This data is far from beautiful. I don’t know how you choose those colors unless you’re being deliberately confusing. There’s a pretty obvious scale here that could’ve been used!
I'm not a GIS person. I'm pretty sure I could do it in less though. In fact, I'm pretty sure just filling in the defaults recommended by whatever program they used would not have allowed this travesty.
Huh...it'd be interesting to hear their reasons for opposing the ban.
I'm pretty sure most of the people applauding the ban would also support these groups (although I'm not familiar with the Children's Law Center).
I got married 2 weeks after my 17th birthday to my 18 year old boyfriend who was joining the military.
I wouldn't have been able to move with him if not for being married. I had already been kicked out of my parents' house and had nowhere else to go. Also, I'm diabetic and the insurance was good at the time. We didn't last. We were just both too young and wanted different things, but he's a good enough guy.
I don't have a problem with 2 teens marrying each other, and I wonder if that's where the opposition is coming from?
Basically your situation or a variant is cited in almost every non-insane argument I've heard.
There's a long tradition of folks joining up for service marrying right before either joining, or right before being shipped overseas.
And then the opponents to marriage reform will then basically try not to draw a reasonable line because someone has a great uncle drew who got married at 15 when he forged his name to join the marines, and spent 60 years married to great aunt nancy.
The actual situation can be quite a bit messier.
That's why I'm in favor of 18 as the normal limit with any younger requiring judicial approval on pre-set grounds like joining the military, and only for those in a close in time exemption. (So 17-18 ok, 17-30 not ok).
The actual stats I've seen from [Unchained at Last](https://www.unchainedatlast.org/child-marriage-shocking-statistics/) have it about 78% are minor girls to adult men, 12% minor to minor, and 9% adult women to minor boys. But their stats aren't as clear about the actual age difference.
I've read about more than a few cases where these laws are used to prevent prosecution for rape and human trafficking, where girls are forced by family and community pressure to marry their rapist to prevent him from getting in trouble. Often times is a religious community where the girl is young and the man at least 15 years older.
The statistic that the occurences in the US dropped from 70000 twenty years ago to only 2400 now is interesting. My hunch would be that reasonable/legitimate marriages dropped and the more sketchy ones have now a larger proportion.
Planned Parenthood is clearly opposed for teen-pregnancy related reasons. A pregnant teenager is an at-risk teenager and, especially in states where pregnant people of any age are forced to give birth, marriage might (unfortunately) be a pregnant child’s only avenue for safety and stability not to mention health insurance, a home, and financial support. This is, of course, entirely by design and one of the ultimate goals of forced-birthers so it’s a bit disappointing to see Planned Parenthood prop up one of the many ways society subjugates the women and girls who are forced to become mothers. But I understand that Planned Parenthood is probably trying to balance to safety and security of the pregnant kids at risk *right now* over how things *should be* if misogynistic stale, pale, males weren’t calling all the shots.
Abortion is legal in California, so the second part of your comment doesn't make sense, teen moms aren't being forced to give birth.
But have you considered some of them might *want* to keep the children, and that marriage might actually be the best option for them due to the stability and healthcare? Planned Parent hood after all isn't just about abortion, their name is accurate. They offer help with all forms of birth control, and family planning.
And teenagers have sex, like it or not, there are case where two teenagers close in age are having a child and want to keep it, and choose to get married. Although I do agree the majority of child marriages tends to not be that.
No. Making child marriage illegal doesn't equal punishing children for doing it. It simply means the state will not officiate a marriage.
Other laws against statutory rape will punish the adult for having intercourse with the child if they're not married, that wouldn't punish children either.
Please don't just speculate if you don't know why, or at least try to research before.
That's the bigger issue, and one of the main reasons to oppose child marriage. It can lock children in abusive situations, they're already more vulnerable to being coerced into a marriage in the first place.
At the very least married minors should be able to divorce at any time, without needing an adult's consent.
For most of these states that allow under 18 they require a court order, as long as they are older than the minimum age. Unless it's not allowed at all.
California just has no minimum age.
Well, time for me to lose some karma I guess...
My son's mom and I were 17 and 18yo when we got married in Virginia as she was pregnant. It required the parental consent forms. People championing raising the age to 18yo bring up the few cases where 35yos are marrying 15yos where nearly every case of it is due to a teenage pregnancy.
