The day of her wedding Heather dressed in
a lilac gown with a sweetheart neckline. Her blonde hair was styled into curls and
held back by a sparkling tiara. Her groom Aaron wore sneakers, dark slacks
and a matching plaid tie. The wedding took place under a wooden veranda
in a park. During the ceremony, Heather and Aaron held
hands and recited vows, promising to love, cherish, protect and comfort each other. Afterwards, Heather’s dad made a speech
wishing the couple good luck. It was the day after Heather’s 15 birthday. She was also 9 weeks pregnant. Her new husband was 24 years old. Heather had originally met Aaron when he and
his parents came to work for the summer at her grandparent’s fly fishing store in their
rural Idaho town. She and Aaron spent hours hanging out and
talking. One night they drank beer and hung out in
Aaron’s camper van. The next morning, Heather woke up disoriented
without any memory of the night before. She was upset when Aaron told her they had
sex. However, she liked him, so she continued to
date him. Several weeks later Heather got sick and learned
that she was pregnant. Per Idaho state law, it’s a felony for an
adult to have sex with a minor under the age of 16. The maximum punishment for this crime is life
in prison. When she found out her daughter was pregnant,
Heather’s mom Lynette, who’s divorced from her father and lives in Utah called the
local police and filed a report for statutory rape. Also per Idaho state law, sex between a married
couple is legal, no matter the age of the spouses. In the US, people must be 18 to marry. However, most states allow minors to marry
under certain circumstances. The requirements vary from state to state. Heather’s father Keith, stepmother and paternal
grandparents sat down for a discussion with Aaron’s family. Keith felt that the Bible advised marraige
and quickly nixed any talk of his daughter having an abortion. Both families hoped that marriage would keep
Aaron out of jail. In Idaho, at age 15 Heather would need permission
from a parent to marry; also she’d have to go before a judge. Worried that a judge might not allow the match,
Heather’s family did some research. While some states ask for both parents’
permission, Missouri only required one signature from a custodial guardian or parent. Also a court clerk, rather than a judge could
approve a marriage. The families piled into a van and drove 17
hours to Kansas City, Missouri. First thing, Monday morning Heather, Aaron
and Keith went to the Jackson County Courthouse. The court clerk took a copy of Aaron’s and
Heather’s ids. Keith signed his consent for them to marry. By 10 am the couple was on their way back
to the hotel to get dressed up. Within a few hours, they were married. A few times Heather had been asked if this
was what she wanted-by family, by the clerk and by the officiant who married her. Although she said yes, the truth was she was
scared. She cared for Aaron and she didn’t want
him to get in trouble. Even during the ceremony, Heather felt incredibly
unsure, but as her family had gone through a lot of trouble to arrange the marriage,
she didn’t feel as though she could back out. Furthermore, Heather was excited about becoming
a mom and felt like she should try to make things work. After their wedding, Heather and Aaron began
living in a camper van on her grandparent’s property. Heather started her sophomore year of high
school. Aaron, a high school dropout, struggled to
find work. Within a few weeks Heather learned she had
miscarried; in fact it happened right around the time she got married. Soon Aaron was arrested. Lynette, angry over her ex-husband marrying
off Heather behind her back, had pushed for authorities to take action. While Idaho law allowed Heather and Aaron
to have sex as husband and wife, Aaron could still be prosecuted for having sex with a
minor prior to marriage. Keith was also arrested on two counts, injury
to a child and accessory to rape. Just 6 weeks after their wedding, Heather
reluctantly testified against Aaron at a pre-trial hearing. Although she claimed everything was ok, her
life was falling apart. With no baby, the main reason she had married
was gone. She and Aaron fought a lot; he had a dangerous
temper. Also, Heather had dropped out of school when
Aaron was arrested. While Aaron was out on bail, Heather continued
to live with him. She found a minimum wage waitress job at a
local burger joint. At home Aaron expected her to do everything,
cleaning, laundry, cooking. Heather felt like she was his personal slave. As Aaron’s case proceeded through the court,
Heather was determined to stick it out, she had made a commitment. However Lynette hired a lawyer to annul the
marriage. Just four months after they had gotten married,
Heather’s marriage was annulled and Lynette filed a restraining order on Heather’s behalf
against Aaron. Ultimately, Aaron was sentenced to 15 years
with an option for parole after three years. He is required to undergo sex offender and
substance abuse treatment. Whenever he gets out, he’ll be on the sex
offender registry for at least 10 years, if not more. Keith was sentenced to four years for felony
injury of a child, but because Heather had somewhat agreed to the marriage his sentence
