Child Marriage in America: Girls 12 Can Get Married To Older Men!

The general perception is that minor marriage is illegal and people get freak out when someone young is involved, but the law prove them wrong. In some US states the age is as low as 12 for girls and 14 for boys,in the UK it is 16.

The marriage of minor and compulsion in marriage are said to be interrelated issues that attract public criticism in our modern age. This type of “Child Marriage” or “Child Bride” would seem to imply as betrothal without mutual consent or some form of family arrangement by desire to choose a husband for their little girl. Marriage of minor was believed to be a practice common in Muslim world, Africa, and some part of Asia. Child marriage chart reveals girls can wed at 12 in some parts of the US but, lawmakers are taking step to amend the stated law which stipulate underage girls can be married, they seeks to raise the age to 16.

The issue of minor marriage can only be heard in developing countries, afterall, in developing countries is common for girls to get married before the age of 18, and international human rights advocates focus on liberating underage girls who are being coerced into marriage, whereas the problem is right next door.

However, child marriage isn't only a problem in the developing world, it's also an issue right here in the United States. Thousands of children have been married in the U.S. in recent years—between 2000 and 2010, 3,853 children were married in New York state alone. 

Looking back history, marriage of minor was an old practice in Europe and America, a lot people are unaware that in the United State, in the state of Delaware in 1880 the minimum age for marriage was 7 years old. In California, it was 10 years. In our present day, the marriages for some states are In Massachusetts, with parental consent and or the consent of a judge, boys can marry at fourteen years of age and girls can marry at the age of twelve.

Nebraska and Nevada with parental consent, parties can marry below the age of sixteen. In New York, underage marriage is allowed with parental consent.

New Hampshire, with parental consent and the consent of the judge, males can marry at age fourteen and females can marry at age thirteen.

In Virginia and Maryland With parental consent, parties can marry at a younger age and younger parties may receive a license by reason of pregnancy or the birth of a child.

According to report by Wycn.org, Fraidy Reiss the Executive Director of “Unchained At Last” a non-profit organization that helps women and girls leave or avoid arranged and forced marriages, said tracking child marriages in America can be difficult.

“We still don’t have a very good sense of how common child marriage is here in the United States,” Reiss says. “The fact is, though, while 18 is the minimum marriage age in most U.S. states, every U.S. state allows exceptions under which children under age 18 can get married.”

In most U.S. states, guardians can provide parental consent in order to allow children under the age of 18 to enter into a legal marriage. But Reiss says that “consent” can also be an issue.

“Parental consent is a common exception [to the law], and that typically lowers the marriage age to age 16,” she says. “But the problem with parental consent is that there is no process in place to ensure that it’s not actually parental coercion. Even in a situation where a girl is sobbing openly and doesn’t want this marriage, her parents can sign the marriage license application and force her into a marriage without the clerk having any authority to intervene.”

When it comes to marriage exceptions for persons under the age of 18, many  U.S. states also allow for “judicial approval,” Reiss says.

“If a judge approves the marriage, that lowers the age even more,” she says. “In many states, there is no minimum age below which a judge is no longer allowed to approve a marriage.”

Reiss says she has seen this issue first hand—her group found one case where a 10-year-old boy was legally married to an 18-year-old woman in the state of New Jersey back in 2006.

“It’s really at a judge’s discretion,” she says. “We have found that judges have been allowing marriages often at ages or with age differences that would be considered statutory rape under state law.”

According to an analysis by “Unchained At Last”, an overwhelming majority of child marriages in the United States involve young girls under the age of 18 and adult men.

Meanwhile, Independent Uk examine America’s child marriage chart where it indicates girls can wed at 12 in some parts of the US and the efforts being put in place by lawmakers to raise age to16.

Several states in the US including Massachusetts, allow children to get married “in exceptional circumstances.”

“Maryland and New York recorded 3,853 marriage of minors between 2000 and 2010, according to state Health Department data published in the New York Times.”

“In Virginia itself, according to state health statistics, more than 4,500 minors were married between 2000 and 2013, including about 220 who were 15 or younger.”

Lawmakers in America are battling to overturn some of the country's most archaic laws, which stipulate that children as young as 12 can be married.

In the state of Virginia, it is officially still legal for girls as young as 12 or 13 to be brought to a courthouse with evidence of a pregnancy and wed, a practice that has come under increased scrutiny.

Virginia Senator Jill Vogel R-Fauquier introduced legislation which is now moving through the Virginia General Assembly, seeks to raise the minimum age for marriage to 16 to bring it in line with other states - and similar moves are under way in Maryland and New York, where 3,853 minors were married between 2000 and 2010, according to State Health Department data published in the New York Times.

In Virginia itself, according to state health statistics, more than 4,500 minors were married between 2000 and 2013, including about 220 who were 15 or younger.

And a separate Statista chart plotting the minimum legal age of marriage for girls worldwide reveals that the US is one of the lowest on record, with several places - including Massachusetts - allowing girls as young as 12 to be wed with the consent of a judge.

 “It’s rarely the case that the 13-year-old is marrying a 17-year-old,” Ms Vogel told Washington Top News. 

”It’s more often the case that it is a child marrying somebody decades older than they are."

Ms Vogel pointed out that often, young women who go on to be abused in early marriages are not old enough to go to court to get a protection order - and aren't even old enough to drive.

She said officials should be looking out for what's in the child's best interests - not handing out marriage licenses.

“Someone should be asking the question, ‘Well if this 13-year-old is pregnant, isn’t that evidence of statutory rape?’" Ms Vogel said. "Is that not a crime? They are truly victims in every way."

Senate Bill 415, which passed in the Senate, has passed in a House sub-committee and in a full-committee and is due to face a vote.

The bill would see those between 16 and 18 having to petition courts for a marriage license - at which point a judge would need to determine whether or not they were mature enough or were being coerced.

The judge could also grant emancipation as part of the petition, giving teens similar rights to adults under the law.

But Ms Vogel said she was surprised at what she found when researching marriage laws in other states, which she said acted as a “cover up” to sex abusers to protect themselves from prosecution.

Follow Nadine Post on Twitter: @nadinepostblog

Please share and like Nadine Post on Facebook: Nadine Post