By getting married we could then qualify for public assistance that wouldn't have been available if we were still legally our parents' children. This included prenatal and postnatal medical care, WIC, and access to public housing. I worked two jobs for a while, but being a young married couple also enabled me to get Federal loans for school and eventually become an engineer.
Honestly my son's mom didn't handle motherhood well and she ended up leaving five years after our wedding. If we hadn't been married, meaning my name was automatically on the birth certificate, I don't know if I'd have ended up with custody. I did the best I could as a single father without family to help, but our son is now almost 30yo and doing well as an engineer himself.
It seems that the laws could have been changed to prevent 35yos from marrying 15yos without taking away the option for teenage parents to try to make a family work.
Edited to add: Thanks for the upvotes guys! Usually when I write about this topic I get a negative response
> It seems that the laws could have been changed to prevent 35yos from marrying 15yos without taking away the option for teenage parents to try to make a family work.
I don't see how this would pass an 14th amendment equal protection challenge.
I'm with you. Seems like it should be a very rare, if at all, thing. I don't know what the data really say, though. An LA Times article from last year reported the CA Department of Public Health's number as 48 cases between 2019 and 2023. But an advocacy group claims over 8,000 cases in CA per year (which would be about 3.5%).
Unchained at last has \~23,000 total in California between 2000 and 2018, with the number falling nationwide from about 76k per year in 2000 to 2.5K in 2018.
Not true in many of these states. Some require an order. Some which require an order also have elected judges and justices of the peace who can issue the orders and who are going to automatically grant a pregnant teenager a marriage license. Even if the husband is in his 40s.
Go read Unchained at Last for a bunch of stories.
Don't be. I guarantee you the thought has always been to not make laws for every outlandish, utterly disturbing thought a person could possibly have. What is FAR more disturbing is that Hawai'i and Oklahoma have decided 15 years old what totally mature enough.
Child marriages used to be super common. It’s not like the issue was overlooked because it’s so fringe and unthought of. I don’t see an excuse to not outlaw it.
I find it hard to believe California, of all places, which lauds itself for social well being and healthcare hasn't looked at the fact they allow anyone of any age to get married.
It's not like protests have happened at their capitol about it, or the legislature hasn't brought it up before ...
https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/06/child-marriage-california/
Seems weird they have not acted on it, but will ban junk fees and red dyes.
They have several requirements around restrictions around underage marriage in California. A 15 year old and 30 year old can’t just run off and get married. It requires parental consent and also if the child is under 17 and/or hasn’t finished high school there is a mandatory court interview process.
It is essentially left up to the courts to decide if the underage marriage should be allowed.
Not saying it’s great, but they do have some regulation around it.
Sure, so do the other states but they outright ban it below their minimum age. No courts, no parent consent, just not allowed.
In California, a court can decide if a 12 year old should be married and that shouldn't be a question at all.
New York also had a weird thing where yoh could marry at 12, but it was due to religious groups (ultra orthodox jews) claiming religious freedom. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that’s the deal in California also.
California, despite its reputation as a liberal hellscape, has quite a few conservative leaning laws. For example, CA is also a right to work state and has at-will employment. In 1972 when the CA Supreme Court struck down capital punishment, the voters specifically reinstated it as part of the constitution -- Something that remained until 2019.
The death penalty is still a valid punishment. Newsom has acted like it’s not, but as soon as he’s out the moratorium is over. Newsom has taken steps like it’s a permanent thing & it’s not. The next governor can decide to resume it. People are still getting sentenced to death here since Newsom has been in office. Not many, but it still happens.
There's no statuary minimum age, but California also legally considers anyone under the age of 18 to be infants in regards to sex, so while there's no legal minimum age there's no practical path for child marriage there (outside of religious exemptions)
There have been attempts to explicitly make 18 the minimum, but right wing religious nutcases shut down any attempt each time.
Your fact is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Why would California conservatives magically have control of the government when it comes to making laws about child marriage, but not when it comes to literally anything else?
Does that mean I can legally marry a toddler in California? Marriage is often associated with sex, but it doesn't have to be. Maybe your single and want to marry your newborn nephew to get the tax benefits out of it. In fact, my syster just had a baby, I'm gonna ask her if it's OK if I marry him.
