The scandal of child marriage in the United States

Forced Marriage

In the United Kingdom we are familiar with stories of young girls being sent to Pakistan or India on the pretext of visiting their grandparents and then being married off to a distant relative who is usually some years older than themselves. There are also cases of forced marriages of minors taking place in this country, within certain immigrant communities. The girls in question find themselves living lives of domestic slavery and if they are below the age of 16 – as many of them are – the victims of regularly repeated statutory rape.

Shocking as these cases are, their illegality is beyond question – at least as far as those marriages that take place within the United Kingdom. However, there is a western country where such events are common and are entirely legal. That country is the United States of America.

A Disturbing Survey

The charity Unchained At Last carried out a survey across all 50 states and found – in the 38 states for which information was available – that over a ten year period (2000 to 2010) 167,000 licences were issued for the marriage of people who were aged under 18, which is the official minimum age for marriage in almost all 50 states. However, exceptions are granted on application to a judge, and in 25 states there is no age below which the exception applies. It is known that children as young as 10 have been married under these arrangements, and licences issued in cases where a consummated marriage would constitute statutory rape due to the age difference between the partners.

For a marriage to be legal, all that is needed is for permission to be granted by one parent. As a minor, the child’s views are not deemed valid in court.

A Widespread Problem

The survey revealed that child marriages take place in the United States within families that belong to all major religions and several minor ones, as well as those who declare no religious affiliation. The socio-economic background is immaterial, as is whether the people involved are recent immigrants or belong to communities that have been resident in the country for many generations.

Cases that have come to light include that of Sherrie in Florida, who was repeatedly raped by members of her church congregation and became pregnant at the age of ten. Her parents insisted that she marry the father, who was 20 years old, and this was agreed by a local judge who saw this as a means of avoiding prosecuting the man for rape.

Other cases have come to light when supposedly Christian sects have been unveiled that practiced polygamy, often involving underage girls. Examples include the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Arizona and the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas. Successful prosecutions have been made in such cases, but the offence has been polygamy as opposed to the young age of the girls involved.

Lack of Legal Redress

If a girl wishes to escape from what is often a forced marriage, to someone she does not know and may only have met for the first time on the day of the ceremony, she has very few options and virtually no legal protection. The fact that she is under 18, and therefore denied the legal rights of an adult, means that she cannot bring a case before a court because any contract involving a child is voidable – except, of course, for the original marriage contract.

If a girl runs away from her marital home and goes to a domestic violence shelter she will be turned away, because such places only cater for adult victims. The police will pursue runaways and return them to their husbands if they are caught. Anyone found to have assisted a runaway could find themselves in court because they have committed a criminal offence.

Taking Action

Apart from organisations such as Unchained at Last, some people in the United States have taken steps to put this situation to rights. In New Jersey a bill was introduced in the state legislature in 2016 that would have banned all marriages and civil unions to any person younger than 18. This had widespread support and the measure was passed in the final vote by 115 votes to five. However, it was vetoed in May 2017 by the New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, on the grounds that it was discriminatory against certain religious groups, although he did not state which ones he had in mind.

Some groups have sought to defend child marriage because it provides a route by which a child conceived by an underage girl can avoid the stigma of illegitimacy. In reply to this one might say that there is a legal option already available – it’s called adoption.

There is, however, better news from other states – such as New York, Maryland and Virginia – where legislation to curtail child marriage looks to have a good chance of success.

More Must Be Done

There is clearly a need to deal with this issue in a sensitive manner and to be aware that one size may not fit all when it comes to legislating for cultural practices that are offensive to some communities but not others. The proposed New Jersey law, for example, would have gone further than what is allowed in the UK, where marriage is legal from the age of 16 – for both sexes – as long as parental permission has been given. Even this stipulation does not apply in Scotland, hence the past popularity of young couples eloping to Gretna Green, which is just over the border from England. However, there is surely a world of difference between couples who want to marry against their parents’ wishes and the cases of forced marriage that are under discussion in terms of the American situation.

If nothing is done, states in the US are, in effect, sanctioning paeodophilia by allowing children as young as ten to be the official sexual partners of older men and forced to bring up the children of their husbands while having their own childhood cruelly curtailed.

