Child marriage is startlingly prevalent in the United States, with an estimated quarter-million children as young as 12 married between 2000 and 2010.
Image courtesy of Unchained at Last
Quick Facts
248,000 children between 12 and 18 were married in the United States between 2000 and 2010
85% of those were children were girls and three quarters of them were married to adult men
Only 4 states ban child marriage with no exceptions: Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania
Our Position
American Atheists advocates for laws which prohibit individuals below the age of majority (usually 18) from marrying and eliminating exemptions, such as religious or parental permission loopholes, from laws limiting child marriage.
Exceptions, such as those allowing marriages as long as parental consent is obtained, can be misused to harm children.
Too often, these marriages occur in religious sects where very young girls are forced to marry much older men.
Background
Child brides forced into marriage have few options. As minors, they face legal dead-ends if they want to end their marriage. Because their parents still have custody rights, organizations and shelters are unable to interfere with those rights.
As a result, these children with abusive families and husbands must remain with them. They are too often removed from school, raped, and forced to live in poverty. The only way to give child brides the legal right to say “no” to marriage is to eliminate the ability of minors to marry.
Women in the U.S. who marry before 19 are 50 percent more likely to drop out of high school than are their unmarried counterparts and four times less likely to complete college.
Young women in the U.S. who married in their teens are often unable to access education and work opportunities, in part because they tend to have more children, earlier and more closely spaced.
Women in the U.S. who marry early are more likely to earn low wages and 31 percent more likely to live in poverty. Those who marry as teenagers are three times more likely to have at least five children than are women who married as adults.
Recent Developments
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