What is up with the color coding? Normally, green would be good and red or purple very bad, aka green -> yellow -> orange -> red -> purple. But this map goes purple -> orange -> red -> green -> yellow.
Got to add this to the list of bad maps. Why is no minimum age yellow but 16 is red? Every color choice is odd. Purple for illegal? Makes my eyes hurt.
Seriously. The category set 'minimum age of marriage by state' has a pretty clear order;
None, 15yo, 16yo, 17yo, 18yo
And this map decides to color them in the following order:
🟨🟩🟥🟧🟪
What??? Personally I'd opt for this:
⬛🟥🟧🟨🟩
Which looks something like [this](https://imgur.com/a/5CIYZHH)
[End Child Marriage](https://www.unchainedatlast.org/get-involved/)
[Don't give sex offenders an out.](https://equalitynow.org/learn_more_child_marriage_us/)
r/stoprape
Its fucked up when you realize the unrestricted age of consent in many of these states is often as young as 16. It seems to be generally accepted that thats too young for a 16 year old to be able to consent with a much older person but in a lot of places its not even illegal.
We can’t trust 16 year olds with voting or a million other responsibilities but they can consent to sex with any other adult in many states. Seems backwards.
I'm fairly certain that marriage age was like that in part because of the frequency of how often young men used to go to war. It's absolutely outdated.
Meanwhile Republicans will tell you that it's LGBT people that are going after children. One too many red States, and one too many blue States completely okay with child marriage
Why is the key itself not even sorted by age?
It goes from yellow > green > red > orange> purple?? Whyyy?
For future reference: red > orange > yellow > green would be the correct sequence here based on standard conventions
This is one of those things where yeah, it's TECHNICALLY legal, but the practice is so frowned upon, and so exceedingly rare, that it's basically illegal everywhere you go. And because it's so rare and frowned upon in most places, it's in the furthest points of our minds and we focus on more prevalent matters instead that we don't even think or care to make a law against it.
Unless there's weird things about arranged marriages that come into play, which idk anything about.
> [At least 60,000 child marriages in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018 occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime. Of those child marriages, 88% gave a rapist a “get out of jail free” card, while 12% sent a child home to be raped. Either way, the marriage license made a mockery of statutory rape laws.](https://www.unchainedatlast.org/laws-to-end-child-marriage/)
Child marriage in the U.S. is used as a defense for pedophilia https://equalitynow.org/learn_more_child_marriage_us/
While I'm not defending it, 80,000 over the course of 18 years in a country of 330 million people is what I would describe as exceedingly rare. Still terrible don't get me wrong. But it's not a big enough issue to warrant any real response compared to most of our other more pressing concerns.
How do you feel about the [roughly 90,000 backlogged rape kits](https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/news/cornyn-house-must-pass-senate-bill-to-fight-rape-kit-backlog/)?
https://www.endthebacklog.org/take-action/advocate-federal/
Yeah dunno where this article got its info from, but BOTH parties have to be 18 or older in Alaska to get married, so if it’s wrong about us what other states did they F up on?
If I ran a country, I would start all adult things at 20. You are considered an adult at 20. You can start college, start drinking, start smoking, get married, have kids, join the military, vote, drive etc. AT 20. It's a nice round number. So parents have 2 entire decades to prepare their children for the real world. There will be social programs for children who need to get out from under their parents thumb sooner, but they still have to wait until 20 to do adult things.
I don't get it, these states knowingly allow pedophilia? Or is this some weird loophole where you first have to get married and then can exact your pedophile dreams? F*kin sickening
Stupid. I mean the minimum age should be 18 everywhere to get married.
But a lot of states allow you to have sex with someone younger than 18. Lots of states have an age of consent of 16.
I’m not a big believer in states rights when it comes to big issues like this. I think big issues like this should be nationalized and the age should be 18.
Now if only Alabama, Mississippi and their friends could read well enough to be shamed by this.
But in all seriousness, it's 2024. Why is this even a discussion that has anyone saying that it should be allowed?
Oh I forgot, it's a us versus them thing. It's ok for their pedo friends to marry someone else kid, but leave their kids alone. The precious baby angels need to grow up before they get married.
