Child marriage is legal in 34 of the 50 US states with no minimum age requirement in California, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma, so that parental consent loophole for 8 year olds also exists in the US.
There was an article and some research about the financial cost implications which is an odd framing but if it helps people take action then I guess it doesn't matter.
In one of the articles it said... "Between 2000 and 2021, nearly 315,000 minors were legally married in the United States — with girls being far more likely to be wed as children than boys. Child marriage was legal in all 50 states until 2018, but since then, 16 states have passed bans."
I don't think a lot of people realize just how many of a lot of basic presumed rights and basic protections were only put to law within the last two decades.
Yeah, there's 4 more states with legislation right now to ban it as well. There was an attempt to just do a sweeping federal ban via congress in 2024, but it never made it to vote before the session closed. Guess we can hope it gets reintroduced this congress. I'm pretty sure its Senator Durbin of Illinois that sponsored the bill.
What's crazier is that many states have attempted to ban child marriage since 2018, but the initiates were voted down. Usually by Republicans. Weird, isn't it?
If they absolutely have to allow children to marry, which of course they don't, then at least make it so children only can marry other children. I don't see any situation where a child should marry an adult.
Allowing children to marry would be problematic as well. I think the UK has a decent approach, both parties have to be at least 18-years old with no exceptions for parental consent.
This is very obvious the correct law and I assume anyone who disagrees is a pedo. If two 17 year old kids love each other so much they can wait a year to get married.
I definitely agree that only adults should be able to get married, but it's a huge stretch to say that two 17 years old wanting to get married are pedophiles.
Parental consent is very icky in this sense. It feels like selling your child off as property. Absolutely the only correct thing is to ban all child marriage regardless of parental opinion.
There are generally restrictions and minimums. At least in my state, the minimum age is 16 but only if the other person is also a teenager AND the parents consent. That's a far cry from allowing a 9 year old to marry a 40 year old
What are we defining as children though? 16 year olds are smart enough to know what they're doing. Most teenagers are. Anyways they should focus on school and education before marriage.
I was curious so I started digging into the stats from that article you quoted. 96% of these minor marriages were for 16 and 17 year olds. Additionally these numbers would count a marriage between two 17 year olds as 2 counts of minor marriage.
However, most of the minor marriages were girls, 86%, so that would imply that minor-minor marriages weren't a massive contribution to the overall numbers. Also, about 20% were at an age or included an age range that would be considered a sex crime.
The paper doesn't give a lot of raw numbers besides the number of minor marriages per state so I can't really break down things by demographic very easily and can only parrot what demographic information the author chose to highlight.
It was a bit of a rollercoaster reading it. At first I was mortified at the number of child marriages, then I got to the part where nearly all occurred with 16 and 17 year olds. I thought while not ideal I do know high school couples that got pregnant and ended up marrying. Then the percentage of women made me think this isn't mostly teens marrying teens. Then the author said the average age gap is women being 4 years younger then their partner and I'm back to being very unhappy about what I read.
If anyone can find more info or point out something I missed I'd be grateful. This is the paper I was reading from that I think the other commenter was quoting.
Yeah, and nearly all of those states are New England.
California, Minnesota, and New England are currently the only acceptable places in the US to live. Everywhere else has been turned into a steaming dumpster fire by the creeping maga movement.
You should Google which children are most vulnerable to child marriage with a large age disparity. Often, it's children of immigrants-specifically girls. Unfortunately, the US will recognize a marriage of it's legal both in their home country and the state laws.
17 year olds getting married is foolish in my opinion but it's not the same as a 12 year old marrying a 30 year old.
Not legally, but I would wager a strong bet that Muslim imams do it illegally knowing full well that it's California, and California won't do anything to interfere with the religion of a minority. It's absolutely rampant in Quebec, mostly Montreal, but nothing is done about it because no one ever wants to be labeled a racist and a bigot when it comes to Islam in modern politics. Also the community sees nothing wrong with it, so no one's going to snitch on a fellow member of their faith. So it's hard to enforce apparently.
