Many young girls dream of their wedding day their whole lives.
And some young girls find themselves saying, “I do,” before they have the chance to dream. In countries across the world — including developed nations like the United States — children as young as ten years old are wed to adults.
Why are these marriages allowed? How do states come to recognize these marriages?
According to the New York Times, these nuptials are made possible by the loopholes in state marriage statutes. While the legally marriageable age in most states is 18, almost all of states offer licenses to those who can either provide parental consent and/or get approval from a state judge.
Usually, minors aged 16 to 17 must get parental consent in order to wed, while children younger than 16 must receive judicial approval as well.
“Judicial” means, of course, by a judge. And a judge is someone who has completed many years of law education and judgeship training. They have a heap of experience in justice matters and are often elected by the public or government officials, if not appointed.
They have all of this experience to utilize when ruling, yet evidence in the state of New York has shown that in 2011 a marriage between a 15-year-old and someone “age 35 to 39” was approved by a judge, according to the New York Times.
Approval is probably easy to come by, considering most states do not require any kind of investigation into whether or not a child has been coerced into a marriage.
Often it is the parents that do the coercion on the basis of controlling sexuality, creating some kind of economic connection or gain or on the basis of protecting a tired and dangerous religious ideal.
Not every parent can be trusted to make decisions for their children. Any decision that guides a child into a marriage with an adult is detrimental to that child’s development.
Religious and cultural obligations to marry frequently represent an extreme opinion on the importance of virginity upon marriage to ensure family honor. Guaranteeing virginity by marrying off a 13- or 14-year-old takes it a few steps too far.
As far as the law is concerned, sex between a child under the legal age of consent and an older adult is statutory rape.
And as far as we are concerned, couples that commit statutory rape are no different from those who engage in child marriages.
Cracks in state laws that allow such marriages represent a larger problem with our government as a whole.
They signify a lack of concern for the rights of children in favor of following archaic procedures and defense of religious statutes.
Coerced child marriage is a form of human slavery. We need to patch up the holes in marriage laws before the problem grows.