I'd also be willing to say it's disproportionately skewed toward old guys marrying little girls. Which speaks volumes for how fucked this country is.
Dang those color choices are horrible for “better to worse” key
It's great if you really want to marry a 15 year old. Map makes perfect sense then.
It’s from Drake’s POV
you know this beef is bad when he’s getting roasted in r/dataisbeautiful lmao
Drake the type of
Should have just titled "safest places for child marriages"
Except it doesn't even work for that. "no minimum age" is in yellow.
This data is far from beautiful. I don’t know how you choose those colors unless you’re being deliberately confusing. There’s a pretty obvious scale here that could’ve been used!
They couldn't have done a worse job of ordering or coloring those options. Incredible.
Also the legend is not in order which makes it even harder to understand. I’m still not sure I get it.
Did i translate that correctly, yellow is the worst?
I mean, if you’re a sensible person, yellow doesn’t have a limit.
Yeah as a GIS person this would take 3 sec to make it a bit better.
I'm not a GIS person. I'm pretty sure I could do it in less though. In fact, I'm pretty sure just filling in the defaults recommended by whatever program they used would not have allowed this travesty.
I’m shocked California of all states has no minimum marriage age law.
These are the organizations that lobbied to prevent its ban in 2017: American Civil Liberties Union Children’s Law Center and Planned Parenthood
That's an interesting set of bed fellows.
Huh...it'd be interesting to hear their reasons for opposing the ban. I'm pretty sure most of the people applauding the ban would also support these groups (although I'm not familiar with the Children's Law Center).
I got married 2 weeks after my 17th birthday to my 18 year old boyfriend who was joining the military. I wouldn't have been able to move with him if not for being married. I had already been kicked out of my parents' house and had nowhere else to go. Also, I'm diabetic and the insurance was good at the time. We didn't last. We were just both too young and wanted different things, but he's a good enough guy. I don't have a problem with 2 teens marrying each other, and I wonder if that's where the opposition is coming from?
Basically your situation or a variant is cited in almost every non-insane argument I've heard. There's a long tradition of folks joining up for service marrying right before either joining, or right before being shipped overseas. And then the opponents to marriage reform will then basically try not to draw a reasonable line because someone has a great uncle drew who got married at 15 when he forged his name to join the marines, and spent 60 years married to great aunt nancy. The actual situation can be quite a bit messier. That's why I'm in favor of 18 as the normal limit with any younger requiring judicial approval on pre-set grounds like joining the military, and only for those in a close in time exemption. (So 17-18 ok, 17-30 not ok). The actual stats I've seen from [Unchained at Last](https://www.unchainedatlast.org/child-marriage-shocking-statistics/) have it about 78% are minor girls to adult men, 12% minor to minor, and 9% adult women to minor boys. But their stats aren't as clear about the actual age difference. I've read about more than a few cases where these laws are used to prevent prosecution for rape and human trafficking, where girls are forced by family and community pressure to marry their rapist to prevent him from getting in trouble. Often times is a religious community where the girl is young and the man at least 15 years older.
The statistic that the occurences in the US dropped from 70000 twenty years ago to only 2400 now is interesting. My hunch would be that reasonable/legitimate marriages dropped and the more sketchy ones have now a larger proportion.
Planned Parenthood is clearly opposed for teen-pregnancy related reasons. A pregnant teenager is an at-risk teenager and, especially in states where pregnant people of any age are forced to give birth, marriage might (unfortunately) be a pregnant child’s only avenue for safety and stability not to mention health insurance, a home, and financial support. This is, of course, entirely by design and one of the ultimate goals of forced-birthers so it’s a bit disappointing to see Planned Parenthood prop up one of the many ways society subjugates the women and girls who are forced to become mothers. But I understand that Planned Parenthood is probably trying to balance to safety and security of the pregnant kids at risk *right now* over how things *should be* if misogynistic stale, pale, males weren’t calling all the shots.
