The phrase “child marriage” tends to evoke a specific image. It’s almost always imagined in a developing nation, usually involving a girl from a poor family who is forced to marry a man significantly older than her.
But it’s too often seen as a foreign problem and not something affecting the United States at all.
Because we don’t associate child marriage with the United States, it continues to be a persistent problem. It’s here, it’s legal and it’s hurting our young girls. For this reason, our 50 state legislatures should close the loopholes making marriage before the age of 18 legal.
In New Jersey alone, nearly 3,500 girls were married as minors, some of whom were 15 or younger, between 1995 and 2012, according to the New York Times. Of these women, 91% were married to people who were old enough that statutory rape accusations would have been effective in court.
These cases occurred across various ethnic and religious groups, and while the majority of these cases fell underneath the parental consent exception, which allows for marriage if the parents agree to it, the Tahirih Justice Center suspects that parental coercion could be a leading cause behind child marriage.
This was the case for Sherry Johnson, who was forced to marry the man who raped her in order to preserve her honor. While this type of coercion is more common in the south, over half of the states in the country don’t have a minimum age requirement for marriage.
And that’s pathetic.
We’re so quick to say that countries that permit child marriage are barbaric. As a society, we have largely condemned the practice of child marriage – and for good reason. Child marriage, which disproportionately affects women and girls, takes away a vital part of a girl’s life. And it can legally validate the abuse that they undergo by older men in their community.
Childhood should be a period of time for children to have fun and not have to follow an ancient form of honor that has no place in the 21st century.
By eliminating the exceptions to child marriage, there may be immediate concerns, like the increase in out-of-wedlock children born to teen mothers. However, if the parents are not in a consensual and loving relationship, they may not be able to give their child the care that it needs.
Additionally, while some of the marriages may be consensual, the threat of coercion that often exists should be a reason why even parental consent exceptions should not be used to circumvent minimum age requirements.
Child marriage is something that is out of place with modern life. It forces teenagers to sacrifice their lives and can force people into relationships with their rapists.
By eliminating the loopholes that are associated with underage marriage, we can make child marriage in the United States a thing of the past.
We, as a country, may not want to address it, but if we continue to ignore it, child marriage will continue to survive and adversely affect our young girls.
