Seeing the story of Elvis Presley in Reddit headlines, there was a lot of talk about how lax child marriage laws and attitudes were in the past.
Child marriage is a horrible act and I think any sane adult would be against it. But it seems there is some lack in legislation.
As of July 2023, only ten states have banned underage marriages, with no exception.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States#:~:text=They%20found%20that%20out%20of,children%20between%202000%20and%202018.
What is the reason why US does not have more stringent laws against this horrible practice ?
39 comments
Am I missing something? Google seems to indicate that Priscilla was 21 or 22 when she married Elvis. That’s young but not a child – at least not legally.
Religious freedom.
A number of efforts have been made at outlawing it but legislators have faced opposition to doing so because it would, according to some, interfere with religious freedom.
Fundamentalist Mormons have money, lawyers, and friends in high places.
Watch as the sister wives flee. I saw a gaggle at Taco Bell, down from their Promised Land of far north Arizona and far south Utah.
I see it happening in the next 10-20 years. It’s just not a political priority right now because of its rarity, but I agree, it’s disgusting, with a vast majority of them according to the article are minor female and adult man.
Social views on the appropriate age to marry have changed over time. The laws haven’t changed as quickly as the social norms.
While I don’t support it, I think the reality is that for much of the country’s history, it was completely normalized. My grandparents were married as teenagers and they had a long and happy marriage.
Not every situation is like that though, I’m aware.
I would have no objection to states outlawing it, its just that it happens so infrequently that people don’t think about it too much.
When it comes down to it marriage is just a contract between two people. Both parties should be old enough to enter into a contract on their own, 18 years old.
As far as religious marriages are concerned, they should have no legal bearing until both parties are 18 years old and sign a marriage license.
The vast majority of states have the age of consent set at 16, especially ones back east. If they can consent to sex, why can’t they consent to marriage?
Either one needs to be raised a bit or the other lowered a bit, but such a large discrepancy for what amounts to roughly the same subject shouldn’t exist.
Religious groups, not all of course, but enough to have political clout, actively and successfully oppose laws banning child marriage with parental consent.
I think it’s also important to remember that any “age you can do something” is a combination of making sense and being arbitrary. Generally speaking the west views 18 as being an adult – but that’s not really “based on anything” other than we all sort of agreed, at some point, over a period of years, that 18 is old enough. However you could obviously make a cogent argument for 16 or 20, but the argument starts to lose a lot of viability if you start talking about 12 or 14 or 22 or 24, because…. why? It’s hard to say “why” exactly other than we all just sort of agree that you’re really starting to push into “too young” and “too old.”
My point is when you see things like “SO AND SO STATE STILL HAS LEGAL CHILD MARRIAGE” that’s a headline specifically designed to rage bait you by making you think that 40 year olds are marrying 8 year olds, when in fact that isn’t really what’s going on.
OP, are you from India? It appears muslims there are [allowed to marry](https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/jharkhand-high-court-muslim-law-age-of-puberty-marriage-choice-15-year-old-girl-215377) (even without parental permission) at puberty, which is also assumed to have happened by 15.
I think the marriage age should be 18, but the exceptions to consider aren’t just adults marrying children. If two older teenagers have a child, should they be allowed to get married? What if one of them is terminally ill and won’t survive until they’re 18? Just things to think about.
Where would you marry your child bride if there wasn’t a legal state?
Two 16 year olds willingly getting married doesn’t really strike me as that horrendous of a thing. Stupid, yes, but unless they are forced into it or one of the parties is well above the others age, I just don’t care.
I would like yo see the age raised to 18 or at least 16 in all states. However, it’s very very far down the list of priorities I want the government to be focused on.
Why are some states now rescinding child laber protection laws too?
So first, I feel like this is a bit misleading, because it’s defining a child all the way up to 18. I really, really dislike this sort of statistical conflation that (deliberately) confuses what people nominally think of as a *child* (i.e., a prepubescent youth) and older teens. The legal term here should be *minor* or *teen,* not the deliberately provocative “child”.
While you might find the idea of a 16 or 17 year old getting married a “horrible practice”, I don’t think that any rational person sees that as on the same level of a nine year old getting married, which I think is what comes to mind when most people think of “child marriage”.
Most states in the US have a minimum age of 16 or 17, and those states typically require some other thing to have happened. An emancipated minor, judicial approval, or consent of the parents.
Details of state laws vary, with many limiting age gaps, but broadly all are pretty obviously setup to allow for marriage in the case of pregnant teens… That basically *is* the reason the US “allows” it.
I’d also note here that a lot of the data on this relies on data going back near 20 years, so… possibly misleading in terms of current trends.
The concept of the “age of majority” and exactly when young people become adults is a complex topic. Applying single standards for all of society and everything we do is probably not very helpful. Reasonable people can make plenty of good arguments why, for example, if we are okay with teens having sex, we should probably be okay with them, at least in some cases, getting married.
Define ‘child’ and ‘underage’.
Honestly, it has not been universally outlawed because most people simply don’t think about it or realize it’s a thing. If they did the public would be revolted by it and push harder to ban it entirely.
But also frankly, I see nothing so intrinsically “horrible” about marriages to minors that they need to be banned. Generations before us married much younger than we did and did, indeed, make it work.
I would be fine with more states adopting a system like California’s – where there is no theoretical minimum age to marry, but the court has to sign off on it after investigating and interviewing the parties involved to ensure nobody is being coerced into the marriage against their will, possibly requiring the minor to take counseling to advise them about the challenges that marriages entails, and giving them information on how to divorce, where to find emergency shelter, and domestic abuse hotlines.
That actually addresses the *supposed* justification for banning minors from marrying – the potential for abuse – instead of just *assuming* it’s present and making collateral damage of couples who actually do want to get married.
