Moving Minimum Consent for Marriage to Eighteen is Bad Law

You can consent to sex or obtain an abortion at 16 — so why should you be prohibited from marriage?

In recent months, I have witnessed on social media a new social justice wave to end “child marriage.” This is being defined by this movement as ANY marriage under 18, and the push is seeking to abolish all exceptions including marriages that take place at 16 or 17 years old with parental signatures. It does not seem to recognize any instances of marriage under the age of majority that are positive.

I saw the beginnings of this movement a few years ago in an online community for recovering fundamentalists. A few of the women there had gotten married at or before 18 and expressed that they believed the marriage age should be moved up, even so far as to 21 or beyond, because they personally were not ready to get married that young.

At the time, the argument was that, while you can get married before 18, you cannot get divorced until 18. This, they argued, could trap many women in abusive marriages until they became of age.

The current arguments swirling around are similarly based on lack of maturity, coercion within religious circles, and allegations of abuse.

The media coverage of New Jersey abolishing child marriage has included claims of rates of abuse, poverty, and lack of education, but I have yet to see a single source back up those claims or even use citations for them.

While these are certainly concerns worth investigating (and addressing), it is not appropriate to use these concerns to lobby for this outcome. It does not take into account the logical, spiritual, and societal ramifications because it is based solely on emotion and personal (and therefore biased) experience. In fact, the maker of the law just passed in NJ is one such woman who had a bad experience with “child marriage.”

There are several problems with the assumptions going on in this situation. For one, correlation does not equal causation, and this is no different for age and maturity. While I didn’t get married under 18, at 16 years old, I had started college, had a decent savings account, paid off a vehicle, was living on my own, and had been working for two years. I am quite aware I am the exception, but I am not a bad exception.

Frankly, the term “child marriage” is an intentionally inflammatory and misleading term specifically designed to paint the subject in a light that, for most, will make them think of pre-pubescent children rather than post-pubescent 16 and 17-year-olds who are adults in every real, biological sense. For those of us who have gotten married young, it is extremely offensive and disrespectful to be patronized in this way, as though our marriages are invalid because some people regret theirs. I’ve been told that I have been brainwashed by the patriarchy, on multiple occasions, and was not qualified to consent to marriage (and I was 18, mind you).

I am not the only one. While I know several women who married young and had bad experiences, I also know way more who have had good ones, and still married and are raising healthy, happy children. From previous generations, even more examples exist. If we only look at the bad scenarios, we are neglecting the bigger, full picture. Good examples of 16 and 17-year-olds getting married do not negate the bad and necessity of dealing with it, but they do bring perspective.

It is a classic example of extreme exceptions making bad law. In essence, they are taking young marriage and conflating its very definition with abuse and poor outcomes. Similar to how people equate the Westborough Baptist church with Christianity. Both are intellectually dishonest and inaccurate presentations of their respective subjects.

In this case, the exception is being used to completely remove the ability of young achievers to marry in a timely manner. Every law and social stigma, whether we consciously think about it or not, serves to incentivize or disincentivize a behavior. When I went to college at 16, there were endless hoops I had to jump through in order to attend at that age that people who were older did not have. While this is understandable to a certain degree, what wasn’t is that I was treated as a freak, because I was ready to move forward in life at an early age. That is disincentivizing.

In this same way, this campaign is not only disincentivizing and criminalizing “child marriage,” but also stigmatizing young marriage even beyond 18 because of the stereotyping of young people. They are using data, which is un-cited, to inform public opinion about the risks correlated with young marriage, and acting as though it is a causative relationship.

Why are young women more likely to not have healthy pregnancies? Because young people aren’t being taught to take care of themselves and their nutritional status.

Why are young people generally immature? Because they have been shielded from life experience, particularly difficult life experience.

Statistics and data tell a story, and when it comes to the media, you never get the full one.

Ironically enough, it seems New Jersey isn’t really too concerned, despite what has been said, about the young residents not being old enough to make decisions that will impact the rest of their life. 16-year-olds can hold a job, which, if done strategically, can put them on an early career path. They can still get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle there, which, in the event they show one second of poor judgment, could destroy the rest of their lives. They can even make decisions about their long-term identity and legal name, as was the case for a transgender 16-year-old last year.

Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that their age of consent is still 16 years old. So, you can consent to sex at 16 in the state of New Jersey, but you cannot consent to sex within marriage. You can consent to becoming pregnant out of wedlock, which does have long-term ramifications on your life and the life of your child, regardless of whether an abortion is obtained (which, by the way, you can obtain without parental involvement there). But you can’t get married and pregnant at 16. You can consent to sex at 16 in New Jersey and get an STD, but you can’t consent to marriage which carries much lower risks of STD’s and STI’s.

You can consent to the emotional and mental risks — far higher for young women than for young men, if young women’s health is really the concern here — of unwed sex at 16, but you cannot consent to the stability of sex within marriage.

Consistency is far from the strong point of this state, I would say. Socially, morally, and in every other respect, this law is reckless and emotionally driven.

Not everyone is meant to get married young. In fact, most people aren’t. And that is okay, there is nothing wrong with that. But, some ARE.

This law ignores not only that, but also the fact that there are many other options available to remedy the instances of abuse, shotgun weddings, and immaturity.

One could easily make divorce an option for marriages under 18, require psychological evaluations of the individuals pursuing marriage and their parents. You could even require a certain amount of savings, hours secured at a job (enough to provide proper nutrition to the woman in the event of a pregnancy or condoms to prevent) or degree of education, a functioning vehicle, etc.

Historically, young marriage is far from abnormal. I suspect due to the fact that adolescence wasn’t so romanticized, and marriage with traditional values (i.e. saving sex for marriage) wasn’t so stigmatized, historically.

There are certainly compelling reasons to evaluate how we can improve the lives of married individuals under the age of 18, and we should. But removing the ability entirely is foolish, and only serves to put strain and social stigma on those who have found themselves in that position in life, as well as punish the high achieving young people who aren’t content with the current status quo.

It is illogical and narcissistic to expect that our own personal experiences are what the majority of other people experience as well. This is the exact reason why I don’t advocate young marriage for most. It is also why I was leery of this movement to begin with.

This isn’t about abuse, maturity, or coercion, this is about control. Social control of the narrative and of tradition, marriage, and values. What society needs, instead of redefining, rearranging, and penalizing traditional marriage, is to bring our youth up in truth and love so that, when they do marry (even if they are young), their marriages are strengthened by support, love, and forgiveness. That will do infinitely more for our society and our young people than this law ever will.