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xvxvx 44 minutes ago [-]
Campaigners always use examples of old men marrying young girls but that’s not common at all.
96% of children getting married were 16 or 17, and 85% of the adults marrying those children were 18-23. Not quite the horror show that campaigners push.
I agree that no one under 18 should be getting married, I just question their tactics.
Aeolun 16 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, I also question the distinction between a 17 year old marrying a 50 year old and an 18 year old marrying a 50 year old. Does your judgement suddenly magically get better after you turn 18?
john_strinlai 14 minutes ago [-]
you have to draw the line somewhere, and 18 (or 21) is a common place to draw the line.
malfist 26 minutes ago [-]
> but that’s not common at all
No one is saying it's common. They're saying it shouldn't happen at all.
porkshoe 33 minutes ago [-]
So your concern is that the marketing of a child marriage ban shows the p95 outcome, not the p50?
Weird.
jacobolus 7 minutes ago [-]
It's clear to most people that a marriage between someone 50 and someone 14 is a serious power imbalance, coercive beyond the younger person's ability to consent, and nearly everyone in our society thinks it seems gross and wrong. But as far as I can tell such marriages have not been happening in California. Prior to the new law, the consent of the parents and a judge was required.
(Personally I think a marriage between someone 50 and someone 19 still seems bad.)
It's less clear that a marriage between a 17-year-old and a 16-year-old or between a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old is inherently problematic.
According to a news article from a few years ago, groups opposing a previous ban on child marriages in California included the ACLU (who claimed that it "unnecessarily and unduly intrudes on the fundamental right of marriage without sufficient cause") and Planned Parenthood (who said the law should "not impede on the reproductive rights of minors and their ability to decide what is best for them, their health and their lives").
porkshoe 21 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
NordStreamYacht 3 minutes ago [-]
The specific age will always be controversial because laws require specificity but social norms are varied. (Quantum levels vs continuous functions.)
In some societies it's okay to marry 6-year-old girls.
Slightly more rational societies link it to puberty in the female. Indeed, their leaders have written entire books to justify such behaviour.
em-bee 12 minutes ago [-]
how does that protect 18yr olds from being forced into marriage? a 16yr old can not consent but an 18yr old can? i was hardly any smarter at 18 than i was at 16. in my opinion the problem is not the consent or lack thereof, or the age, the problem is the inability legally or maturity wise, to say "no".
with the right culture and support there is nothing wrong with getting married early.
the problem comes from arranged marriages, especially if there is a large age difference.
instead of setting a minimum age, which does not help much, it should be easier to refuse, and even if agreed, it should be possible for anyone under say 25 to simply have a marriage annulled or a divorce if there are obvious problems (such as the age difference).
but if both are young, then marrying young has its benefits. the younger we are the more adaptable we are, and that helps to build a relationship and makes it easier to get along.
the idea that we should be fully matured adults before getting married doesn't actually work, because living together is part of the process of maturing, and the older you are the more difficult is it to develop certain skills and attitudes that you need for a successful marriage.
in china, people get married much earlier than in the west, but they also have strong family and social support for doing so.
legitster 40 minutes ago [-]
> In the state, there had been no legal age to wed, allowing children to get married as long as their parents consent and a judge signs off on the nuptials.
> There was also no mechanism for people under 18 to get divorced and many girls say they were trapped in abusive and predatory relationships.
Call me misguided, but I don't necessarily see 16 year old and 20 year getting married as equally problematic as the provided examples of 30+ year age gaps.
I think the real issue people are dancing around right now culturally is that these extreme age gap relationships are beginning to make everyone feel very uncomfortable. The difference between a 17 year old and and 18 year old doesn't make them feel less gross and exploitative.
BobbyJo 20 minutes ago [-]
You can drive a car at 15-16 most states, which puts other people's lives in your hands. You can get married between 16 and 18 depending on the state. You can join the army, take on debt, and do pornography at 18, all three of which will completely alter your life long term. You can drink, buy a gun, or enter a casino at 21. These feel someone nonsensically ordered to me. Seems like we should just pick one age for "you can now make and be responsible for your decisions" and stop talking about all of these weird edge cases as if we need the law to deal with all of them.
