TOW #18 - Why Does the United States Still Let 12-Year-Olds Get Married?

In Fraidy Reiss’s piece Why Does the United States Still Let 12-Year-Olds Get Married details the unknown practice occurring in the United States.  Seen in various cultures and countries, child marriage still exists and is hidden in America.  Revealing the detrimental effects of this practice, Fraidy Reiss- founder and executive director of Unchained At Last- reprimands the United States government for not doing enough to end child marriage. 

Reiss’s argument that the government had not done enough to eliminate child marriage is agreeable due to the way the government has always created exceptions to laws created to protect children.  In 2016, Virginia finally passed a bill to end child marriage, yet legislators combatted it with an exception to the bill.  Emancipated minors, youngest 16, are an exception.  Although Virginia has moved to stop child marriages, with the creation of exceptions, minors are still subject to marriages that lead to poverty, pregnancy, and a higher percentage of a myriad of harmful diseases.  With legislators creating exceptions, minors are still subjected to child marriage.

Not only to exceptions ruin freedom for children, but avoidance does too.  Two states, New York and Maryland, proposed bills but they failed.  Some states have not even acted at all.  This lack of action has led to around 248,000 children wed in American in the span of 10 years (2000-2010).  When Michelle De Mello was 16 and pregnant, she was pressured into marrying the 19-year-old father.  Thinking that the law would save her from this fate, DeMello had hope that being a minor protected her from marriage.  Contrary to her thoughts, the law did not protect her.  In fact, all states have the exception that children under 18 can marry with parental or judicial approval.  27 states do not have an age where children are not allowed to marry, meaning there is no limit as to when these minors can be legally married.  Without any states taking action, the US government can be accused of not working hard enough to end child marriage.

With many states creating exceptions to bills and some taking absolutely no actions, child marriage does not seem to be eliminated in the near future.  But where the responsibility lies to fix this problem falls into the government’s lap.  Only the government can abolish child marriage, without exceptions.  Reiss emphasizes the government’s importance in ridding child marriage by highlighting the faults many states have.  Failing to eliminate marriage with minors has led to many women on economic deprivation and instability, not to mention the more women being married has led to a high chance of these girls dropping out of high school and increasingly likely to drop out of college.  The girls forced into marriages deserve more protection and should settle for nothing less, only now we must rely on the government to provide this protection.