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USA - child marriages

2K views 24 replies 14 participants last post by  MattMatt 
#1 ·
This is weird. But it's in the NYT so I think it's real. WTH?

11 Years Old, a Mom, and Pushed to Marry Her Rapist in Florida

When she was a scrawny 11-year-old, Sherry Johnson found out one day that she was about to be married to a 20-year-old member of her church who had raped her.

“It was forced on me,” she recalls. She had become pregnant, she says, and child welfare authorities were investigating — so her family and church officials decided the simplest way to avoid a messy criminal case was to organize a wedding.

“My mom asked me if I wanted to get married, and I said, ‘I don’t know, what is marriage, how do I act like a wife?’” Johnson remembers today, many years later. “She said, ‘Well, I guess you’re just going to get married.’”

So she was. A government clerk in Tampa, Fla., refused to marry an 11-year-old, even though this was legal in the state, so the wedding party went to nearby Pinellas County, where the clerk issued a marriage license. The license (which I’ve examined) lists her birth date, so officials were aware of her age.

Not surprisingly, the marriage didn’t work out — two-thirds of marriages of underage girls don’t last, one study found — but it did interrupt Johnson’s attendance at elementary school. Today she is campaigning for a state law to curb underage marriages, part of a nationwide movement to end child marriage in America. Meanwhile, children 16 and under are still being married in Florida at a rate of one every few days.

and more from the article

You’re thinking: “Child marriage? That’s what happens in Bangladesh or Tanzania, not America!”

more than 167,000 young people age 17 and under married in 38 states between 2000 and 2010, according to a search of available marriage license data by a group called Unchained at Last, which aims to ban child marriage. The search turned up cases of 12-year-old girls married in Alaska, Louisiana and South Carolina, while other states simply had categories of “14 and younger.”

Unchained at Last was not able to get data for the other states. But it extrapolated that in the entire country, there were almost 250,000 child marriages between 2000 and 2010. Some backing for that estimate comes from the U.S. Census Bureau, which says that at least 57,800 Americans age 15 to 17 reported being in marriages in 2014.

Among the states with the highest rates of child marriages were Arkansas, Idaho and Kentucky. The number of child marriages has been falling, but every state in America still allows underage girls to marry, typically with the consent of parents, a judge or both.

Twenty-seven states do not even set a minimum age by statute, according to the Tahirih Justice Center’s Forced Marriage Initiative.
A great majority of the child marriages involve girls and adult men. Such a sexual relationship would often violate statutory rape laws, but marriage sometimes makes it legal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/...2017-06&subid=JuneMC48&ad-keywords=AudDevGate
 
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#4 ·
I agree. The idea that a parent can sign off on a child marrying is beyond ridiculous in this day and age. It should be taken off the books in every state.

Human rights organizations consider child marriage a form of slavery since the child is conscripted into a form of servitude that they had no choice in. The only good thing here in the USA is that when the child gets old enough, they can divorce the abuser.

I just had no idea that child marriage was so common in the USA.
 
#3 ·
I would like to see the minimum marriage age be the same as the age of consent. 18 may be too high, maybe 16 is more reasonable. Or maybe 18, but possible for those as young as 16 to be treated as adults after some formal education / counseling / testing.

Child marriage is an abomination.

The existing laws seem based on an archaic and offensive idea of ensuring that young girls need to maintain their value (eg virginity) until they have been married off. So parents can marry off a young girl but its illegal for her to consent to sex on her own.
 
#5 ·
It's complicated, the 11 year old case is obviously ludicrous. Marrying an under age girl to avoid a rape charge is insane that that is allowed. On the other hand, <18 year olds get pregnant all the time and I don't have any particular objection to them marrying if the two of them are roughly peers age wise.
 
#6 ·
A lot of the marriages that the article talked about is older men marrying underaged girls.

When it comes to the <18 bunch, I still think that marriage is more likely not a good idea since most of those marriages will never make it for very long. Not in today's world.
 
#8 ·
That whole concept is positively maddening.