Aeolun 13 minutes ago [-]
I mean, most of the world has settled on 18 for this.
dofm 45 minutes ago [-]
FWIW the situation in the UK, that the BBC doesn’t mention, is similarly muddy.
In England and Wales, since 2022, the minimum age is 18. Previously it was 16 with parental consent, which is the situation in (the rather more religious) Northern Ireland.
In Scotland the age is 16 and parental consent is not required.
So, well into the 20th century young English couples would flee across the border and get married there; most famously at Gretna Green, a town just inside the border.
Scottish marriages involving English/Welsh people under 18 are now not legal.
27 minutes ago [-]
zeroonetwothree 52 minutes ago [-]
You can’t enter into other contracts until 18 so why was marriage an exception?
legitster 39 minutes ago [-]
Not true, you can certainly enter into military service contracts and student debt obligations! And unlike marriage, there is no easy way to dissolve those.
The Findings section has a long, detailed list of child marriage harm. In short, preventing marriage before 18 provides for immense harm reduction in the aggregate and improved odds of life success. I’d push the age to 21 if I could. Rental car companies always had it right to restrict rentals to <25 age cohort due to front lobe development timeline.
(The US allows student debt and military obligations at an age when this cohort is vulnerable to systemically exploit young people, these should not be used as examples imho)
People under 18 can enter into contracts for "the necessities of life".
selcuka 43 minutes ago [-]
I get your point (and I agree), but technically the parents sign the contract.
teaearlgraycold 38 minutes ago [-]
Weird
GeekyBear 25 minutes ago [-]
It's interesting when states like California decide that those under 18 are too young to make a decision on marriage, but old enough to decide that they want to have sex change surgery.
It seems like you would come to the same conclusion on the question of "how old you have to be before you can make your own decisions" on both issues.
john_strinlai 19 minutes ago [-]
>but old enough to decide that they want to have sex change surgery.
an under-18 can not unilaterally decide to get sex change surgery in california.
GeekyBear 1 minutes ago [-]
How about puberty blockers?
stackghost 17 minutes ago [-]
> states like California decide that those under 18 are too young to make a decision on marriage, but old enough to decide that they want to have sex change surgery.
I don’t think this is factually accurate.
Sex-reassignment surgery (or whatever we are calling it these days) requires parental consent in California if the person seeking it is a minor.
GeekyBear 10 minutes ago [-]
> Sex-reassignment surgery (or whatever we are calling it these days) requires parental consent in California if the person seeking it is a minor.
So why shouldn't you be allowed to get married with parental consent in the same state?
I'm OK with a state deciding it either way, but I'm looking for a little consistency.
jerkstate 51 minutes ago [-]
still legal in 32 states, and Scotland and Northern Ireland, BBC
accountrequired 32 minutes ago [-]
There is an argument that people should marry when they are (*both*) younger. More time to be fruitful and multiply. More time together, instead of encouraging high "body counts" and high-risk behavior. Delaying marriage is not as altruistic as it sounds.
para_parolu 28 minutes ago [-]
It also results in people who get to raise kids while having zero adult life experience.
john_strinlai 3 minutes ago [-]
i think its the sex part that results in kids, not the marriage part.
Aeolun 12 minutes ago [-]
Call me misguided, but I’m not sure adult life experience helps a lot with raising kids. It just means you grow out of touch.
vigilantpuma 4 minutes ago [-]
It does help. Older parents tend to have better mechanisms for coping with stress, and are less likely to physically abuse their kids, as just two examples.
You’re gonna be out of touch with your kids’ generation basically no matter what.
qwertytyyuu 25 minutes ago [-]
I mean, if people are supposedly "getting high body counts" without, would it really make a difference how often that occurs?
Let me describe a few ways why child marriage should be prohibited without any exceptions anywhere:
1. When a minor marries someone of age, their spouse becomes their legal guardian until they become of age (or become emancipated, which is a difficult process generally). Why is that an issue? Well, in abuse situations, it can be incredibly hard for the minor to leave their spouse who is their legal guardian. It's not much different to runaway children being returned to their parents, even when their parents are the source of the abuse. Certain states are worse for this than others, so called "reunification states" where they will absolutely try and return you to your legal guardian unless there's clear and convincing evidence why they shouldn't;
2. A lot of child marriages happen so an adult can escape a statutory rape or rape charge as prosecutors don't tend to prosecute when it's a spouse. It should be noted that spousal rape only became a crime in all 50 states of the US around 2005 (IIRC) and this only really picked up steam around 1990 or so;
3. Because of this lack of power, it creates a whole host of other problems, such as exploitation to the point of trafficking.