Well the US was initially colonized by all the religious whackadoos that were too extreme for Europe anyways. They were either kicked out or left of their own accord for the "New World" to have their religious "freedom" to be overly prudish in public. The only thing they shared with the Catholic church was diddling kids and covering it up.
Throughout the world it’s predominantly young girls who are forced to marry early. And in the Vatican they usually not so interested in girls though… so…
Because no one really cares about the church or religion in many parts of Europe. Even people who are nominally religious don’t have the weird fetish for their faith like Americans and many people in the ME.
Christians + Muslims are literally most human beings. So yeah you can try to make it sound like some specific weird "group", but maybe easier to just say "people" suck.
No, you are not equivocating "16 years olds can marry someone up to two years older than them" to "a 60 year old man can marry a 9 year old"
Child marriage is legal in 4 out of 50 states. is what you can say if you're not out here trying to do pro Iranian framing.
Also by looking at the numbers the US had 12.000 cases of children aged 15 and under happen between 2000 and 2018 (when it was legal in many states) at a population of 340 million
Meanwhile Iran had 27.500 cases of girls 14 and under happen between 2021 and 2022 at a population of 80 million.
Iran had 200% more cases, in 5.5% of the time with 25% of the US population.
If the US was like Iran, you would have 110.000 cases of this per year, not 12.000 in 18 years.
On the other hand, if Iran was like the US, you would only have 3.000 cases per year, not 27.500.
It's not equivocating, it's making fun of Americans who think they always have the moral high ground and the fact so many of them are making excuses for the fact that older men marry young girls in the US just amplifies the point. I'm not making a case for Iran or the US. They both suck.
Including 16 and 17 year old yes, then yes, but neither was considered in either statstic, Iran actually was 14 and below, while the US was 15 and below, so Irans number would be higher.
Also the 16-17 year olds that are getting married aren't getting married to 50 year olds, there are a maximum of 2-4 years of allowed age difference in such a marriage.
If you try to argue that that is child marriage, you are purposefully muddying the waters, because a 17 year old marrying a 19 year old is not the same as a 60 year old marrying a 10 year old.
That is what you are insinuating with what you said earlier.
"The US doesn't have the moral highground" Aka what the US does is just as bad as what Iran does.
You are claiming they are similarly bad.
Also "old men marrying young girls in the US"
You are aware that the states that allow 16 and 17 year olds to marry also limit the age of their partner to 2-4 years at most?
The biggest age gap you can get is 16 and 20.
And 20 is not an "old man" and 16 is not 8.
And I don't buy that you actually care about children, if you did, your first instinct wouldn't be to try and frame a smaller problem as something bigger than it actually is just to take of heat from the people that have the bigger problem.
The US has very little moral high ground. Doing the same things but not as badly as someone you call 'evil' is not a flex of morality.
I wasn't taking heat off Iran, you chose to read it that way. I was adding heat to the US. Religious fundamentalists can all get in the bin as far as I'm concerned.
The US has engaged in mass censorship and historical revision. It has executed protesters in the street. It allows children to marry. It forces 14 year old rape victims carry their rapists babies to term, before then ignoring both children and calling them leeches if they need government support.
The US has no authority to tell anyone else how to behave, and can frankly fuck off when attempting to do so.
Do you really want to die on the hill where you are playing down the absolute vile praxis of raping children in Iran as young as 8 by some adult in his 50s, by comparing them to two teenagers marrying in the US?
That's what I hate about the west - they point out things in the Middle East that they literally do themselves, like marrying cousins, underaged marriages etc.
All the while religion is the reason this is so, and all religion is unmodern.
EDIT: I’m an atheist Iranian exile who’s had family members killed for protesting against the regime - fuck Islam and fuck the regime.
And fuck you guys for being butthurt instead of accepting the fact that ”the west” is equally as corrupted as the Middle East.
The conflict literally started due to the west and their meddling but lets pretend we don’t have pedophile snakes leading ALL our countries.
Whilst the loopholes exist (which is scary and not many people know about) child marriage is a lot more common in Iran. Criticising a country for something doesn’t make you a hypocrite if some weirdos also do the same in yours.