Lines have to be drawn. In the United States it would appear that this process is at an unacceptably early stage. Child marriage is certainly not a problem that applies only in America. But where else in the western world is it tolerated so widely and supported by the legal framework? Change is long overdue.

© John Welford

Do you (or did you) smack your children? Let's hope not!

Answers you often hear from people who admit to smacking their children include “being smacked never did me any harm” and “it was being smacked that made me the man (or woman) I am today”. The reply to both of these answers has to be “It did” – i.e. it accounts for the damaged person you are today.

That might sound like an over-strong statement, but there is a wealth of evidence to back it up. Studies have been conducted over a very long period – around 50 years – into the long-term consequences of corporal punishment, and the overwhelming conclusion is that a child who is regularly physically chastised will end up as a damaged adult.

The damage can take the form of being aggressive towards other people – smacked children will often become smacking parents, and/or abusive partners – depression, alcoholism or low self-esteem. Smacking is a form of child abuse, and all such abuse is dangerous because the psychiatric effects can last for the rest of someone’s life.

There is no evidence that smacking has any benefits. A smacked child may stop their naughtiness for a short time, but so will one who has had a severe talking-to. However, smacked children are more likely, not less, to misbehave in future and to become antisocial. A child who runs out of the house to avoid another slap is quite likely to take out their frustration on the neighbour’s cat or car tyres, or do something equally unwelcome.

Smacking can only do harm to relationships between parents and children. What parent really wants their child to fear them first and love them second – or not at all?

Smacking is illegal in many countries around the world. Sweden was the first, back in 1979, and 52 more have followed suit since then. In 2017 it was banned in Scotland but not in the rest of the United Kingdom – teachers are not allowed to hit a child but parents can.

Of course, passing a law is one thing, but enforcing that law is another thing altogether, especially when the offence takes place within the privacy of the home. A majority of parents in the UK think that smacking should not be banned, and if it is was made illegal there is no guarantee that it would not still happen.

But if everyone was made aware of the long-term damage that smacking does, in terms of poor mental and physical health in later life, might they change their minds? Let’s hope so.

© John Welford

Children during marital breakdown

Marital breakdown is always a tragedy of dashed hopes, but at least most adults know that they can get over it, build new relationships, and start all over again.

However, for the children of the marriage this is not so easy. If they have spent their whole lives being looked after by two people, and one of them suddenly leaves the scene, the result is devastating. What many parents forget is that children look to each parent for different things----their mother may be the person to go to for emotional support, whereas dad is much better for solving practical problems (or maybe, of course, the other way round!). Take away one side of that equation and the child’s security has been damaged, possibly beyond repair.

 

What parents who are faced with this situation must always remember is that the interests of the children must always come first, second and third. They must also have the humility to admit that they may not be the best persons to make that judgment. There have been too many cases of marital breakdown where one partner has committed suicide and killed the children as well, in the mistaken and tragic belief that the kids would be better off dead.

 

The best coping mechanism is therefore to seek professional help as soon as possible. In the

 

For example, if the family consists of more than one child, will it be best for them to be split between the parents, or should they stay together? The parents will doubtless have their own views on this, but those of the children may well be different.

 

The problems can be even trickier when a marriage between people of different nationalities is involved. In a noted case in the UK, the daughter of a Scottish mother (living in the remote Western Isles) and a Pakistani father decided to fly off with the father back to Pakistan, where she has accepted Islam and adopted Muslim dress. The Scottish court ruled in favour of the mother, but the Pakistani court favoured the father. The wishes of the daughter were being given consideration, and the arrangement now in place does appear to be what the girl wants. This was not easy for the mother to cope with, of course, but the opposite solution would have led to even more anguish for all concerned.

 

How parents cope in cases of child custody is less important than how the children cope. The best coping mechanism for a parent must therefore involve ensuring that the children are helped as much as possible. If you are ever in this situation, please bear in mind that although the break-up may be a matter of some relief, even celebration, for you, for your children it will seem much more like a bereavement. If you can cope on behalf of your children you will also do so on behalf of yourself.

© John Welford