https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/child-marriage-us-states-america-minimum-age-bride-girls-a9467121.html

Only two US states – Delaware and New Jersey – have set the marriage age floor at 18 with no exceptions. Twelve states do not have any set age limit, and six allow girls under the minimum age to get married if they are pregnant. In those states the laws “are weaker than child marriage laws in countries like Afghanistan, Honduras and Malawi”, Girls Not Brides CEO Dr Faith Mwangi-Powell says.

Research done by the Tahirih Justice Centre suggests that pregnant teens who marry are up to three times more likely to have five or more children in their lifetime, are 50 per cent more likely to drop out of school and are four times less likely to complete college. “It’s a dangerously misguided notion that a pregnant teen is better off married than remaining single, and all the research shows exactly the opposite,” Jeanne Smoot of the centre says.

Thanks for the heads-up. I will be contacting my state legislators about this in their next session.

So-called 'conservatives' frame this as a state sovereignty issue, IDK what their fall-back on the social consequences of early marriages is;

my 'rational' mind tells me that 17 or 18 is a reasonable age for marriage, I'm against a pregnancy exception because teens with an insatiable desire to leave a dysfunctional parental situation would then arrange a pregnancy as a work-around to minimum age provisions - laws.

Keeping in mind 2 things:

- maturity is a vastly individual matter

- the age of maturity in a social & physical sense (onset of menses) has been declining over the years (correct?)

...and religion is a main pathway to child marriage.

"Research done by the Tahirih Justice Centre suggests that pregnant teens who marry are up to three times more likely to have five or more children in their lifetime, are 50 per cent more likely to drop out of school and are four times less likely to complete college. “It’s a dangerously misguided notion that a pregnant teen is better off married than remaining single, and all the research shows exactly the opposite,” Jeanne Smoot of the centre says.

Fraidy Reiss grew up in an orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey and says she was forced to marry when she was 19. After being trapped in an abusive marriage for 15 years and becoming the first in her community to get a restraining order against her husband, she set up Unchained At Last, an organisation fighting child marriage in the US.

“I wanted to get divorced from the start, but in the community I was from, a woman does not have the legal right to end her own marriage.” As well as divorce, Fraidy says “religious laws and customs” made numerous other rights impossible for her to access, such as not being allowed to use birth control, being forced to have unprotected sex and not having access to her own finances, making her completely dependent on her husband. “When I finally managed to escape my family they punished me for leaving by declaring me dead.”"

anybody:

I stated my own views / perspective on this, Did that 'bother you'?

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Fraidy Reiss grew up in an orthodox Jewish
> community in New Jersey and says she was forced to
> marry when she was 19.

"Orthodox Jewish" is a very wide spectrum of behavior/belief within Judaism (with Modern Orthodox on the "liberal" left, and the many and varied "ultra"-[observant] groups on the right).


> After being trapped in an abusive marriage for 15 years
> and becoming the first in her ["ultra"] community to get a
> restraining order against her husband, she set up Unchained
> at Last, an organisation fighting child marriage in the
> US.

The age of marriage for at least some of the "ultra" groups seems to be 12 and up (and would imply that the child brides involved had begun menstruating).

Fraidy, herself, was 19 when she got married, so (despite the fact that the marriage was coerced) she was not a child bride--though she was, most certainly, bullied. (I have read several accounts of this part of her life.)


> “I wanted to get divorced from the start, but in
> the community I was from, a woman does not have
> the legal right to end her own marriage.”

This is according to Jewish religious law (not secular law).


> As well as divorce, Fraidy says “religious laws and
> customs” made numerous other rights impossible
> for her to access, such as not being allowed to
> use birth control, being forced to have
> unprotected sex and not having access to her own
> finances, making her completely dependent on her
> husband. “When I finally managed to escape my
> family they punished me for leaving by declaring
> me dead.”"

Declaring someone dead for not following community custom is, in modern and contemporary times, something which usually only occurs among the "ultra" communities. It would be highly unusual for a family outside of the "ultra" communities to do this, though it remains a theoretical possibility.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2020 01:41PM by Tevai.

IMO the rule should be 18, with the exception of 17 and have already graduated from high school.

