Legal Loopholes in America that Enable Child Marriage By Tara Jones

Child Marriage is unfortunately a tale as old as time and common enough to be a law that’s actually. It survives because of legal loopholes and the social limitations of a sexist and antiquated point of view. 

Child Marriage can be arranged for reasons like money, politics, or religious beliefs. It can also be caused by rape and used as a justification for it. 

Rape victim-blaming is awful to the victims and society at large. It is a systemic ideological problem with its roots often found in sexism and homophobia. A” might equals right” mentality that says that it’s better to blame the victim because it’s more convenient than interrupting the status quo and after all “boys will be boys.” There are exceptions to this rule as women are perfectly capable of rape too but by in large the shaming is about women being subservient to men, like children she is to be seen not heard. If you look at the roots of language we see in Latin that the roots for the penis is public a thing in which to be proud and show off in public whereas for the vagina the roots translate to that which one ought to be ashamed. There’s a lot to be said in that. 

Rape, especially in places like rural Asia and Africa can have a heavy presence of social shaming towards the rape victim and huge pressures to endure her suffering in silence and obedience to the rapist and family. In America, we like to act removed from these social issues but the reality is that these sentiments underline the world’s mentality and are found present in our laws as well. 

Let’s briefly look at some of the more basic reasons for child marriage and rape shaming to occur. 

Money. Some rapists will ask to marry their victim out of fetishism or to cover their crimes or societal shame and use money to do so. This could involve paying off the family, the victim, or a third-party handler such as a corrupted authority or caretaker for the victim. The payoffs may be under the table, in the form of a dowry, in the form of benefits, social, reputational, or career advances or material. 

Politics. This could mean that the rapist found it suitable to dodge lengthy jail sentences by covering up their rape with a formal marriage that would grant them loopholes rights to intercourse with the minor for example as we see currently in states such as Florida. It could mean that one family may join a more powerful family with the consent to such a union. It could mean that the victim would be spared some debilitating social stigma or oppression by agreeing to the marriage. These are only a few of the countless scenarios that may apply. 

Religious beliefs. Religions unfortunately can be used to justify child marriage to a rapist. Passages include Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy 22:28-29: “If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.” In the Christian Bible “If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no man is with us, see, God is witness between you and me.” (Genesis 31:50 NAU)Misinterpretation of the Quaran and many other religious doctrines are also used to justify rape. 

Ways that Women Might Feel Pressured:

A women’s family may take the shame of what was done unto her and blame her for it sitting numerous things such as her dress, demeanor, or presence in the proximity to the rapist just to name a few. I’d like to remind the reader that any excuse used to justify rape is the ignorance of the accuser rape is the responsibility of the rapist, not the victim. Period. They will try to entice her with whatever benefits might come from being married, a house, improved family reputation, status of being married. They will use pregnancy to guilt the mother into providing for her child through the rapist and if she does not accuse her of being an unfit mother with the possibility of threatening to take the child away. Threatening to take away her support, reputation, or even life.

A lot of the ways that rape victims get shamed may seem archaic and third world-like far removed from a first world’s readers stance however the sentiments exist in all demographics, financial status levels, and types of family units. It might similarly exist for those without families such as orphans whose overseers might not want to deal with the issue, friends who might not want to withstand the controversy, etc. 

In ten years ending in 2010 about 170,000 children were married in the US according to data by Unchained at Last. Looking at some of the prevalent legal issues here in America today we see that these pre-historic and yet permeating mindsets continue today. Flordia for example has a legal loophole being actively exploited by rapists. Their age of consent to marry is already at a low 16 with parental consent (see above for the issue with this) however more shockingly there is no needed age of consent if the minor is pregnant. If you want a child bride you just need to knock one up real quick to make it legit. In some US states there is another loophole that is being exploited minors can’t run away from their spouse, get a divorce or enter a haven if they are still married. This leaves the minor totally at the mercy of their capture and abuser. Child marriage is actively legal in 46 US states. There are only for that are completely set on 18 and 18 and above only under no other conditions. This statistic only gets gravely more disturbing when you realized that 20 states only require a sign-off from their parents at any age to make it legal. So you think that child marriage isn’t allowed in America in this day and age? Think again! For some reason, the so-called “sanctity of marriage” as an institution is more important than the concept in its true meaning itself, legally. 

Until we deprioritize the system of marriage as the end all be all for what is an acceptable practice and stop forcing these women into a life of conditioned and continued rape that will contain irreparable damage and potentially molestation of her children or other children as a result we are looking at a long road from the antiquated past into a less rape endorsing society. 

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