Child Marriage Ban Bill Defeated in West Virginia House

rturner76 said:

EIther that or ot's old men who want to purchase children. Why defend that practice?

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Why do you keep trying to get me to defend something I never advocated for?

rturner76 said:

EIther that or ot's old men who want to purchase children. Why defend that practice?

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Surely you must know that no one is defending the practice of old men purchasing children. And surely you must know that having a law that allows 16-year olds to get married because, as BPPLEE so eloquently put it, "they’re in love and they want to spend their lives together", is not REMOTELY the same thing, right?

grasping the after wind said:

Are you suggesting that there is no danger that parents might pressure minors to do the other things I mentioned? Do you seriously want me to believe that among all those things, marriage is the single thing that parents might pressure their children to do? Why would you think that parents are trustworthy about the other things but not when it comes to marriage?

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Of the things you mentioned, the only one that I would expect any notable percentage of cases to be pressured by the parents would be abortion. And in general, I would say that not having a child at 16 results in better outcomes - just like not getting married - so it's a bit of an unequal comparison.

RocksInMyHead said:

Of the things you mentioned, the only one that I would expect any notable percentage of cases to be pressured by the parents would be abortion. And in general, I would say that not having a child at 16 results in better outcomes - just like not getting married - so it's a bit of an unequal comparison.

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What factual evidence can you present that supports your assertions?

grasping the after wind said:

What factual evidence can you present that supports your assertions?

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The fact that I can't find any information on children in the US being pressured to join the military or transition by their parents before they turn 18, while I can find plenty of stories of parents pressuring their underage children into marriage, and a few cases of parents pressuring their children to get abortions. That's about as much information as you can expect. Do you have any factual evidence to suggest otherwise?

probinson said:

Two more years of togetherness.

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People who are dating in a committed relationship don't experience "togetherness"?

RocksInMyHead said:

People who are dating in a committed relationship don't experience "togetherness"?

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Nope. Not in the same way. It's why some people choose to get married, because they actually want to be together, like, all the time.

RocksInMyHead said:

There is a standard age of majority in the US (18).

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Did you know that you can get married at age 15 in Hawaii and Kansas?

• 2 states have a minimum age of 15: Hawaii and Kansas.
• 24 states have a minimum age of 16.[20]
• 10 states have a minimum age of 17.
• 7 states have no official minimum age, but still require either parental consent, court approval or both: California, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Washington.
• 7 states have a minimum age of 18, which is the same as their general age: Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania.

To recap, 43 out of 50 states currently permit marriage under the age of 18.

RocksInMyHead said:

Second, the difference is that - in the majority of cases - people marrying younger than 18 are not going to their parents to ask permission, but rather are being pressured into marriage because of pregnancy or simply because they were caught having sex. It's not truly "parental permission" - more "parental forcing."

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Citation needed.

In the (obviously anecdotal) case of my sister, who married at 17 years old with my parents' consent, it was absolutely 100% her decision. My parents wanted her to wait until she graduated from high school, at which time she would have been 18. But after many very, shall we say, LOUD and EMOTIONAL "conversations", my parents reluctantly agreed to allow her to get married on summer break between her junior and senior year of high school. She wasn't "forced" into anything. To the contrary, my parents tried to talk her into waiting. But they eventually agreed to let her make her own decision.

rturner76 said:

However, child marriage remains legal in 43 states and is happening in the U.S. at an alarming rate: Unchained’s groundbreaking research revealed that nearly 300,000 children as young as 10 were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018 – mostly girls wed to adult men.

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"Alarming rate". 300,000 marriages over 18 years is 16,666 marriages per year, 1,388 marriages per month, 27 marriages per month per state. Given that roughly 2.0 to 2.5 MILLION marriages occur each year, that means that the percentage of marriages of those under 18 is (using the lower number of 2 million marriages annually) 0.8%. Not sure that actually classifies as "alarming".

"Groundbreaking research". Yeah, about that. I'm going to post the methodology in full, and then discuss some problems.

Methodology​

Full Data (32 States)​

Partial Data (12 States + D.C.)​

No Data (6 States)​

Let's start with the claim of 300,000 marriages. The methodology would indicate that this could be as low as 150,000 marriages. Why? Because if a 16-year old marries a 17-year old, Unchained counted that as two marriages, even though it was only one.