Politically, preserving child marriage is a uniquely Republican issue [1].
22 of these are "red" states: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North + South Carolina, North + South Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
6 more are blue-leaning "purple": Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin.
Only four are "blue": California (ban coming into effect 2027 as per article), Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland.
I don't understand why the ban cannot come into effect immediately. Like, wouldn't want to spoil someone's child marriage plans in the next year or so because it would be rude?
plandis 22 minutes ago [-]
> I don't understand why the ban cannot come into effect immediately.
This is the default in Californias constitution:
> Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of this subdivision [Article 4, section 8], a statute enacted at a regular session shall go into effect on January 1 next following a 90-day period from the date of enactment of the statute.
There are additional legislative hurdles to enact legislation faster than that.
malfist 22 minutes ago [-]
Kentucky had a bill up for vote this year, passed the senate but died in the house. One of the lawmakers specifically amended it to exempt cases where the child is pregnant.
Aeolun 8 minutes ago [-]
As in, it’s fine to marry if the child is pregnant, or the opposite?
kyleee 55 minutes ago [-]
Circumcision next?
kspacewalk2 45 minutes ago [-]
Male genital mutilation
djvu97 1 hours ago [-]
It was legal in the first place?
socializer 42 minutes ago [-]
It's really adolescent marriage (the threshold was moved from 16 to 18). Teenage marriages were still fairly common in the West in the first half of the 20th century. Vatican City had a minimum age of 12 on the books until 2013.
Europe is now more or less consistently 18 for parental consent, but marriages at a younger age are still permitted across the EU with judicial consent.
GeekyBear 49 minutes ago [-]
As long as your definition of "child" is any person who is not yet legally an adult.
NewJazz 55 minutes ago [-]
Yes technically allowed with parental consent and judicial approval. Not sure how often it happened.
AzzyHN 47 minutes ago [-]
In California, around 9,000 a year according to the article
gedy 55 minutes ago [-]
Ban is under age 18. Many states allow 16 & 17 with parents permission.
NewJazz 54 minutes ago [-]
California had/has until jan 1 no minimum age. But it requires judicial approval.
I hate to upend your "lulz red states" Reddit zinger, but the fact is the law doesn't take effect until January 2027, so until such time there is NO age limit in California.
The limit is 16 in Colorado and Illinois, 15 in Hawaii, and no limit in New Mexico.
Might want to update your notes.
14 minutes ago [-]
walrus01 33 minutes ago [-]
It wasn't mean to be a "lol red state" thing, for instance, California law still allows first cousins to marry. What in tarnation.
sippingabonedry 28 minutes ago [-]
Yikes.
Bizarrely, the map for cousin marriage is roughly the inverse of the age map, with it being permitted on most of the East coast, CA, CO, NM, AK, & HI.
walrus01 22 minutes ago [-]
I have a personal theory that making first or second cousin marriage illegal would result in a great deal of complaining and likely legal challenges from certain groups that they're being discriminated against on the basis of racial/ethnic origin. Take a look at a global map of the percentage prevalence of first-cousin marriage.
I say this having discussed the phenomenon with friends who immigrated from Pakistan and all of whom have met first-cousin married couples that had one or more children with birth defects or mental disabilities that could very well have been the result of it.
avazhi 48 minutes ago [-]
Goes without saying nobody should be married before they're 18 (or probably 25, for that matter, but that's another story), but it seems performative and disingenuous to call this 'child marriage'. A child is a person who hasn't yet reached puberty - clearly that isn't applicable to, say, a 17 year old.
It would be more accurate (but of course garner less headlines) to say California has made it unlawful for a minor to get married.
This pits the developmental/medical definition against legal status. Nevertheless, under the technical definition a child is necessarily a minor but not every minor is a child.
Thus, saying that California banned minors from being married would cover both cases accurately and be less clickbait-worthy, while saying 'California bans child marriage' is not fully accurate because it doesn't convey the full extent of the ban (viz., minors).
