The Russell Sage Foundation has been expending time and money on a “survey” of child marriages in the United States, says the Charlotte Observer. The disclosure is what it calls “a serious situation.” The important revelation is that “more than two-thirds of a million persons living in the United States today have been child brides who were less than 16 years or age when they married, or have been married to brides under that age.” The great majority of these are of native white parentage. The child marriage is due in large measure to the fact that many states require no better evidence of sage than the affidavit of one of the candidates for a license.
In New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Louisiana, Virginia, Florida, Maryland, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Colorado, Idaho, Maine and Mississippi, the legal minimum age for girls is 12 and for boys 14.
The Foundation’s report classifies as child brides only those under 16. In 14 states a girl is legally permitted to marry before she has attained the age at which she may legally become a wage earner. The complaint is that the marriageable age for girls has remained an inactive issue, in these States, while “their educational and child welfare agencies have kept the age of leaving school and entering industry a burning one.” The endeavor of the Russell Sage Foundation is “to arouse the leagues of women voters, marriage law administrators, school authorities, State and local legislators, clergymen and social welfare workers throughout the country,” to the necessity of revising the license laws.
The 240 child marriages studies took place in 31 States. In 61 cases the bride was less than 14 years old, and in a number of cases she was only 11 years old. The children’s parents consented to 104 of these marriages. The licenses for 129—more than half—were illegally issued; 79 couples succeeded in securing a license and in having a marriage ceremony performed although the bride or groom, or both, were below the legal minimum marriageable age; in 50 other cases the license was issued and the ceremony performed although the bride or groom, or both, were of the age requiring parental consent, but consent was not given. Only 17 of the 240 marriages could be described as boy and girl marriages, the average age of the bridegrooms being 27 years and all of the brides being less than 16; in a number of cases the groom was four or five times as old as the bride. A common characteristic of these marriages was the haste with which they were arranged and consummated.
Discussing incidentally the various motives which seem to lie behind child marriages, the report cites, among others, the desire to escape from unhappiness in the home, the attempt to evade requirements of the compulsory education laws, and the desire to avoid punishment for infractions of other laws.
From page 5 of The Mooresville Enterprise, March 19, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn93064798/1925-03-19/ed-1/seq-5/
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