was suspended. Keith was instead ordered to spend 4 months
in jail. As the judge handed down the sentence he said
to Keith 'Perhaps as you spend each of those 120 days in jail, you will think about the
120 days your daughter was married to a rapist because of you'. Heather moved to a suburb of Salt Lake City
to live with her mom. She got a job and hopes to get her GED someday. Reflecting on the past, she can hardly believe
that she was ever married at age 15. When Americans think of child brides, they
generally think of some poor girl far away in a developing country. That’s true. According to the UN, in the developing world,
about 1 in 9 girls are married by age 15 and 1 in 3 girls are married by age 18. However, child marriages happen in the US
more often than you would think. America is incredibly hypocritical when it
comes to minors marrying. The US department of State encourages and
funds policies overseas to educate young women and prevent them from marrying so young. However, the laws to protect minors from child
marriage in the US are patchy and vary widely from state to state. Currently only 4 states: Delaware, New Jersey,
Minnesota, Pennsylvania and one territory, the U.S. Virgin Islands have set the legal
minimum age to wed at 18 with no exceptions allowed. Out of the 46 states that allow minors to
marry, 20 states have no minimum age to marry with a parental or judicial waiver. Child marriage is most common in conservative
religious communities and poor, rural areas. But it can be found across all races, socio-economic
strata and in secular, as well as religious families of different faiths. A National Marriage Survey in 2011 found minors
involved in child marriages from Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Baptist, Muslim, and other faiths. Often teenage girls marry due to pressure
from parents or their religious community, especially if they have gotten pregnant. One survey found that American girls in immigrant
families are sometimes pressured to marry a distant relative abroad as a way of bringing
him to the United States. The news program Frontline analyzed data collected
by states and discovered that between 2000 and 2015, at least 207,459 minors in the US
were wed. It’s likely the number of minors who were
married during this period is far higher as the data was incomplete. Several states provided incomplete records
or didn’t provide records at all. Of the minors marrying 87% were female. 67% of those who married were 17 years old,
another 29% were 16 and 5% were 15 and younger. That meant 985 minors wed at age 14. 6 children wed at age 12. Some states only keep data with categories
such as “14 and younger,” without specifying exactly how much younger some brides and grooms
were, so it’s not possible to know the age of the youngest children to wed in America
between 2000 and 2015. Other states don’t track spousal ages at
all. Of the minors who married, 14% married other
minors while 86% married adults. While most of the minors married adults in
their 20s, there were some big age gaps. In one of the more egregious cases in 2010,
a 17-year-old girl married a 65-year-old man in Idaho. Once again the available data isn’t able
to provide the full picture. It doesn’t include minors immigrating to
the US that were wed in their home country. Per a Senate report between 2007 and 2017,
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved more than 5,500 petitions by adults
to bring minor spouses or fiancées to the U.S. and nearly 3,000 approvals for minors
trying to bring in older spouses or fiancés. Girls were the minors in 95 of the cases. Several petitions included people in their
40s requesting on behalf of spouses as young as 14 or 15. Also Frontline’s report didn’t include
data about children wed in religious-only ceremonies or taken overseas to be married,
which are two common situations that happen with child marriage in the US. 15 year old Sara had big plans for her future. She had just finished her freshman year of
high school. She wanted to join the Reserve Officers’
Training Corps (ROTC) and apply to the US Air Force Academy, ultimately hoping to go
to law school. But those future plans were derailed when
her mom found out that a boy from school was interested in her daughter. She called her ex husband, Sara’s father,
for his input on how to handle the situation. Though conservative, Sara’s mother was open
to her daughter dating. However, Sara’s father, a member of a cult
like Islamic offshoot religious group, was not. He insisted his daughter come to California
and spend the summer with him. Once in California Sara’s father made it
clear that the boy from school was forbidden and lectured her about being chaste, even
though she hadn’t done anything. Not long after that Sara’s father took her
to a religious conference where she was introduced to a 28 year old man. They were married that same evening. Though the marriage was spiritual and not
legal, under California law, 15-year-old Sara could have been legally married then with
parental consent and a court order. After the wedding Sara’s husband took her
out of the US to his home country (which she prefers not to identify). Sara’s mom had no idea all of this was happening