Next, Unchained was only able to retrieve full data from 32 of 50 states. But all they know is the age and gender of the people that were married. They have no idea the circumstances surrounding that marriage. They have no idea if it was "forced" or if it was consensual. They have no idea who these people even are. This is made clear in the first part of the methodology which states they asked for "de-identified data on the ages and genders of all people married in the state, along with their spouse’s age and gender, in each year since 2000." So even if the numbers are 100% accurate (they're not, and we'll talk about that in a minute), there's still no way to know the circumstances surrounding the marriage.

The next red flag is that Unchained had to guess at the numbers of marriages for states with no data or partial data. They state, "Unchained used each of those states’ available data to estimate numbers for the missing years." for states that had partial data. It's even worse for states with no data, where they state, "To estimate data for the remaining six states and the remaining sections of Nevada and Arizona, Unchained looked for correlations between available marriage-age data in other states and variables in the American Community Survey, the U.S. Census Bureau’s demographics survey program." In other words, for six states, the data is completely fabricated in this study.

But again, the main takeaway here is that the only data retrieved was the gender and age of the people married. There is no way to know the circumstances behind each marriage, or what percentage of marriages were "forced" vs. consensual. So the rest of this "study", in addition to its questionable methodology, is nothing more than speculation.

One particularly egregious and unsubstantiated claim made in this "study" is this.


Let's revisit California law for a moment, where if a 17-year old senior in high school is dating an 18-year old senior in high school and they have consensual sex, the 18-year old is guilty of statutory rape, no exceptions. I hope most people would agree that's insane. So what portion of these 60,000 marriages fall under that category? I would guess an awful lot, as the numbers of "children" married in the study were as follows.


We see that in the study's own data that a full 96% of "child marriages" are in 16 and 17 year olds. We also know that the average age difference was about four years old. That means that the vast majority (>96%) of these marriages are between 16-20, or 17-21-year olds at most, with many of them actually being two minors getting married, or one 17-year old to an 18-year old. The idea that there are creepy old men out there systematically abusing these laws to legally rape girls is simply not supported by this data. Certainly there are outliers, but it is not the norm. Now I would like to understand the 10-14 year old marriages, but as you can see from the data that's an overwhelming minority.

So to recap, the methodology of this study clearly has some flaws in how the arrived at the numbers. But even if the numbers were accurate, the data cannot speak to the motives behind why those under 18 got married. It is pure speculation that these marriages happened to circumvent child rape laws, and nothing in the data even suggests that is the case.

The "study" makes all sorts of outrageous claims that are purely speculative.

The goal of ending forced child marriages (to the extent they actually occur) is a worthwhile goal. Pretending like stopping a 17-year old marrying an 18-year old will prevent that is both foolish and naive.

So a 16 year old is old enough to get married but NOT old enough to read the book Gender Queer?


What is with this place?

probinson said:

"Alarming rate". 300,000 marriages over 18 years is 16,666 marriages per year, 1,388 marriages per month, 27 marriages per month per state. Given that roughly 2.0 to 2.5 MILLION marriages occur each year, that means that the percentage of marriages of those under 18 is (using the lower number of 2 million marriages annually) 0.8%. Not sure that actually classifies as "alarming".

"Groundbreaking research". Yeah, about that. I'm going to post the methodology in full, and then discuss some problems.

Methodology​

Unchained requested marriage-age data, based on marriage certificates, from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Specifically, Unchained asked for de-identified data on the ages and genders of all people married in the state, along with their spouse’s age and gender, in each year since 2000.​

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Full Data (32 States)​

Unchained retrieved marriage-certificate (or, in some states, marriage-license) data from 32 states that showed the age or age ranges of all individuals married each year between 2000 and 2018. For those states, Unchained analyzed the data to determine how many individuals married before age 18. (A few states provided data for 2019 and part of 2020 as well, but Unchained did not include those years in its national calculations.)​

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Note that Unchained counted children married, not child marriages. Thus, if a minor married another minor, Unchained counted that as two.​

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Some states provided data that conflicted with data they previously had provided to Unchained. For those states, Unchained used the newer data, on the assumption that the states had found and corrected errors.​

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Some states’ data included obvious gaps that mean Unchained’s findings are almost certainly an undercount. For example, Tennessee withheld all counts less than 10 (such as if nine 17-year-olds married 20-year-olds one year), potentially hiding thousands of additional child marriages, and Ohio randomly and irretrievably deleted data on children married before age 15 in most years. Additionally, some states’ data included nonsensical marriage ages, such as three-digit numbers, that Unchained excluded from its analysis.​

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Unchained confirmed all outliers in the data – that is, children listed as married before age 12 – by contacting the relevant state.​

