Watching our children grow up is one of the most rewarding experiences a human is blessed with.
Every parent knows these fleeting years go by entirely too quickly, especially when our children leave the nest sooner than we would like.
Many kids in America are getting married before they are even allowed to drive a car, forfeiting innocence for a life of demands beyond their years.
The media doesn’t shed too much light on child marriages in this nation. Why would they? It doesn’t promote their agenda.
Liberal mantra stands on the basis that individuals should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies, this would assumedly extend to child marriage.
However, letting a little girl marry an older man is not as palatable to society – but somehow killing our children in the womb is.
Unchained At Last, an advocacy group against child marriages, reported that about 248,000 children were married in America between 2000 and 2010, as Mommy Underground has previously reported.
A staggering 78% of those married in that time frame were young girls marrying adult men.
These aren’t all just rebellious teenage girls either, with some of the youngest reported marriages being with three 10-year-old girls and an 11-year-old boy, according to the Independent.
Figures on these statistics are likely to be much higher than reported, because 10 states failed to contribute data to the study.
Only certain states have “legal loopholes” which permit minors to marry under special circumstances.
Every state in the nation has set the minimum age of marriage at 18, but states exist that allow children to get married, despite their age, if the child gets pregnant or the parents say it’s okay.
When an older man gets a child pregnant it should not give them a right to slip further into a dysfunctional relationship, based on immorality.
Well-known Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, could have made his state the first in America to ban child marriages with no exception, but he would not sign the bill.
Why?
He felt it would infringe on religious customs.
This is a complex conversation for many conservatives, some of which are evangelicals that believe a young girl who is ready to take care of a family should be able to marry a suitor the parents deem appropriate; regardless of his age.
While there is data that can be argued in favor of arranged marriages, it seems that these would work just the same when the girl was mature enough to actually understand the commitment she was entering.
The Mormon scandal with Warren Jeff’s brought much attention to the travesty of child wives, when he was sent away to prison for life in 2011 for sexually assaulting two girls, ages 12 and 15, according to the Independent.
It was believed that his youngest wife out of 78 wives was only 12-year-old, and she was forced to enter into the covenant with Jeff’s after being fed propaganda.
Sadly, stories like this are not unheard of, there are young girls being coerced and manipulated at a vulnerable time in their lives into marrying an older male.
Marriage licenses were granted to 12-year-olds in Alaska, Louisiana and South Carolina recently, reports the Independent, with more than 1,000 licenses to children under 14 distributed all over the country.
Ironically, most states in America have the age of sexual consent at 16-18, where an individual can be charged with statutory rape for having sex with a minor younger than 18.
Despite this, a marriage license can be approved, giving the statutory rapist a free pass after being wed.
The worst cases to be reported in the nation was a 14-year-old girl marrying a 74-year-old man in Alabama, and a 17-year-old bride to a 65-year-old man in Idaho, according to the Daily Mail.
It is a stereotype to think that low-income families have more of the unconventional marriage arrangements, and unfortunately this is true.
Jeanne Smoot is an attorney with the Tahirih Justice Center, an organization fighting child marriages, and she attests that “Child brides usually come from poor backgrounds,” reports the Independent.
Knowing this, organizations that look to advocate on behalf of the child in the marriage situation looks to communities in poverty to offer their assistance but doesn’t stop there.
Statistics on child marriages don’t indicate a radical drop anytime soon, especially with the lack of legislation barring the practice.
Young girls just don’t possess the cognitive development to engage in a committed long-term, healthy relationship.
Nor have they reached a maturity level that would allow them to make the most sane, logical, and loving choice when it comes to who they should marry.
It is a parent’s job to protect a minor, looking out for their emotional, physical, and psychological well-being.
Kids need room to be kids, they shouldn’t have to grasp the intricacies of a functional adult marriage.
Please let us know in the comments section what you think about the child marriage statistics, and if there should be legislation protecting minors from marrying adult men.