I went abroad to England for my first semester of college. The dorm I was in was a little set of personal rooms, six, with shared bath and kitchen spaces. It was also co-ed. As I was a tiny little American freshman, the two older English boys sort of decided I was something of a protectorate. If I needed ANY explanation about How Things Worked in England, they'd hop to in order to make sure I'd be ok.
There was one other American girl in the dorm, different college in the states tho. She didn't interact with the rest of us much (and given I'm quite the introvert that says something). One day, I want to say about a month before the end of term, I was cooking in the kitchen and the more jokester-y of the older boys was hanging out with me. We were chatting about the different books from our literature classes--mine was Paradise Lost.
In walks Other American Girl. I don't know how it came up, but one of us made a comment about not seeing her much. Somehow this led to her ranting about how "godless" England was. (I, a Jew who not only had seen TONS of churches while here but also had been learning calligraphy from a nun every Monday morning in the school chapel, was especially baffled. Their fucking national anthem was "god save the queen"!).
Anyway, jokester boy teased her a little and she got even MORE worked up, insisting she'd seen "demons" in "so many people" just walking around the campus and city. At this point the other older boy, who was a bit of a jock, came in and asked why demons came up. She repeated herself.
At this point, both boys clearly think this woman is certifiable. Just diagnosing people you don't know with "demons" will do that. Anyway she got more worked up and left, and the boys and I had a deep conversation about American Fundamentalist Christianity (I had a lot of Deep Conversations with them, why doesn't your nation want the better healthcare Obama is trying for was another big one).
When I studied abroad in France, I did the classic US American thing and struck up a conversation with the guy stuck opposite of me on the train. He seemed to think that he could offend me by complaining about the US, only for me to do the classic improv thing of going, "yes, and-" and adding onto the complaints with odder ones he hadn't heard before. For instance, leashes for children, the fictionkin subculture (ever told a French man some people think they were Pikachu in a past life? it's wild), and, of course, the existence of Florida. (Cue multiple minutes of looking up Florida + a random word he named and showing him real news stories.)
It was all very chill at this point. Snacks had been bought, silly French news stories had been shared in exchange for silly Florida ones, we were on a first-name basis, and I had shown him a picture of my school's giant fountain in the library full of rubber duckies. We're leaning back, quite casual and comfy, watching the French countryside go by. I tell him about Moth Man, beloved icon of my home state. He thinks I'm shitting him and looks it up, then laughs and sends pictures to his buddies. Oh, people back then were crazy, he jokes, shaking his head in disbelief, eyes glittering with laughter.
Yeah, I say, now we only do some crazy things, like allow child marriage in four states.
I see the laughter slowly die in his eyes as he asks what I mean. Do I mean teenagers? Do I mean 18? What do I mean? I, the son of a pediatric forensic psychologist mom whose whole job is to help kids heal, tell him. I tell him about the four US states where there is no minimum age limit to be married. If you can find a judge to agree to it, you can marry a kid at literally any age. Any age. Yes, theoretically 0. In practice the youngest my mom ever ran into was 10.
Ten. He repeats that several times, slowly. He had leaned forward. Now he leans back, as if in shock. This French man, you see, was considerably older than me. He has children close to that age. He asks me if the marriage is to another child. I explain it's to an adult. The French man rubs at his face, cups his hand over his mouth, settles for a mixture of resting his chin in his palm and covering part of his lower face. With his other hand, he pulls out the phone to fact check me. I am not lying. He puts the phone in his pocket and stares out the window at nothing.
Why, the French man says, with a tone of voice I usually hear people use when talking about war, is this legal? Why is this allowed? Why would a parent allow it, even when it's allowed?
I explain that in some sects of Christianity, having sex out of wedlock is an unspeakably bad sin, even if you're a child, even if you said no, even if you hated it. I explain that statutory rape laws do not apply to a married couple. It saves the girl's honor in the eyes of the Lord and the community, it sets things right, I explain, taking care to add that I'm Jewish and not a part of this particular legal nightmare.
He stares at nothing for a long, long time. There's anger in his eyes but it's the kind born of empathy, the quiet fury that is probably still simmering in him when he remembers this bit of US law. The silence goes on long enough that I worry about how he's processing this. It was always kind of a trivia fact in the US, a little blip. For us it was Tuesday. For him it was high-octane horror beyond his capacity to imagine.
Fuck the US, he eventually told me, he doesn't hate religion but he hates every person participating in this "marriage" (he says while making actual air quotes in sheer disgust). How doesn't it get banned in new laws?
Because Christians, which there are a lot of in the US, vote against banning it when Republicans tell them that keeping it preserves religious freedom. I was suddenly aware, as I said this, that a train car at 10AM is a very quiet place, and people were listening in on this. I can only imagine what they were thinking. My eyes went to a kindly woman in her 60's with flawless dyed blonde hair, who is unnaturally still, to a couple and their baby, who were continually glancing at each other, myself and the baby without a word. Even if they don't like it, I explain, they like Jesus, and they see the people who oppose it as liking Jesus less or not at all.
Jesus, he informs me, never fucking said that [child marriage] was fucking okay and even if he had, it wouldn't be right.
It's not about what's right, I say, as if I'm explaining a thing everybody knows, as if this truth is self-evident, it's about taking a side for the Lord.