How the H3LL can someone be legally too young to consent to sex, but then able to marry??? Holy crap! That is possibly the worst, most insane, contradiction I've ever seen!!! The age differences exacerbate an already incomprehensible idea. These guys need to be removed from society. Put them all on an island and let them f*** each other. Hayzoos effing Christo on a skateboard!

I actually became aware of the less egregious, but altogether too common version of this phenomenon when I was in college. My junior year, I roomed with a friend from high school who was two years my junior (schoolwise, we were within a few months of each other agewise), he a new freshman. He was from a very strict Southern Baptist family, although he himself was fully rebellious and hardly devout or practicing.

Nevertheless, be began attending the local Southern Baptist Church and ended up dating the minister's 15 year old daughter. They soon got engaged, and as of the date of the wedding, he would be 19 and she, 16. Egad!!! (and I was to be Best Man!!!)

One weekend, we were back home and I was talking to his parents and couldn't help but express my concern that a union forged by two people so young and inexperienced could be problematic. His mother very sternly explained to me that when you meet the right one, you need to act no matter what the age.

That’s when I had my light bulb moment and fully came to understand the twisted rationale of these people. It was feared these two were on their way to carnal activity and something had to be done, and quick. God forbid they should play hide the salami before a properly ordained minister could declare them man and wife! Far better take a chance on condemning them to a life of misery together with a brood of equally miserable children, than to take a chance they might fornicate!

I understand, and respect, people’s attachment to their faith, but even with that in mind, what’s the lesser of the two evils … really? What are you doing to your children?!?

I’ll never forget the day her parents came to our apartment with a home cooked southern meal for him. They went to put something in the refrigerator and saw my beer in there. They held nothing back in chastising me, after all this was the home of their future son-in-law and how dare I bring such evil into the house! I wanted to scream “You’re about to marry off your 15 year old daughter to an immature teenager who has had carnal relations with multiple women, got one of them pregnant and paid for her ABORTION (isn’t that the ultimate sin to you?)! But hey, he came back to the church and confessed his sins, and was re baptized in your church, so I guess that means all that past history is no longer a red flag for future behavior, eh? “ It took a great deal of restraint just to step away and not march his loving parents-in-law-to-be right into his room and expose the rather voluminous porn stash in his closet!
 
#12 ·
In England, a couple can get married if they over 16 but if under 18 then the parents consent is required. However, if they wish to circumvent parents lack of consent, they can make their way to Scotland where the parential consent is not required. Gretna Green is the traditional place for such marriages since it is just over the border.
 
#17 ·
The few child marriages I personally know of were teen girls who got pregnant by older men. The idea wasn't to avoid statutory charges, but to avoid welfare. I can't say I approve, but I can't say I disapprove of parents marrying to provide for mother and baby, either.

These were all consensual relationships, though, and the marriages weren't instigated by the parents.
One of them had to be approved by the court as the parents refused to sign. They're still married. The other two aren't.
 
#19 ·
When I was in 10th or 11th grade there was a girl in one of my classes that was married. She wasn't pregnant, just got married at 16. This was the early 80's. I remember her showing us her professional wedding photographs so it wasn't a "let's run off and get married" thing. We all thought it was weird. I mean who gets married at 16 in Southern California, that stuff happens in the South, lol. Her husband looked older but then when you are 15 and 16, anyone older than 21 looks old, I guess.
 
#20 · (Edited)
Looks like just another way, I'm reckoning, that the GOP is working to steadfastly try to solidify, thus attempting to totally lock up the youth vote!

This practice in legality is beyond pathetic!!
 
#21 ·
I'm not sure why you are trying to blame this on the GOP.

The laws are made by both parties.

For example in California a child can get married with parental and judicial consent at any age.

Unlike most Western countries, half of the US states do not have a legal minimum age of marriage. While in most US states, individuals age 18 have a right to marriage (with two exceptions—Nebraska (19) and Mississippi (21)), all states allow minors to marry in certain circumstances, such as parental consent, judicial consent, pregnancy, or a combination of these situations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_marriage_in_the_United_States
 
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