re: After OK Law Change - Map Shows Where Child Marriage Is Legal

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Before 2018, child marriage was legal in all 50 states.

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I've read some takes that this is a misleading claim pushed by advocacy groups looking for a specifically-worded ban while ignoring other consent laws and marriage licensing requirements at state and local levels.

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People are going to read this as 315,000 ten year olds were married.

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Yeap, just like Epstein.

It's easy to see how everything gets muddied. Because a 17-year-old is still a child. But people think about 10-year-olds.

Same as guns being the leading death of children. Those stats include all the 17-year-old black kids shooting each other. But people automatically think 10-year-olds are being gunned down everywhere.

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The organization says nearly 315,000 children as young as 10 were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2021, mostly girls married to adult men.

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What kind of clickbait bullshite is this?

The map shows that only 4 states allow marriage under the age of 15. And 2 of those 4 states have the “rate of child marriage” listed as “N/A.”

I found the actual data referenced in the article:

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Nearly 315,000 minors were legally entered into marriage in the United States between 2000 and 2021. Eighty-six percent (86%) were girls, and most were wed to adult men an average of 4.02 years their senior.

Ninety-six percent (96%) of minors wed were aged 16 or 17, but some were as young as 10.

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And then their graph has some weird scaling that makes 5 look like half of 1,158.

That same organization says child marriages have decreased from 32,652 in 2000 to 1,717 in 2021. Even if we assume that the age distribution in 2021 was the same as the entire 22-year period (unlikely, it probably skews older due to changing laws), that would mean:
- About 12 people age 14 or younger get married each year in the US as of 2021
- About 1 person age 13 or younger gets married each year in the US as of 2021

It’s still fricking weird, but I don’t know that 17 year olds getting married is some huge societal issue - especially in states where 17 is the legal age of consent.

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This practice is said to be particularly bad in the Traveler communities.

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Those in Murphy Village no longer marry girls off legally at the age of 8 and 10 but they still somehow manage to get pregnant at 10 and 11 years of age...the State has reigned in the legal marriages but has been unable to do so in the case of marriages in kind....it is disgusting either way.