He puts his face in both of his hands, looking like a man who has aged a decade in the course of this conversation.
(This map could kill a Frenchman under the right circumstances.)
We need reverse missionaries, and I say that as a person of faith.
Ok I did NOT expect one of the 4 states to be CALIFORNIA.
The map is sourced from Wikipedia, which has multiple articles regarding this topic.
For California, requirements for "an unmarried person under 18 years of age" are:
Get permission via court order
Proof of filing written consent from one parent/guardian of each underage person, or court permission if no parent/guardian exists who is capable of consenting
If a minor is under 15 and/or has no high school graduation/GED: An investigation by Family Court Services recommending the marriage after ruling out "potential force, threat, persuasion, fraud, coercion, or duress" by any person involved, after interviewing each person to be married and one parent/guardian (if applicable). (If these are not ruled out, a report to child protective services must be made.)
If a minor is under 15 and/or has no high school graduation/GED: A filmed second interview with each person involved
If a minor is under 15 and/or has no high school graduation/GED: The court separately considering "whether there is evidence of coercion or undue influence on the minor"
If under 15 and/or has no high school graduation/GED and/or with no pregnancy involved: A minimum 30 day waiting period
The court considering whether to require premarital counseling, which cannot be required to be from any religious organization
Further information to be provided to the court about the two people to be married, with information provided to "the minor" regarding emancipation and rights of an emancipated minor, divorce, numbers for the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Sexual Assault Hotline
Note that, though the California statutes apply to marriages between two minors, they sometimes refer to "the minor" as if assuming there is only one in the marriage.
News site California Health Report contrasts data from the state compared to a study conducted by anti-child-marriage nonprofit Unchained. The news article quotes a statement from the ACLU that opposes changing the law, out of worries that child marriages will be done under the radar, but I could not independently verify that this quote is legitimate.
In New Mexico*, the requirements for marriage for "any person under sixteen years of age" (with separate requirements for ages 16-17) are:
The children's or family division of the district court authorizes the marriage
A parent/guardian of the minor requests the marriage "to compel support and establish parentage" OR one of the marriage partners is pregnant
The annotations to the New Mexico law mention that the law previously did not allow females 14 and under to marry, but that this was repealed in 1978. ChildUSA, cited below, states that no proof of age is required, but the statute appears to require examining the minor's birth certificate to determine parentage.
*Link is not a .gov site but is endorsed as the official state law database here
In Oklahoma, the requirements for marriage of any "person under the age of sixteen (16) years" (with separate requirements for ages 16-17) are:
The marriage is part of "settlement of a suit for seduction or paternity," OR all of the following apply:
A pregnancy is involved or the illegitimate child has already been born
At least one parent/guardian of each minor (if not in custody) presents in court and has the opportunity to object (if not present, they may be given notice of the hearing)
Note that the Oklahoma statute is written in a way that is difficult to interpret for a layperson like me, so the above may contain caveats. I also do not see "seduction" defined in the definitions list in the statute. FindLaw interprets this statute simply as "Minors under 16 may obtain license in case of pregnancy or birth of child with parental consent and court authorization." Oklahoma also bans same-sex marriage in the same statute, so presumably this would not apply for same-sex underage marriages. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
In Mississippi*, the requirements for marriage in the case that "the male applicant is under seventeen (17) years of age or the female is under fifteen (15) years of age" (with separate requirements for males aged 17-21 or females aged 15-21) are:
The court receives proof that the marriage is willing and "sufficient reasons exist"
The parents/guardian of each minor consents
Neither partner is intoxicated or seems to the clerk to be mentally incapable of consenting to marriage
Mississippi bans same-sex marriage in the same statute, so presumably this would not apply for same-sex underage marriages.
*Link is not a .gov site but is endorsed as the official state law publisher here
A report published by ChildUSA, a think tank advocating against child abuse, offers an overview condemning child marriage in the USA, which also goes state-by-state. It states that "there is no federal law banning child marriage" and points to Washington as another state which does not have an age requirement. US territories without an age requirement are listed as Guam, N.M.I., and Puerto Rico. It also brings up that child marriage can occur in the 28 states that do not require "official proof of age for all applicants."
A consideration raised by a 2022 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health compared statutory rape laws to child marriage laws by state, also mentioning when the laws did not apply specifically due to a provision in the law regarding marital rape. By state:
In California, laws regarding rape don't apply only if one party in the marriage "is incapable of giving legal consent because of mental disorder or developmental or physical disability." Statutory rape laws explicitly do not apply for spouses.
In Mississippi, pedophilia law and statutory rape law explicity do not apply if the child is the adult's spouse. Sexual battery charges seem to still apply, however - which is to say, sexual penetration is illegal without consent, or for ages 14-16 if the perpetrator is 3 years older than the victim, or for any child 13 or under if the perpetrator is 2 years older than the victim. Pornography is also prohibited from distribution to anyone under 18 in all cases. Additionally, "No person shall, by any means including computer, knowingly entice, induce, persuade, seduce, solicit, advise, coerce, or order a child to meet with the defendant or any other person for the purpose of engaging in sexually explicit conduct." (Definitions for this statute were repealed.)
I'm afraid this is too much for me to continue deep-diving right now, and I'm not sure whether Tumblr will censor this entire topic.