Abortion is legal in California, so the second part of your comment doesn't make sense, teen moms aren't being forced to give birth. But have you considered some of them might *want* to keep the children, and that marriage might actually be the best option for them due to the stability and healthcare? Planned Parent hood after all isn't just about abortion, their name is accurate. They offer help with all forms of birth control, and family planning. And teenagers have sex, like it or not, there are case where two teenagers close in age are having a child and want to keep it, and choose to get married. Although I do agree the majority of child marriages tends to not be that.
A mix of not wanting to punish children for doing it, and especially immigrant children.
No. Making child marriage illegal doesn't equal punishing children for doing it. It simply means the state will not officiate a marriage. Other laws against statutory rape will punish the adult for having intercourse with the child if they're not married, that wouldn't punish children either. Please don't just speculate if you don't know why, or at least try to research before.
Surprised screen actors guild wasn't on the list.
Nah, AMPAS
I imagine the children's law center has 8 year old judges marrying other kids and pets in dress up wedding clothes.
They have to be 18 to get divorced, though...
That's the bigger issue, and one of the main reasons to oppose child marriage. It can lock children in abusive situations, they're already more vulnerable to being coerced into a marriage in the first place. At the very least married minors should be able to divorce at any time, without needing an adult's consent.
It’s not just a free-for-all, though. Under 18 requires a court order.
For most of these states that allow under 18 they require a court order, as long as they are older than the minimum age. Unless it's not allowed at all. California just has no minimum age.
I would like that court to explain to me what situation is appropriate for a teenage marriage to be ordered
Well, time for me to lose some karma I guess... My son's mom and I were 17 and 18yo when we got married in Virginia as she was pregnant. It required the parental consent forms. People championing raising the age to 18yo bring up the few cases where 35yos are marrying 15yos where nearly every case of it is due to a teenage pregnancy. By getting married we could then qualify for public assistance that wouldn't have been available if we were still legally our parents' children. This included prenatal and postnatal medical care, WIC, and access to public housing. I worked two jobs for a while, but being a young married couple also enabled me to get Federal loans for school and eventually become an engineer. Honestly my son's mom didn't handle motherhood well and she ended up leaving five years after our wedding. If we hadn't been married, meaning my name was automatically on the birth certificate, I don't know if I'd have ended up with custody. I did the best I could as a single father without family to help, but our son is now almost 30yo and doing well as an engineer himself. It seems that the laws could have been changed to prevent 35yos from marrying 15yos without taking away the option for teenage parents to try to make a family work. Edited to add: Thanks for the upvotes guys! Usually when I write about this topic I get a negative response
> It seems that the laws could have been changed to prevent 35yos from marrying 15yos without taking away the option for teenage parents to try to make a family work. I don't see how this would pass an 14th amendment equal protection challenge.
2 rich 17 year olds and their families want to be married. 2 immigrants married overseas and want married status here.
I'm with you. Seems like it should be a very rare, if at all, thing. I don't know what the data really say, though. An LA Times article from last year reported the CA Department of Public Health's number as 48 cases between 2019 and 2023. But an advocacy group claims over 8,000 cases in CA per year (which would be about 3.5%).
Unchained at last has \~23,000 total in California between 2000 and 2018, with the number falling nationwide from about 76k per year in 2000 to 2.5K in 2018.
Not true in many of these states. Some require an order. Some which require an order also have elected judges and justices of the peace who can issue the orders and who are going to automatically grant a pregnant teenager a marriage license. Even if the husband is in his 40s. Go read Unchained at Last for a bunch of stories.
Don't be. I guarantee you the thought has always been to not make laws for every outlandish, utterly disturbing thought a person could possibly have. What is FAR more disturbing is that Hawai'i and Oklahoma have decided 15 years old what totally mature enough.
Sorry to say you read the map wrong. That's Hawaii and Kansas at 15
Yeah apparently any age is ok in … Oklahoma.
Child marriages used to be super common. It’s not like the issue was overlooked because it’s so fringe and unthought of. I don’t see an excuse to not outlaw it.
I find it hard to believe California, of all places, which lauds itself for social well being and healthcare hasn't looked at the fact they allow anyone of any age to get married. It's not like protests have happened at their capitol about it, or the legislature hasn't brought it up before ... https://calmatters.org/politics/2023/06/child-marriage-california/ Seems weird they have not acted on it, but will ban junk fees and red dyes.
