A closer look at child marriage in California (2021) | Hacker News Reader

A closer look at child marriage in California (2021)

uscannenbergmedia.com

41 pointsPuppyTailWags22 comments

I started looking up information about this, and one thing that's not mentioned in the article, but I found when researching this is that child marriage is largely a cultural issue in the United States. While the numbers are still large, they're really centered in specific subcultures, for instance Islamic households, where this practice is considered acceptable in that religion. Ultimately, the laws no longer reflect majority culture in the United States, but have not been changed, and there is likely resistance to changing them as being religious or cultural discrimination (although not all discrimination is morally equivalent, and this case I can safely say I personally don't think child marriage should be legal in modern society, for anyone of any religion).

I wonder why this article and most other articles on this topic make no point to mention the sociocultural and religious angle for this practice?

These stats we're posted down thread:

https://womensenews.org/2021/10/child-brides-closer-than-you

Based on the even greater prevalence in other states I think speculation on the religious angle makes sense, but singling out Muslim households less so.

Hold on a damn second. You can marry off your child to someone else? The whole "without asking your spouse" is a bit whacky but it sounds absolutely insane that you can marry your child off to someone. That is absolutely crazy. Wish I could participate in politics here in the USA, because this is definitely a ridiculous infringement of personal liberty.

EDIT: Fine, whatever, I emailed Senator Wiener in my local district. I don't really care if other states have it or not. But it shouldn't be the case here.

> You can marry off your child to someone else?

Your daughter becomes the key to another mans castle.

/record scratch/

First, why is this on HN?

And second, WTF?!?!?

Because there's a concerted right-wing effort to elevate any negative news about California.

But "child marriage is still legal in 44 states in the United States"

"child marriage is more common in the southern United States"

https://womensenews.org/2021/10/child-brides-closer-than-you...

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political/ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of which politics/ideology you're battling for/against. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.

Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Well here's a starting point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_S...

Lotta interesting stuff in there:

> In California in 2017, a bill that would have ended child marriage (by raising the minimum age to 18) ran into opposition from legislators, the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood.[85]

Well that just blew up the whole stereo

That wikipedia article is kind of thinly sourced. The 2017 version of SB 273 just flatly outlawed marriage between two 17-year-old people. I can see why the ACLU objected. It does, in fact, intrude on civil liberties. The later revision that was enacted is here: https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB273/id/1820759

I tried to find out why Planned Parenthood opposed it and the original article is terrible:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Effort-to-bar-ju...

No specific mention of why. I couldn't find a statement from Planned Parenthood in my limited search.

I found a publication "Child Marriage in the United States" by Lauren Fox" (https://scholarship.shu.edu/student_scholarship/966/) that says this:

> Planned Parenthood opposes banning child marriage because it believes that an age requirement would be a burden on a minor’s right to consent in other circumstances (particularly to consent to an abortion).

Seems plausible, but the article it references seems to make no specific reference to planned Parenthood: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...

> And many of those marriages skirt around statutory rape laws and age of consent laws.

Huh, I went into the article wondering if this was about children getting arranged to one another or romeo/juliet laws, but I hadn't considered that statutory and age of consent laws wouldn't apply for marriages.

I wonder if those laws specifically exclude in cases of marriage or if they're just enforced that way on precedent.

Most people would be surprised at the number of laws passed decades, if not hundreds of years ago that are still on the books in many states but never enforced. Many aren't even Constitutional due to subsequent jurisprudence. They're just laying there.

It’s unbelievable that this is legal in California of all places.

I was wondering if this was still legal recently. I’d figured someone must have sussed it out and made a stink about it by now.

I came across our laws about this back when I was 13, looking into the laws around becoming an emancipated minor at 14. Here is an interesting detail from what I remember: even if you’re 13 or 14 and get married, the age of consent is still strictly 18 in California. No Romeo and Juliet law at all, no exceptions.

Is it more believable that it is also the case in 43 other states?

"child marriage is still legal in 44 states in the United States"

"child marriage is more common in the southern United States"

https://womensenews.org/2021/10/child-brides-closer-than-you...

"California and Nevada have high incidences of child marriage as well."

Safe assumption I: The child marriage laws in most state are old. "Reasonable" attitudes about the rights of girls & women were rather more, ah, paleolithic when they were written.

Safe assumption II: The child marriage laws in most states get very little attention...except from real creeps, wanna-be creeps, and creep sympathizers.

Safe assumption III: There are far more wanna-be creeps and creep sympathizers in positions of power than most "decent" people would care to believe.

III is kind of a vacuous statement. It purports to know something unknowable, and seems to imply something without explicitly stating it. Hardly a "safe assumption".

It might be more constructive to write down your actual conclusion. I'm sure you have a point to make, and I for one would like to hear it.

Usually the objections to changing laws like this are driven by a few very fundamentalist religious groups.

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