If she's old enough to sit at the table, she's old enough to marry in the USA

If only people loosened up a bit about sex.

 

Quoted to highlight your first response to this horrible story is an attack on the writer, who put together a very good column. It took DQ reading to find a genuine flaw, that the woman's age and year of the marriage were left out, but you just went right into Journalism BAD mode.

Horrible people can use Christianity to justify their horrible behavior, too.

 

There was something cooking in the Texas lege this time ... there it is ... just passed a change in the law such that you have to get a court order (rather than mere parental approval) if either party's not 18. You have to have a court declare you emancipated before a license will be issued. The idea is to make it harder for parents to force the marriage.

I keep reading they also set an absolute floor of 16, but I can't find that in the bill.

 

In fact, more than 167,000 young people age 17 and under married in 38 states between 2000 and 2010, according to a search of available marriage license data by a group called Unchained at Last, which aims to ban child marriage. The search turned up cases of 12-year-old girls married in Alaska, Louisiana and South Carolina, while other states simply had categories of “14 and younger.”

17 and younger is a pretty broad category. (14 and younger is awful in any instance.)

17 is way too young to marry. And, many in that age group in Orthodox Jewish, Mormon, and Gypsy/Romani communities are forced (at least by culture and tradition) into arranged marriages, but they're usually marrying similarly aged guys.

Even the pregnant 16-year-old girl who is marrying her boyfriend, to avoid a rape prosecution is usually marrying a 19-year-old.

Teen girls being given to much older men as brides is the most problematic of these situations situation. And, that's where Kristof leads off. But, he sets his story in 1972, without making that clear. Data is hard to come by, but he's never able to focus on how big a problem this situation is. And, he generalizes the cases as being religiously motivated, without digging in.

Only in "fundamentalist" Mormon communities and in Muslim communities, do we see these case happening with any kind of regularity in America, but Kristof avoids this completely.

 

A. Kristof avoiding the Muslim issue is completely transparent. He's desperately trying to avoid that third rail, and the red meat it would provide to the anti-immigrant faction.

B. Yeah, only DQ would have spotted that problem with the article. I was writing my response when he posed the question, and I'm pretty sure LTL was already googling it as well.

C. Of course horrible people use Christianity to justify horrible behavior. Muslims currently make up about 1% of the American population, and it would have been much less of a percentage if you were looking to set the story in 1972.

I'm against any kind of forced marriage, or teen marriage. But, kids marrying much older men, in a transactional way in most egregious issue. To pretend this isn't most prevalent in the Muslim community (and the very small "fundamentalist" Mormon community) is to ignore the issue. To avoid pointing out the marriage history of the founder of Islam is also negligent if you're writing about this issue.

 

It's funny, when we went to D.C. a couple of weeks ago, we went through all kinds of security at airports and government buildings. And we brought in a ton of gear, what with our daughters feeding pump, and the water and nutrition we carry to feed her through her feeding tube. Normally, this kind of stuff isn't allowed, but as soon as you say it's medical, they back off, and barely look at it, which was nice for us. Most of the guards couldn't have been nicer.

But, the same thing seems to happen with judges when you cite religion as a reason why a teen should be allowed to marry. Judges just back off and defer to religious standards. And, it looks like families can "judge shop" if they need.

I'm sorry, but anyone who allows a (pregnant) teen to marry an older man should probably be removed from the bench.

A marriage contract should not be the one kind of contract a 13-year-old and a 40-year-old should be able to enter into with each other.

 

A, B, C?!? That's not SJ style...

 

I know, I know. I nearly edited it.

 

Donald Trump Once Joked About Dating 10-Year-Old Girl ‘in 10 Years’

Fucking pig. When America was truly "great," a comment like that would get you dragged out behind the barn and shot.

 

Yes. It's true. He ONCE made a JOKE about dating a girl who would be of legal age when the dating would have occurred -- in the JOKE.

 

Uhhhhh the pig made many many more comments of that type, and bragged about being able to charge in on naked teen girls in their dressing rooms. Go look it up.

Everything the pig says is a joke. I get it.

 

I'm going to guess there is a dearth of small animals near your house.