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Partial Data (12 States + D.C.)​

For 10 states and the District of Columbia, Unchained retrieved marriage-age data for some or most of the years 2000 to 2018. Since the number of children married in each state was highly correlated across years – the correlation ranged from .93 to .99 – Unchained used each of those states’ available data to estimate numbers for the missing years.​

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For two additional states (Nevada and Arizona), Unchained retrieved full marriage-age data from one county or a pair of counties that represented at least two-thirds of the state population.​

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No Data (6 States)​

To estimate data for the remaining six states and the remaining sections of Nevada and Arizona, Unchained looked for correlations between available marriage-age data in other states and variables in the American Community Survey, the U.S. Census Bureau’s demographics survey program. Unchained identified a strong correlation of .88 with a combination of two ACS variables: already-married individuals age 15 to 17 (they self-reported as married, divorced, widowed or separated) and divorced or separated individuals age 18 to 24. (See Appendix B for a breakdown of which states fit into each methodology category.)​

Let's start with the claim of 300,000 marriages. The methodology would indicate that this could be as low as 150,000 marriages. Why? Because if a 16-year old marries a 17-year old, Unchained counted that as two marriages, even though it was only one.

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Incorrect:

Nearly 300,000 minors, under age 18, were legally married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018, this study found. A few were as young as 10, though nearly all were age 16 or 17. Most were girls wed to adult men an average of four years older.

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From the source. I think the poster used the wrong word but the study used the right term. So....

probinson said:

Next, Unchained was only able to retrieve full data from 32 of 50 states. But all they know is the age and gender of the people that were married. They have no idea the circumstances surrounding that marriage. They have no idea if it was "forced" or if it was consensual. They have no idea who these people even are. This is made clear in the first part of the methodology which states they asked for "de-identified data on the ages and genders of all people married in the state, along with their spouse’s age and gender, in each year since 2000." So even if the numbers are 100% accurate (they're not, and we'll talk about that in a minute), there's still no way to know the circumstances surrounding the marriage.

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Once could argue that while "forced marriages" are bad, "desired" marriages are ALSO bad.
In America the age youth are considered an adult is 18. The argument was used with me that clearly a 17 year old is not mature and developed enough to handle the books being banned from school libraries.
One could argue that making the life decision to get married actually requires a larger degree of brain development than to read a book with some gentials in it.
So for me, the circumstances of child marriage is a completely moot point.

I remember a few weeks ago I put up a thread about how America is considered to be doing a really terrible job at protecting their children and one of the arguments cited was child marriage still being permitted; apparently, banning a bunch of books really doesn't do much to protect the well being of children.

probinson said:

The next red flag is that Unchained had to guess at the numbers of marriages for states with no data or partial data. They state, "Unchained used each of those states’ available data to estimate numbers for the missing years." for states that had partial data. It's even worse for states with no data, where they state, "To estimate data for the remaining six states and the remaining sections of Nevada and Arizona, Unchained looked for correlations between available marriage-age data in other states and variables in the American Community Survey, the U.S. Census Bureau’s demographics survey program." In other words, for six states, the data is completely fabricated in this study.

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1) I can't believe that not having data on the number of child marriages in a state is NOT a red flag for folks.
2) "Completely fabricated" is a ridiculous mischaracterization. You can disagree with the methodology they used but completely fabricated suggests they just plucked a number out of the air and that is not the case.
3) They make the point that, given their methodology, their numbers are almost definitely underreporting.

probinson said:

But again, the main takeaway here is that the only data retrieved was the gender and age of the people married. There is no way to know the circumstances behind each marriage, or what percentage of marriages were "forced" vs. consensual. So the rest of this "study", in addition to its questionable methodology, is nothing more than speculation.

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And this view implies that 16 and 17 year olds are capable of making life altering decisions like getting married while, in every.other.area. of society they don't have that perception.

The metholody truly isn't THAT "speculative" though I can understand the view that it's not that strong. I think the this idea of "forced" v consensual is moot.

probinson said:

One particularly egregious and unsubstantiated claim made in this "study" is this.

Child marriage often covers up child rape.​

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Some 60,000 marriages since 2000 occurred at an age or spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime [8].​

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In about 88% of those marriages, the marriage license became a “get out of jail free” card for a would-be rapist under state law that specifically allowed within marriage what would otherwise be considered statutory rape.​

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In the other 12% of those marriages, the state sent a child home to be raped. The marriage was legal under state law, but sex within the marriage was a crime.​

Let's revisit California law for a moment, where if a 17-year old senior in high school is dating an 18-year old senior in high school and they have consensual sex, the 18-year old is guilty of statutory rape, no exceptions. I hope most people would agree that's insane. So what portion of these 60,000 marriages fall under that category? I would guess an awful lot, as the numbers of "children" married in the study were as follows.