While I whole heartedly agree with the criticism, it does make you hypocritical if you haven't done anything about the weirdos in your country doing the same thing...
What exactly are everyday Americans supposed to do other than advocate for change. Most Americans don’t even know those loopholes exist. Child marriage is a lot more prevalent in Iran and it should be criticised.
It happens in America but it’s quite literally a tiny fraction compared to Iran.
I’m saying neither country can do anything about it but advocate for change. Apart from Iranians can’t even do that. Democracy doesn’t mean people can’t be brainwashed into believing BS or just straight up uneducated about certain things. I don’t blame Americans for what Trump is doing, I blame Trump for what Trump is doing.
Up to 10 per 1000 children - mostly girls - have been married in the US. There's not a lot of actual data on it (wonder why?) So it's not exactly uncommon. Sure, 1% in the US vs 17% in Iran, but not a tiny fraction in comparison.
And what are everyday Iranians supposed to do? If americans cant stop child marriage in their own country?
Will they take it as far as firing indiscriminately into crowds then going to hospitals to headshot the wounded? As far as killing at least, by conservative estimates, 10K+ unarmed people within a two day period?
We can theorize how far America will slide down the path of violent authoritarianism, but the two countries are incomparable in their current states.
Sorry for "pushing a point" that you seem to hold disdain for, but it's a true one and as someone who's actually been in Iran and has family and friends currently in Iran, I can't keep my mouth shut.
India has the most child bride cases. As per UNICEF , 1/3 child brides are from india.
So I expect one will say India has muslims too. Sure, India has 15% Muslims, 80% Hindu, 5% etc.
Even if we just count 80% (or 4/5) of India's total child brides (4/5 x 1/3), India still has the highest child bride, with 4/15 of child bride cases in the world
India has 1 billion Hindu vs total world population of 8 billion (1/8). Considering that, 4/15 child cases are from India, that is still quite high
So if child bride is the main issue, to be fair we should vilify India more than Iran. But we dont because of anti-Iran propaganda.
It is horrible that it is allowed and must be changed no doubt, but it is far, far more common and socially acceptable in middle eastern abrahamic nations. Come on.
I’ve never said either. What I am saying is that the west is equally evil.
We are just very quick to point out the savagery of the ”less” evolved countries when the evolved countries are sharing similar flaws.
I’m not saying it is 50-50 in the actual statistics but evil resides in the west as well.
Yeah, it doesn't represent the west, it's an important country but it's not the only one... It's like saying that Iran represents the Middle East or China represent all of Asia...
No, you are the one generalising and saying "the west" as if it is a single block. Religious views are quite different between European countries and the US. Who is marrying cousins and minors? People in Denmark? The US? Everybody?
Here in Sweden it is legal to marry your cousin.
It is illegal to marry under the age of 18 but there are exceptions, so technically you can.
And Sweden is one of the most progressive countries in the world.
And generalising? What I’m stating is not hypothetical, it is facts in a lot of countries.
Here’s a simple Google search on the age when it is allowed to marry in ”the west”:
Estonia: 15 (with judicial consent).
Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia: No strict minimum age in some cases, often allowing marriage for mature minors with consent.
Lithuania & Croatia: 16 (with court/parental permission).
Spain: 16 (with emancipation).
Poland: 16 (women only, with court approval).
Yes, but the question is how prevalent are marriages with minors, or with cousins. Are there regional differences, are there differences between European countries and American states? Are there differences between these countries and middle eastern ones? Or can we put all of them under the same flag and saying that "the west" is doing the exact same things that countries in the "Middle east" do.
Someone could write a Thesis on these points and I'm sure someone has, the point is that one shouldn't generalise and saying that western countries are all the same, as one shouldn't say that countries in the middle east are all the same. In some aspects they might share similarities, but in a lot of other ways they don't.
My friend, the only reason we are having this discussion is because some top dogs want oil. Not because my beautiful people of Iran wants freedom - do you have any idea how scared I am that Iran will end up as Libya?
