw anything abusive or unusual about it, but considered the practice ideal. With the result that their daughters married very early. However, my mother had a liberal father (even though he married a 12 year old) and was exposed to different ideas. With the result that none of her children married until well after they finished college.
So the idea that the girls recognise any abuse is your projection. Its entirely a social concept.
Most slaves took slavery as natural. Say, around the Mediteranean.
Most women took the lack of a vote as natural, at least in my country. And then, slowly, they did not.
Most people take all kinds of injustice and abuse as natural. Until they don't.
I know plenty of people in my country who were beaten as children - I do not mean spanked, I mean wrong end of the belt or beaten up like in a bar fight, but by their fathers - who think this made them better able to deal with society.
I will still be critical of the practice. Especially practices aimed at children.
Female Sexual Mutilation is often performed by women on their children, in other words, it is performed by people who themselves went through it. I think it is sexist, horrible abuse of children, girls. Nevertheless. Despite what they come to think when they are adults, later, what many people come to think who are abused and live in a culture or subculture where that abuse is justified by those in power and seen as the norm.
I am glad for your female relatives that they thrived. I am sure it is possible. I think in general it is abusive.
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