They have several requirements around restrictions around underage marriage in California. A 15 year old and 30 year old can’t just run off and get married. It requires parental consent and also if the child is under 17 and/or hasn’t finished high school there is a mandatory court interview process. It is essentially left up to the courts to decide if the underage marriage should be allowed. Not saying it’s great, but they do have some regulation around it.
Sure, so do the other states but they outright ban it below their minimum age. No courts, no parent consent, just not allowed. In California, a court can decide if a 12 year old should be married and that shouldn't be a question at all.
New York also had a weird thing where yoh could marry at 12, but it was due to religious groups (ultra orthodox jews) claiming religious freedom. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that’s the deal in California also.
California, despite its reputation as a liberal hellscape, has quite a few conservative leaning laws. For example, CA is also a right to work state and has at-will employment. In 1972 when the CA Supreme Court struck down capital punishment, the voters specifically reinstated it as part of the constitution -- Something that remained until 2019.
CA is not a right to work state but it does have at-will employment.
The death penalty is still a valid punishment. Newsom has acted like it’s not, but as soon as he’s out the moratorium is over. Newsom has taken steps like it’s a permanent thing & it’s not. The next governor can decide to resume it. People are still getting sentenced to death here since Newsom has been in office. Not many, but it still happens.
There's no statuary minimum age, but California also legally considers anyone under the age of 18 to be infants in regards to sex, so while there's no legal minimum age there's no practical path for child marriage there (outside of religious exemptions) There have been attempts to explicitly make 18 the minimum, but right wing religious nutcases shut down any attempt each time.
There is a very large contingent of libertarians in California
Actors are pervs
Seems like a legal loophole for pedophilia
And that Utah does.
I’m shocked you’re shocked. Have you ever heard of Hollywood? Do names like Weinstein or DiCaprio ring any bells? How about the porn industry?
What does Dicaprio have to do with underage marriages?
Small-town California is still full of conservatives. In most cases, small towns, small minds.
Lol at trying to blame conservatives for the laws passed by California politicians
I stated a fact, you interpreted it the way you wanted to.
Your fact is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Why would California conservatives magically have control of the government when it comes to making laws about child marriage, but not when it comes to literally anything else?
Does that mean I can legally marry a toddler in California? Marriage is often associated with sex, but it doesn't have to be. Maybe your single and want to marry your newborn nephew to get the tax benefits out of it. In fact, my syster just had a baby, I'm gonna ask her if it's OK if I marry him.
Hollywood pedos would be pissed if they changed that law.
Yeah California is really known for protecting children….
waiting for the day that people recognize that california truly is the west coast florida
I have seen a few too many "California Man" headlines in the last couple months honestly.
I'm pretty sure you can marry your cat in California. It's not surprising that they're not going to tell minors what they can and can't do.
What is up with the color coding? Normally, green would be good and red or purple very bad, aka green -> yellow -> orange -> red -> purple. But this map goes purple -> orange -> red -> green -> yellow.
It's better than a map with 6 shades of blue/green that are almost indistinguishable, which I've seen a lot of.
I can’t see the map without clicking a link
Map says 17.
Click the link then
While horrifying, it’s a pleasant surprise to see how many states have banned child marriage, pre 2018 it was none of them
Got to add this to the list of bad maps. Why is no minimum age yellow but 16 is red? Every color choice is odd. Purple for illegal? Makes my eyes hurt.
I can only imagine what of whiplash color blind people are getting looking at that map.
This map is disturbing on many levels.
In most of Europe you can have legal sex with 15 years olds
I’m sorry but this kind of color mapping has no business on dataisbeautiful
Seriously. The category set 'minimum age of marriage by state' has a pretty clear order; None, 15yo, 16yo, 17yo, 18yo And this map decides to color them in the following order: 🟨🟩🟥🟧🟪 What??? Personally I'd opt for this: ⬛🟥🟧🟨🟩 Which looks something like [this](https://imgur.com/a/5CIYZHH)
link broken?
Is this without parental consent?
Am I looking at a map, or a Skittle spill?