10-Year-Olds: 5 (<1%)​

11-Year-Olds: 1 (<1%)​

12-Year-Olds: 14 (<1%)​

13-Year-Olds: 78 (<1%)​

14-Year-Olds: 1,223 (<1%)​

15-Year-Olds: 8,199 (4%)​

16-Year-Olds: 63,956 (29%)​

17-Year-Olds: 148,944 (67%)​

We see that in the study's own data that a full 96% of "child marriages" are in 16 and 17 year olds. We also know that the average age difference was about four years old. That means that the vast majority (>96%) of these marriages are between 16-20, or 17-21-year olds at most, with many of them actually being two minors getting married, or one 17-year old to an 18-year old. The idea that there are creepy old men out there systematically abusing these laws to legally rape girls is simply not supported by this data.

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Sorry. There are PLENTY of other jurisdictions where a 20yr old and a 16 yr old IS an illegal pairing.

Again, it comes back to development. Either we allow 16 year old FULL ABILITY to make life altering decisions across their life OR we agree that 16 is too young to make the decision to get married. And what totally aggregious logic....the idea that it's not a "creepy old men" is dismissable because instead its a "creepy young man" and that is TOTALLY OK.

probinson said:

Certainly there are outliers, but it is not the norm. Now I would like to understand the 10-14 year old marriages, but as you can see from the data that's an overwhelming minority.

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So what? The question should be whether the laws themselves should changed NOT the "number of kids getting married". If something is wrong, then it should be wrong. No?

probinson said:

So to recap, the methodology of this study clearly has some flaws in how the arrived at the numbers. But even if the numbers were accurate, the data cannot speak to the motives behind why those under 18 got married. It is pure speculation that these marriages happened to circumvent child rape laws, and nothing in the data even suggests that is the case.

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I'm pretty sure this organization wants to stop young marriages because they see the need to protect children who are unable to make a decision that huge. The fact that it SOMETIMES DOES cover up statutory rape should ALSO be enough of a concern that laws should change to protect children.

probinson said:

The "study" makes all sorts of outrageous claims that are purely speculative.

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Some 60,000 marriages since 2000 occurred at an age or spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime

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Is not speculative. It's messed up.

probinson said:

The goal of ending forced child marriages (to the extent they actually occur) is a worthwhile goal. Pretending like stopping a 17-year old marrying an 18-year old will prevent that is both foolish and naive.

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I TOTALLY agree with the last point. The "Romeo and Juliet" exceptions should be part of the law at that age.


ps: My personal feeling is likely that a HUUUUUUUUGE majority of these child marriages are happenning in kinda messed up religious sects. But I have no proof of that. I mean, I guess I wouldn't be surprised if they don't even register their marriages with local authorities.

iluvatar5150 said:

Because kids are too young to consent to decisions like this

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Times are changing, it use to be women were expected to have four or five kids by the time they were 20. This was considered to be essential for survival when your children took care of you in your old age.

Diamond7 said:

Times are changing, it use to be women were expected to have four or five kids by the time they were 20. This was considered to be essential for survival when your children took care of you in your old age.

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Fair point. Maybe 16 year old should also be able to read books like Gender Queer and have access to full inappropriate contentograohy too for those same EXACT reasons.

rambot said:

for those same EXACT reasons.

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What reason is that?

Diamond7 said:

What reason is that?

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If kids in the past used to get married and have kids, certainly they can handle those books.

Diamond7 said:

Times are changing, it use to be women were expected to have four or five kids by the time they were 20. This was considered to be essential for survival when your children took care of you in your old age.

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It was considered essential when 25% of children died before reaching 1 year and nearly 50% never made it to adulthood.

Belk said:

It was considered essential when 25% of children died before reaching 1 year and nearly 50% never made it to adulthood.

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Vaccines were very successful, but we have to wonder how many lives were saved when doctors began washing their hands as the bible teaches. My brother has done medical missionary work in third-world nations where there is still a high death rate for unvaccinated children.

essentialsaltes said:

“Everyone assumes it is a good idea for a girl to marry a man at least 10 years her senior, because that way he’s established,” Field said. “He has a job and all that.”

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Some women prefer older men because of the issues they have with their real daddies.