As a side note in the legal profession when discussing wills and estates the term 'minor children' is used for a reason.
itslennysfault 39 minutes ago [-]
Considering...
> In the state, there had been no legal age to wed, allowing children to get married as long as their parents consent and a judge signs off on the nuptials.
I don't even think the headline was sensationalist.
avazhi 35 minutes ago [-]
My point was that saying 'California bans child marriage' is less accurate than 'California bans minors from being able to wed', since the latter (arguably) encompasses a larger group of people. I don't think most people consider a 16 or 17 year old a child in the way a 5 or 8 year old is a child. Put another way, an 8 year old girl being forcibly married to, say, a 30 year old man (as happens in certain places in the world) is, I would put to you, much more offensive and viscerally disgusting than a 17 year old girl being married. Neither should be lawful, but child marriage conjures up images of actual children, surely.
selcuka 32 minutes ago [-]
> I don't think most people consider a 16 or 17 year old a child in the way a 5 or 8 year old is a child.
Did you read the article? There was no minimum age before this bill, so yes, they banned child marriage (by all definitions of it).
> In the state, there had been no legal age to wed, allowing children to get married as long as their parents consent and a judge signs off on the nuptials.
lazyasciiart 43 minutes ago [-]
No, it wouldn’t. The youngest known girl to give birth was 5 years old. Was she, in your opinion, a child?
avazhi 38 minutes ago [-]
Not it wouldn't what?
EDIT: Can't reply: 'You're posting too fast'
lazyasciiart 37 minutes ago [-]
Be more accurate.
selcuka 36 minutes ago [-]
> A child is a person who hasn't yet reached puberty - clearly that isn't applicable to, say, a 17 year old.
This is incorrect. According to UNICEF, "a child is any person under the age of 18." [1]
> California has made it unlawful for a minor to get married.
There was no minimum age limit in California before this bill.
I don't get how child marriage can be legal. Like, yeah, they get permission from their parents. But does the fact that they're married negate other laws??? I mean, it's still rape. It's still like child abuse. Does marriage = emancipation?
robocat 30 minutes ago [-]
Calling two midteens having sex "rape" or even worse "pedophilia" is plain abusive.
I'm not talking about older men here.
I'm saying that we need to be careful to avoid creating harm where there was none.
kazinator 26 minutes ago [-]
Pictures of yourself constituting child porn, making you a felon, is likewise abusive.
robocat 7 minutes ago [-]
I've seen a pattern of judgemental women and men saying they are thinking of the children, while not understanding or not giving a shit, just how much hurt they cause those same children.
Our "justice" and "health" systems in New Zealand can cause lifelong harm to kids by black-and-white following the rules (at best, because wisdom is difficult or caring is risky).
NDlurker 8 minutes ago [-]
Huh? Dude. The article is about a teenager marrying a 50 year old. I'm not talking about 2 16 year olds getting married.
john_strinlai 42 minutes ago [-]
>I mean, it's still rape.
im not in support of under-18s getting married, but, what?
NDlurker 40 minutes ago [-]
Never heard of age of consent laws/statutory rape?
tzs 3 minutes ago [-]
In the majority of US states the age of consent is 16 but the general marriage age is 18 so there quite a few states where you can have a child marriage without it being statutory rape.
If anyone is curious, the age of consent in the US is 18 in 11 states: Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
It is 17 in 6: Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, and Texas.
In the other 33, and also DC, it is 16.
It's interesting to compare to Europe. There it is:
18 in 3 (Vatican City, Turkey, Malta)
17 in 2 (Cypress, Ireland)
16 in 20
15 in 12
14 in 14
Like the US the general marriage age is 18 in most of Europe, but several countries allow exceptions for 16-17 with parental or judicial consent.
john_strinlai 38 minutes ago [-]
if its not statutory rape before they get married, it doesn't suddenly become it afterwards.
and, as far as i am aware, it requires judicial approval right now. presumably, if it were a case constituting statutory rape, the marriage wouldn't be signed off.
this isn't about 9 year olds getting married to 30 year olds.