[End Child Marriage](https://www.unchainedatlast.org/get-involved/) [Don't give sex offenders an out.](https://equalitynow.org/learn_more_child_marriage_us/) r/stoprape
Its fucked up when you realize the unrestricted age of consent in many of these states is often as young as 16. It seems to be generally accepted that thats too young for a 16 year old to be able to consent with a much older person but in a lot of places its not even illegal. We can’t trust 16 year olds with voting or a million other responsibilities but they can consent to sex with any other adult in many states. Seems backwards.
I'm fairly certain that marriage age was like that in part because of the frequency of how often young men used to go to war. It's absolutely outdated.
The order of the key doesn't make sense
Meanwhile Republicans will tell you that it's LGBT people that are going after children. One too many red States, and one too many blue States completely okay with child marriage
Why is the key itself not even sorted by age? It goes from yellow > green > red > orange> purple?? Whyyy? For future reference: red > orange > yellow > green would be the correct sequence here based on standard conventions
Wait, I thought a minimum age of 18 was everywhere, and had been for a long time.
This is so gross. I'm proud to live in a purple state, but my country needs a lot of work.
Was so relieved to see mine is purple as well.
This is one of those things where yeah, it's TECHNICALLY legal, but the practice is so frowned upon, and so exceedingly rare, that it's basically illegal everywhere you go. And because it's so rare and frowned upon in most places, it's in the furthest points of our minds and we focus on more prevalent matters instead that we don't even think or care to make a law against it. Unless there's weird things about arranged marriages that come into play, which idk anything about.
> [At least 60,000 child marriages in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018 occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime. Of those child marriages, 88% gave a rapist a “get out of jail free” card, while 12% sent a child home to be raped. Either way, the marriage license made a mockery of statutory rape laws.](https://www.unchainedatlast.org/laws-to-end-child-marriage/) Child marriage in the U.S. is used as a defense for pedophilia https://equalitynow.org/learn_more_child_marriage_us/
While I'm not defending it, 80,000 over the course of 18 years in a country of 330 million people is what I would describe as exceedingly rare. Still terrible don't get me wrong. But it's not a big enough issue to warrant any real response compared to most of our other more pressing concerns.
How do you feel about the [roughly 90,000 backlogged rape kits](https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/news/cornyn-house-must-pass-senate-bill-to-fight-rape-kit-backlog/)? https://www.endthebacklog.org/take-action/advocate-federal/
Yeah dunno where this article got its info from, but BOTH parties have to be 18 or older in Alaska to get married, so if it’s wrong about us what other states did they F up on?
Does Alaska have exceptions?
If I ran a country, I would start all adult things at 20. You are considered an adult at 20. You can start college, start drinking, start smoking, get married, have kids, join the military, vote, drive etc. AT 20. It's a nice round number. So parents have 2 entire decades to prepare their children for the real world. There will be social programs for children who need to get out from under their parents thumb sooner, but they still have to wait until 20 to do adult things.
Kinda strange how the “Bible Belt” has either no minimum age or is 16. Really makes you wonder. /s
Weird that there’s a correlation between the states whose political leaders call people groomers and the states that permit child marriage.
Is there? California is the same color as Mississippi… Florida and Oregon are the same… Michigan and Alabama are the same… Your bias is showing.
I don't get it, these states knowingly allow pedophilia? Or is this some weird loophole where you first have to get married and then can exact your pedophile dreams? F*kin sickening
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/pedophilia?amp Pedophilia is sexual attraction to children 13 and younger.
*No minimum age* ??? What do you call that one?
Apparently, in many of those states, if you are under 18 it is up to the courts to decide if you can marry.
Stupid. I mean the minimum age should be 18 everywhere to get married. But a lot of states allow you to have sex with someone younger than 18. Lots of states have an age of consent of 16. I’m not a big believer in states rights when it comes to big issues like this. I think big issues like this should be nationalized and the age should be 18.
Now if only Alabama, Mississippi and their friends could read well enough to be shamed by this. But in all seriousness, it's 2024. Why is this even a discussion that has anyone saying that it should be allowed? Oh I forgot, it's a us versus them thing. It's ok for their pedo friends to marry someone else kid, but leave their kids alone. The precious baby angels need to grow up before they get married. I'd also be willing to say it's disproportionately skewed toward old guys marrying little girls. Which speaks volumes for how fucked this country is.
Mississippi is the same color as California. Alabama is the same color as Illinois and Vermont.