Unless, of course, the *real* justification is “ew icky >:(“, or because the thinking stops and ends with “but le magic number”. Since as we all know, 17 year olds can be trafficked for sex, but 18 year olds cannot.
Look at the threads on Reddit where people over 18 ask “if it is ok” they date people 3-4 years younger than them. They just have one thing on their minds. And it is not the welfare of the underage person (male or female) they are going after.
Right now politics in the US are so bad that if one side said to ban it the other would probably say no just to argue it out. Then each side with their blind faith supporters would support them and nothing would get done.
I mean you sort of hear about The politicians that make the laws are the ones that don’t want those laws to be made
First, let me say I am not defending child marriage or exploitation.
The definition of “child”. A child marriage is a marriage in which at least one party is under *18 years of age—or the age of majority*—in the US. per wikipedia. But that arbitrary number only applies to *some* things… I was legally able to have consensual sex at 16, drive a car at 15, join the military at 17 be legally emancipated at 16, vote at 18, buy a gun at 18. Age of majority varies around the world
Based on the “no exception laws, a 18 year old soldier, can not marry their 17 year old partner, although they’ve been sexually intimate for 2 years, and have a child…
>As of July 2023, only ten states have banned underage marriages, with no exception.
While this *is* true, it is an example of cherry-picking. The next facts completly change the outlook: **The other states may require the underage partner to obtain** ***either parental consent, judicial authorization, or both,*** **or rely on “exceptional circumstances”. The minimum underage marriage age, when all mitigating circumstances are taken into account, commonly ranges from 15 to 17. Nine states do not allow a person over 21 to marry an underage person.**
The vast majority of “child” marriages in the US are between young people with a small age difference and often involves a pregnancy or an attempt to escape an unfortunate situation. The cult leaders/ members marrying their 12 year old followers does happen, but is both rare and not a legal marriage.
Finally, according to the article you linked:
>Unchained At Last, an organization dedicated to ending forced and child marriage in the United States, found marriage licenses for 232,474 children between 2000 and 2018
But…
> they estimated that the actual number of child marriages in the U.S. during that time was closer to 300,000
In that same time there were 41.76 *million* marriages. Less than 1% (.72%) of marriages in the US are ” child” marriages ,using the higher estimates.
This number includes *all* marriages of an “adult” to a minor regardless of age or age difference. A 17 yr old marrying an 18 yr old= child marriage.
Again I’m not saying there is no problem, nor that I agree with “child marriage”, only that the problem is much smaller than the outrage and manipulated statistics make to be.
Religion
Because the people of certain states don’t see child marriage as a problem, and thereby encourage it.
Republicans and Democrats have their own reasons to oppose it, with republicans (in most states) claiming religious freedom and democrats (in some states) claiming it would restrict abortion/same sex marriage.
really, outside of some insane people, it’s just inertia
I’m just shocked that California has no limit on age as long as there is parental approval but at least it has to be approved by court officials with a 30 day waiting period
The US is like many places in that it is overly concerned with how children have sex, so you have a bit of a weird situation where many men, and society in general, will comment on the state of a teenage girl’s body, but then will defend to the death her ability to marry her 18 year old boyfriend, even though in fact the most common child marriage is a teenage girl to a much older man. What I’m trying to say is that society is supportive of pedophilia.
Because people under 18 can get pregnant OP.
There’s the right wing reason and the left wing reason. The conservative reason is that it’s totally fine, there’s nothing wrong with it. The government is interfering in people’s right to get married if they want to. Marriage is a good thing. Plus if a girl is pregnant, being allowed to get married will prevent a bastard, which they see as worse. And parents should be allowed to have the right to decide when and to whom their child can get married. It interferes with parental rights for the state to say they can’t have their child get married when they want to. I say parents because many states have child marriage as legal only with the agreement of the child’s parents or a judge. And republicans have been giving messaging that women should be wives and mothers, and strive to get married and start having those children young, don’t bother with education or a career. Letting girls get married young prevents years of girls idly working and going to school and developing goals and ambitions other than getting married and having children as young as possible. They also see it as interfering with religious freedom since some conservative sects have child marriage as a normal occurrence.
The liberal reason is that they’re worried that if child marriage is made illegal, the same legal basis for making it illegal will also be used to make it illegal for underaged girls to get abortions or to use birth control, and also it interferes with a young person’s right to decide for themselves what they want in marriage (which is bullshit since most of these marriages are coerced).
Because most people don’t spend time worrying about it, so it wasn’t really a priority.
My fake aunt and uncle let my fake cousin marry a 22 year old when he was 16. I was 18 at the time so thought it was odd but not tooooo much…. By the time I got to 20 I was like WHAT THE FUCK THATS SO GROSS. Same on them.
He lied to his family and told her they were 18 until after they were married lmaoooooo. Sick.
She’s remarried now with another man her age, they have a cute baby together. Good for them! But it reallly gave me an idk about those people, I haven’t seen my fake aunt and uncle since. My family was like nah.
Of course they divorced.
The Great Northeast for the win!
Cuz it would be hard to pass in some states
Mostly because ultra conservative Christians are against it.
Religious fundamentalism.
1. Inertia – Passing laws takes time and lawmakers often have other priorities
2. A disturbing amount of people in the US still support child marriage. Often it’s due to the belief that pregnant teenagers need to have the option for shotgun weddings. The supporters are often from conservative immigrant groups or rural religious hardliners. But in my experience this a not-insignificant number of otherwise normal people who still support it. Thankfully it’s still a minority position though.
Back in ‘98 my buddy’s 16 year old sister got knocked up by her 19 year old boyfriend. They got married and have been married since. It didn’t seem ideal but it’s hard to find a reason to say it ought to have been prevented.
Because they’re shit
Honestly? Conservative Christians.
Religion