NDlurker 6 minutes ago [-]
No age limits in Guam and Saipan. Age limit of 15 in ¿Kansas? according to a page someone linked to somewhere else in the thread. Also that site claims the youngest marriage in the US since 2000 was a ten year old.
vigilantpuma 29 minutes ago [-]
Statutory rape in California is sexual intercourse with anyone under 18. It’s a misdemeanor if the age difference is less than 3 years, but a felony if the adult is 21. So yes, a lot of these marriages would, in fact, constitute statutory rape.
That being said, the law makes an exception for married couples.
john_strinlai 27 minutes ago [-]
>That being said, the law makes an exception for married couples.
okay, so we're back to marriage != rape.
vigilantpuma 21 minutes ago [-]
I was mostly addressing the “if it wasn’t statutory rape before marriage” claim. The fact is it usually would be.
24 minutes ago [-]
BobbyJo 38 minutes ago [-]
Yes, and the laws around that align with marriage laws, so it's still a confusing statement.
vigilantpuma 28 minutes ago [-]
At least in California the statutory rape law exempted married couples.
96% of children getting married were 16 or 17, and 85% of the adults marrying those children were 18-23. Not quite the horror show that campaigners push.
I agree that no one under 18 should be getting married, I just question their tactics.
No one is saying it's common. They're saying it shouldn't happen at all.
Weird.
(Personally I think a marriage between someone 50 and someone 19 still seems bad.)
It's less clear that a marriage between a 17-year-old and a 16-year-old or between a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old is inherently problematic.
According to a news article from a few years ago, groups opposing a previous ban on child marriages in California included the ACLU (who claimed that it "unnecessarily and unduly intrudes on the fundamental right of marriage without sufficient cause") and Planned Parenthood (who said the law should "not impede on the reproductive rights of minors and their ability to decide what is best for them, their health and their lives").
In some societies it's okay to marry 6-year-old girls.
Slightly more rational societies link it to puberty in the female. Indeed, their leaders have written entire books to justify such behaviour.
with the right culture and support there is nothing wrong with getting married early.
the problem comes from arranged marriages, especially if there is a large age difference.
instead of setting a minimum age, which does not help much, it should be easier to refuse, and even if agreed, it should be possible for anyone under say 25 to simply have a marriage annulled or a divorce if there are obvious problems (such as the age difference).
but if both are young, then marrying young has its benefits. the younger we are the more adaptable we are, and that helps to build a relationship and makes it easier to get along.
the idea that we should be fully matured adults before getting married doesn't actually work, because living together is part of the process of maturing, and the older you are the more difficult is it to develop certain skills and attitudes that you need for a successful marriage.
in china, people get married much earlier than in the west, but they also have strong family and social support for doing so.
> There was also no mechanism for people under 18 to get divorced and many girls say they were trapped in abusive and predatory relationships.
Call me misguided, but I don't necessarily see 16 year old and 20 year getting married as equally problematic as the provided examples of 30+ year age gaps.
I think the real issue people are dancing around right now culturally is that these extreme age gap relationships are beginning to make everyone feel very uncomfortable. The difference between a 17 year old and and 18 year old doesn't make them feel less gross and exploitative.
In England and Wales, since 2022, the minimum age is 18. Previously it was 16 with parental consent, which is the situation in (the rather more religious) Northern Ireland.
In Scotland the age is 16 and parental consent is not required.
So, well into the 20th century young English couples would flee across the border and get married there; most famously at Gretna Green, a town just inside the border.
Scottish marriages involving English/Welsh people under 18 are now not legal.
The Findings section has a long, detailed list of child marriage harm. In short, preventing marriage before 18 provides for immense harm reduction in the aggregate and improved odds of life success. I’d push the age to 21 if I could. Rental car companies always had it right to restrict rentals to <25 age cohort due to front lobe development timeline.
(The US allows student debt and military obligations at an age when this cohort is vulnerable to systemically exploit young people, these should not be used as examples imho)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31590741/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3621648/
It seems like you would come to the same conclusion on the question of "how old you have to be before you can make your own decisions" on both issues.
an under-18 can not unilaterally decide to get sex change surgery in california.
I don’t think this is factually accurate.
Sex-reassignment surgery (or whatever we are calling it these days) requires parental consent in California if the person seeking it is a minor.
So why shouldn't you be allowed to get married with parental consent in the same state?
I'm OK with a state deciding it either way, but I'm looking for a little consistency.