and Sara wasn’t allowed to communicate with her mom for months. After Sara became pregnant her husband decided
that they should return to the US to have the baby. The couple settled in the San Francisco Bay
area. One day Sara was taken on a road trip to Reno,
Nevada to get legally married. Not completely understanding the legal ramifications
of what she was doing, Sara agreed to marry. In Nevada minors as young as 16 can be married
with the consent of at least one parent, and Sara’s father had consented. Feeling trapped, Sara worked hard to get her
GED. She wanted to continue her studies and her
husband agreed, but continually threw roadblocks in her way. By age 19 Sara was pregnant with her second
child. After several years of careful planning, hard
work and secretly saving money, Sara was finally able to file divorce papers while her husband
was out of the US on a summer visit to his home country with their children. She was 26 and had been married 10 years. Her husband fought back and kept their kids
overseas. Thankfully, Sara’s in-laws arranged for
her to get her children back. But Sara’s husband began a long, drawn out
legal battle. It was another 3 years before Sara’s divorce
was finalized. Today Sara works with nonprofits to change
the laws regarding child marriage. “So much of this story, for me, is how much
of a struggle life was after divorcing him.” she says. “What people don’t always think about
is the major setbacks and obstacles that child marriage victims face in rebuilding their
lives.” Between 70-80% of child marriages end in divorce. Married minors are twice as likely to live
in poverty and three times more likely to suffer domestic violence than are married
adults. Girls who marry before 19 are 50% more likely
than their unmarried peers to drop out of high school and four times less likely to
graduate from college. They are much more likely to suffer from mental-health
problems too. If a minor tries to leave their marriage a
wide variety of problems await them, including gray areas with the law. While they have entered into a legal contract,
in most cases, they aren’t considered legal adults. This means even if they have the resources,
they cannot file for divorce or sign rental leases. If they have been abused, they cannot seek
protection in domestic violence shelters which are generally for adults. In some states, if minors leave home they
are considered to be a runaway and authorities can return them to the care of their spouse
or family. Even when married minors become of age and
want to leave the marriage, they often have circumstances or children which makes it hard
to go. When Betsy was 17 she was forced to wed a
man she had known for 45 minutes in an arranged marriage in her Orthodox Jewish community
in New York. At age 27, Betsy was finally able to escape
with her 3 young children. However, she was ill prepared for the outside
world. She was a single mother with a high school
equivalency certificate, no work experience and no money for child care. The temporary and part-time jobs she managed
to find couldn’t cover her bills. Betsy received section 8, Medicaid and food
stamps. Sometimes she went without so her children
could eat. Only when her youngest child reached school
age was Betsy finally able to get full-time employment and gain some stability. We’ve talked about the problems that teenage
girls face when marrying young, do young men experience similar issues? Yes, although there’s even less data available
regarding them. Early marriage often brings early fatherhood
and many young grooms are forced to drop out of school and take menial jobs to support
their new families which often creates or perpetuates a cycle of poverty. Considering the range of problems that arise
from child marriages, you’d think the US would be eager to change the laws. However, there’s a wide range of proponents
of child marriage that span the political spectrum. Religious groups that believe teenage girls
make better spouses because they tend to be more malleable than older women. Social conservatives argue that early marriages
can reduce births out-of-wedlock as well as the number of single mothers on welfare. Libertarians have defended the practice because
banning it means that the government intrudes on the right to marry. Critics point to the small number of minors
who marry other minors. If under 18 marriage is banned, it can restrict
young people in the military from receiving certain benefits.They also point out that
in most states the minor must go before a judge to get consent to marry, thus minors
are empowered to halt the proceedings if they desire. Nonprofits that work with child marriage survivors
say that child brides are under pressure and and don’t feel safe enough to tell a judge
the truth. While a small amount of minors marrying other
minors may be inconvenienced by having to wait until age 18 to get wed, a ban would
serve the greater good. A nationwide ban on marriage below age 18
would end statutory rape loopholes and end sactioned predator access to minors. What is life like for teenagers in North Korea? Find out video here: How has life changed for teenagers in the
last century? Check out our video here:
