Your Turn: Child Marriage Laws

Child marriage in the news recently

• A bill to limit underage marriage in Kentucky has been delayed after the conservative Family Foundation of Kentucky voiced concerns about the wording. Under current law, 16- and 17-year-olds can marry with their parents’ permission. Children under the age of 16 are allowed to marry if they are pregnant and marrying the father of their baby.

• Last Friday, Florida passed legislation prohibiting marriage for anyone under 17. A woman who was 11 when she was forced to marry her rapist worked for six years to get the law passed. "My heart is happy," she said after the bill cleared the House on a 109-1 vote. “My goal was to protect our children and I feel like my mission has been accomplished. This is not about me. I survived.”

• A report by The Kansas City Star published over the weekend found that "Missouri is a destination wedding spot—for 15-year-old brides." In Missouri, the Star explained, “brides and grooms as young as 15 can marry with no more than the single approving swipe of their parent’s pen, even if the other parent objects.”

• Prosecutors are often less likely to file statutory rape charges when the victim and older partner get married.

The laws for child marriage vary from state to state

• Many states allow children - usually defined as someone under the age of 18 - to get married, though they differ in minimum age and other requirements.

• Half of all states have no minimum age to marry, but do require anyone under 14 to obtain a judge’s approval. (In New Hampshire, for instance, girls must be at least 13, and boys at least 14. Anyone under 18 needs a parent’s consent and permission from a county judge.)

• In eight states, children under the age of 15 can only marry if the bride is pregnant or already a mother.

• Over the last two years, New York, Texas, and Virginia have passed legislation to ban or restrict child marriage; New York raised the minimum marriage age to 17, Texas to 16, and Virginia to 18.

• Nonprofit Unchained at Last, which advocates against child marriage, found nearly 248,000 children – some as young as 10 years old – were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010.

What do you think?

Should there be federal legislation on the minimum age to marry? What should the minimum marriage age be? Is there an age that’s "too young" to get married? Should marriage remain a loophole for statutory rape? Hit Take Action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

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—Josh Herman

(Photo Credit: LightFieldStudios / iStock)