In the latest “F***ed Up But Still Legal” segment of her TV show, “Full Frontal,” Samantha Bee delivered a powerful takedown of child marriage. Salty and succinct in style, Bee called to attention the loopholes that allow children younger than 18 across the United States to be married, with parental consent or judicial approval.
Contrary to what most people believe, Bee pointed out, the phenomenon is still legal in all 50 states.
A shocking 248,000 children under the age of 17 were married between the years of 2000 and 2010, according to Unchained at Last, a nonprofit that helps women escape forced marriages. The practice of parental-approved child marriage is usually used to exonerate men who impregnate young girls by circumventing statutory rape laws, Bee argued.
“That is not how criminal justice works,” Bee said. “When we catch a burglar, he doesn’t get to marry the house!”
Closing these legal loopholes are easier said than done.
Just this March, New Jersey became the only state to pass a bill banning all marriage under 18 — that is, until Governor Chris Christie got involved. In her segment, Bee derided Christie, who issued a conditional veto in May of the proposed ban. The governor explained that while he agreed protecting the well-being of minors was "vital," an outright ban would “not comport with the sensibilities and, in some cases, the religious customs, of the people of this State.”
On the other hand, Bee applauded the efforts of a 17-year-old Girl Scout, Cassandra Levesque, who is working to raise the minimum age for marriage to 18 in her home state of New Hampshire.
“They’re just going into puberty,” Levesque told CBS Boston. “They’re just discovering things about themselves. They are not ready to discover marriage.”
Yet not everyone agrees with Levesque and Bee.
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New Hampshire state representative David Bates opposed the bill on the basis that there can be exceptions to special cases.
“We’re asking the legislature in New Hampshire to repeal a law that has been on the books for over a century, that has been working without any difficulty, on the basis of the request from a minor who is doing a Girl Scout project,” Bates told CBS Boston.
From 1989 until last year, there were 784 marriages involving minors in the state, according to another state representative, Jacalyn Cilley. Cilley, who has supported Levesque’s bill, found that there’s a 15% high school dropout rate, and increased risk of domestic abuse and violence in a relationship for married minors.
Similar consequences have been found across the US among girls who marry young. These girls often experience higher rates of poverty, health risks, and lower educational attainment than those who are unmarried at that age, according to the Tahirih Justice Center, which provides pro bono direct legal services to immigrant women and girls fleeing from gender-based violence. A girl who marries before the age of 19 in the US is 50% less likely to complete high school, and four times less likely to go on to college.
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Additionally, between 70% and 80% of marriages end in divorce for those married before 18.
As Bee said, all of these factors make young girls more likely to end up in poverty: 31%, to be precise.
“Look, marriage is a complex institution that means different things to different people,” Bee added. “But we’ve learned that changing marriage laws doesn’t make the sky fall. So I hope we, as Americans, can finally agree that no one who has downloaded a Fifth Harmony album in the past three years is mature enough to get married. And no one who has never heard of Fifth Harmony should be able to force her to.”