In Arizona, marriage age requirement laws require both parties to be at least 16 years old if they each have their parent's consent. If they do not have their parent's consent, each party must be at least 18 years old. In some circumstances, minors under the age of 16 years old may be allowed to marry with court consent

I disagree:
16 isn't too young for marriage. Many people should be done with school and working by that age anyway. Instead, we have people who stay in school well into their 20's & beyond and have nothing to show for it. Useless degree and no spouse or kids. And what is the average age for consensual intercourse anyway? Big deal, some people went ahead and made it legal. Having sex at 16, yeah, why not go ahead and get married?

Why are you worried about the marriage age? Did you get married youg? One of your kids got married young?

Getting married young is a good option for some people. Anyway, I know older people in abusive marriages, with lots of education and 0 kids, who still will not leave no matter the help offered to them. So this "study" is useless IMO. Young marriage does not = abusive marriage. And there's something worse than having lots of kids. It's being barren, and have to adopt kids, because waited until late 30's to get married. Just sayin'

The real problem with that lady isn't her young marriage age, but the cult she was in.

O by the way, it's legal to marry your 1st cousin in many states. Yuck. Let's change that law! Don't worry about the teenagers getting married, let's get that gene pool cleaned up first.

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

People are generally finished with school (meaning graduated from high school) at age 17 or 18. And look at it this way -- why would you think it's okay to marry at age 16 when legally you can't enter into any other kind of contract? You are still considered a minor. You can't rent an apartment, or a car, or enlist in the military. If in the best judgment of our culture, you are not considered mature enough to do any of the above, then why would you be considered mature enough to marry?

It is my understanding that, in the old days, in the South, if a child got pregnant without a husband, the father of the bride-to-be held a shotgun over the groom until the service was over.

Of course, we've come a long way since then(?)

I've seen statistics on RfM from others saying the average mid-nineteenth century marriage age was actually around 20 or 22 and not fifteen or sixteen.

No average sixteen year old in America is going to be able to get a job that pays well enough to support a family.

Even having a family isn't free. It costs money just to give birth in the USA... on the order of $20-30K
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-have-a-baby-2018-4


Teen pregnancy creates a cycle of poverty that is very difficult to escape from and child marriage keeps women uneducated and under control.

You can look up the statistics for yourself.

The average age for a mid-nineteenth century first marriage for women was 23. On the frontier it was 20 or so, IIRC.

anybody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've seen statistics on RfM from others saying the
> average mid-nineteenth century marriage age was
> actually around 20 or 22 and not fifteen or
> sixteen.
>
> No average sixteen year old in America is going to
> be able to get a job that pays well enough to
> support a family.
>
> Even having a family isn't free. It costs money
> just to give birth in the USA... on the order of
> $20-30K
> https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-it-c
> ost-to-have-a-baby-2018-4
>
>
> Teen pregnancy creates a cycle of poverty that is
> very difficult to escape from and child marriage
> keeps women uneducated and under control.
>
> You can look up the statistics for yourself.

You can look up the census data and figure it out. I cannot remember the average, but I do remember that a female getting married under the age of 17 was extremely rare. That is why the apologetic argument for Joe marrying Helen Mar Kimball at "almost 15" doesn't hold any validity.

Yes, anybody. The marriage age declined late in the 19th century and in the early 20th century, but that was from the highs you describe in JS's day. Recall also that women went through puberty in that era at about age 16 or even 17.

Looking back and saying a 14 or 15 year old getting married was normal in the first half of the 19th century is wishful thinking by those who have something to hide either themselves or for others.

People the world over have somehow managed to have happy babies and families for centuries. Many of them young, uneducated, and dirt poor. I could care less if my neighbors or family members got married at 15 or 45, rich or poor. Not my business.

It sounds like someone wants to intimidate a teen out of marriage.

Actually, marriage is a bad deal for most people. Often ends in divorce, battles over money, custody battles, alimony, child support, etc.

And many of those who remain married are unhappy. Lack of money or sex or whatever fantasy it all started with.

The vows are fake and are a trap.

But the whole marriage thing is good for the divorce industry, the wedding industry, the counseling industry, etc, etc.

Or the Brethren look in the "joy book" and pick you to marry some old man at fifteen before you have even had a life