You’re gonna be out of touch with your kids’ generation basically no matter what.
1. When a minor marries someone of age, their spouse becomes their legal guardian until they become of age (or become emancipated, which is a difficult process generally). Why is that an issue? Well, in abuse situations, it can be incredibly hard for the minor to leave their spouse who is their legal guardian. It's not much different to runaway children being returned to their parents, even when their parents are the source of the abuse. Certain states are worse for this than others, so called "reunification states" where they will absolutely try and return you to your legal guardian unless there's clear and convincing evidence why they shouldn't;
2. A lot of child marriages happen so an adult can escape a statutory rape or rape charge as prosecutors don't tend to prosecute when it's a spouse. It should be noted that spousal rape only became a crime in all 50 states of the US around 2005 (IIRC) and this only really picked up steam around 1990 or so;
3. Because of this lack of power, it creates a whole host of other problems, such as exploitation to the point of trafficking.
Politically, preserving child marriage is a uniquely Republican issue [1].
[1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/repu...
6 more are blue-leaning "purple": Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin.
Only four are "blue": California (ban coming into effect 2027 as per article), Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland.
I don't understand why the ban cannot come into effect immediately. Like, wouldn't want to spoil someone's child marriage plans in the next year or so because it would be rude?
This is the default in Californias constitution:
> Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of this subdivision [Article 4, section 8], a statute enacted at a regular session shall go into effect on January 1 next following a 90-day period from the date of enactment of the statute.
There are additional legislative hurdles to enact legislation faster than that.
Europe is now more or less consistently 18 for parental consent, but marriages at a younger age are still permitted across the EU with judicial consent.
https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/09/child-marriage-ban-n...
Roll tide...... I guess....
The limit is 16 in Colorado and Illinois, 15 in Hawaii, and no limit in New Mexico.
Might want to update your notes.
Bizarrely, the map for cousin marriage is roughly the inverse of the age map, with it being permitted on most of the East coast, CA, CO, NM, AK, & HI.
I say this having discussed the phenomenon with friends who immigrated from Pakistan and all of whom have met first-cousin married couples that had one or more children with birth defects or mental disabilities that could very well have been the result of it.
It would be more accurate (but of course garner less headlines) to say California has made it unlawful for a minor to get married.
Also see the technical definition of child here: https://archive.org/details/mosbysdictionary09edunse/page/34...
This pits the developmental/medical definition against legal status. Nevertheless, under the technical definition a child is necessarily a minor but not every minor is a child.
Thus, saying that California banned minors from being married would cover both cases accurately and be less clickbait-worthy, while saying 'California bans child marriage' is not fully accurate because it doesn't convey the full extent of the ban (viz., minors).
As a side note in the legal profession when discussing wills and estates the term 'minor children' is used for a reason.
> In the state, there had been no legal age to wed, allowing children to get married as long as their parents consent and a judge signs off on the nuptials.
I don't even think the headline was sensationalist.
Did you read the article? There was no minimum age before this bill, so yes, they banned child marriage (by all definitions of it).
> In the state, there had been no legal age to wed, allowing children to get married as long as their parents consent and a judge signs off on the nuptials.
EDIT: Can't reply: 'You're posting too fast'
This is incorrect. According to UNICEF, "a child is any person under the age of 18." [1]
> California has made it unlawful for a minor to get married.
There was no minimum age limit in California before this bill.
[1] https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/convention-te...
I'm not talking about older men here.
I'm saying that we need to be careful to avoid creating harm where there was none.
Our "justice" and "health" systems in New Zealand can cause lifelong harm to kids by black-and-white following the rules (at best, because wisdom is difficult or caring is risky).
im not in support of under-18s getting married, but, what?
If anyone is curious, the age of consent in the US is 18 in 11 states: Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
It is 17 in 6: Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, and Texas.
In the other 33, and also DC, it is 16.
It's interesting to compare to Europe. There it is:
Like the US the general marriage age is 18 in most of Europe, but several countries allow exceptions for 16-17 with parental or judicial consent.and, as far as i am aware, it requires judicial approval right now. presumably, if it were a case constituting statutory rape, the marriage wouldn't be signed off.
this isn't about 9 year olds getting married to 30 year olds.
That being said, the law makes an exception for married couples.
okay, so we're back to marriage != rape.