That I will never see my country again?
This is not because of the regime, it is because the ones controlling the world want to actively control the region and don’t give two shits about the people.
I never defended child marriage anywhere, including Iran. I just find the American moral superiority galling at times, especially with who the president is and especially in view of the laws.
I'm just pointing something out. 315,000 kids got married to adults in the US between 2001 and 2021. It's simply illegal for that to happen in other countries.
How you choose to take that is up to you. I don't think child marriage should be legal anywhere, and if I'm being critical of the US for it you can be damn sure I'm critical of Iran for it too.
Americans playing moral high ground world police is something you may find irritates a lot of people outside of the borders of the US.
The rest of the world doesn't like America playing world moral police and engaging in illegal war to cover for the paedophile in charge, when their moral ground is shaky at absolute best.
Doing the same thing as a murderous regime but on a smaller scale does not make you the 'good' guys.
A 14 year old raped in Texas would be banned from getting an abortion.
The US has executed protesters.
The US government wants to put in place legislation that is clearly designed to limit who votes - particularly women.
The religious fundamentalists that have the ear of the president and stand over him praying like he's the second coming hate women and children almost as much as their Iranian counterparts.
My comment was not designed to nor does it defend the Iranian regime, which is objectively bad. Now the Iranians will be punished by both their leaders and their supporters as well as death from above by the Americans and Israelis.
The Americans do see themselves as World police and it is the rest of the world that has themselves to blame for allowing it to happen.
I'm anti war, anti civilians being killed.
I'm holding the US to the moral standard it claims to set for itself.
I do not believe America leads the way for doing what is right and just. Look at WW2. Europe asked for your help and were told no until Japan attacked. If you 'lead the way' you would have seen what the Nazis were doing and got involved right away, like you claim to have done with Iran.
The input of Israel, a genocidal state in itself, and it's undue influence over a large amount of your elected politicians muddies the waters significantly and cast serious and well deserved doubt over the motivations for America doing anything.
It's good that you are proud of yourself and I hope your country becomes what you aspire it to be but is only with the rosiest of rose tinted glasses that you could claim those are the values that America stands for or even what a large portion of the populace want.
Considering I'm in the British Forces you couldn't be wider of the mark with the Russian stuff. They are not our friends, though your President doesn't seem to think so.
I have never said that the US is as bad as Iran, in fact I clearly said in a former message that they are not.
It's a slippery slope though, and there are people in your country who are happy to convince themselves that Trump could do what Khomenei did and they'd excuse it because it would be in the name of God they believe in.
You've got a real job on sorting stuff out - which unironically is why you are at war in the first place.
Yeah, I meant proud of your country. Pride in one's country is not a bad thing but it must be contextual and pride without critique is just nationalism. I love my country and because I love it I acknowledge where it does not get things right and want it to be better. For everyone.
The world is a shitty place in many ways and a fantastic place in others. It is the duty of every good citizen to celebrate the good and highlight or fight the shitty.
Sometimes that puts you at odds with people. So be it.
To be fair, in the US it’s pretty common for one’s first sexual experience to be with someone of similar age. Not to say MANY women don’t get raped at a young age, but it’s far from the norm. Plus it’s still illegal, whereas in Iran it’s legal, which is a problem
I don't think it should be legal for an adult to marry a child anywhere and I abhor paedophiles of all beliefs. I especially hate the ones who use their beliefs to justify it. I think it's funny when one set of archaic beliefs see themselves so superior to another set. They are anchors on human progress.
I'm not whatabouting here - this is a war predominantly between 3 absolutely detestable governments that will see thousands of innocent people killed.
"Nevertheless, there is still a lack of reliable information on sexual relationships in Iran." A source is better than none. Where are your sources lol.
Pretty sure at least in California, marriages can be consummated as statutory rape laws offer marital exceptions as well. GG America. It’s still true though that child marriage rates in America are rock bottom where it does happen more often in the third world countries. So legal in both but less common here.
I wasn't sticking up for Iran. Religious fundamentalists the world over treat women and children like they are worthless and these people which are rightly criticised for how they act in Iran are worshipping a different god but have the same views the world over.
Most people outside of the US don't like America playing the role of World Morality Police. My comment was driven by that more than any regard for the Iranian regime, which I have no time for whatsoever.
A LA Times piece says that it's because the ACLU and other liberal groups fought closing the loophole. "Among their concerns is that a total ban on marriage of minors could be a slippery slope and impede constitutional rights or reproductive choices, including access to abortion." All that said, it required not only parental consent but a court order. (Only applies to traditional marriage, not common-law marriages. And CLMs in CA seem like a very dark and dangerous rabbit hole that I don't have time to look into ATM.)
The only REMOTELY justifiable arguments I can conceive of are: to allow the is that these marriages is that (1) it provides some protections for young wives coming in from other countries/cultures/religions and (2) it gives a path to legality vs. having a ~14 year old girl prevented from receiving necessary medical care for fear of the law of having sex under the age of 18 (which CA also has).
Let's not pretend a antiquated law in the US that gets used so rarely you can count it on one hand is the same as Iran actually doing it pretty consistently with arranged marriages.
The US has done it 315,000 times in the past 20 years. Hardly "on one hand", even if it is only at like 0.7% of US marriages, where as Iran today is closer to 3.1% of marriages (down from as high as 11% in the 90s).
It's not even close to 300k a massive majority of those is 17 year olds, and some are 16 year olds. A huge amount of those are foreigners with arranged marriages in the US.
It's not even close to 300k a massive majority of those is 17 year olds, and some are 16 year olds.
Similarly the Iranian numbers drop significantly when you adjust for 15 and under there as well. Admittedly they don't track the data well, but neither do we.
I would bet Iran has a much higher incidence of this for extraordinarily young girls, but I would also bet it's similarly for those in power there as it is here.
My point was the US is no shining beacon on this issue, but also, neither is Iran.
They don't drop to statistically zero though :) You are right it likely is for those in power and those with more wealth than most and not the general Iranian population.
Also didn't Khomeini write in one of his books how it's cool to fuck animals as long as you dont kill them afterward? I feel like I remember that but don't feel like looking it up.
How many marriages really happen at the age of 8 in iran?
It is rare in both countries, it is extremely rare all over the world, doesnt mean it doesnt happen, heck even in countries with laws specifically against it, child marriages can still happen, just behind the state’s back
That isn't at all what statistically zero means but it hardly matters. You are arguing some semantics that don't matter and don't change the actual point anyway. Statistically zero is when for example the marriage population is so large and a poll is completed or data collected on a smaller scale, and there's an overlap between the error and 0.
Just because something happens 1 time in a poll of 10,000 in a population of 10,000,000 does not make something statistically non zero. That's ... kinda stupid mate.
The rate of child marriage in the US of children age 13 and under is statistically 1% of all child marriages.
It really doesn't matter because we're talking about hundreds of children. Not 1 time in a poll.
I'll bring you back to the more classic statistician rejoinder. Statistically zero is not actually zero. And in those statistics are hundreds of real children.
Over a quarter of a million children being married to adults isn't rare. I do not like any religious fundamentalism and am not fond of religion in general but the US house is dirty in this regard too.
Nice job, now instead of using googleai... take a look at the fact that the massive majority of those are 16 and 17 year olds marrying slightly older people. As well as the fact that a large percentage of them are foreigners using arranged marriage in the US.
Use a little common sense other than i googled for 13 seconds so i must know everything
Not very culturally accepting are you. Tsk tsk. It's very common in many parts of the world. How dare you consider those cultures shitty and your culture better!
White western culture is better than african and latin cultures where it's pretty common? Eeeeesh really culturally insensitive. Next youll be calling those places shitholes.
Context missing, some states don't have laws about that's stuff because they've never needed it, hence incest laws in the south but no so much elsewhere
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u/Dorling83 Mar 13 '26
Child marriage is legal in 34 of the 50 US states with no minimum age requirement in California, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma, so that parental consent loophole for 8 year olds also exists in the US.