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California bans child marriage, a practice still legal in 32 US states

83 points · 136 comments · dabinat

  1. djvu97 · · focus · HN ↗
    It was legal in the first place?
    1. ImPostingOnHN · · focus · HN ↗
      > a practice still legal in 32 states
    2. NDlurker · · focus · HN ↗
      The headline says yes. The article says paywall.
    3. NewJazz · · focus · HN ↗
      Yes technically allowed with parental consent and judicial approval. Not sure how often it happened.
      1. AzzyHN · · focus · HN ↗
        In California, around 9,000 a year according to the article
    4. gedy · · focus · HN ↗
      Ban is under age 18. Many states allow 16 & 17 with parents permission.
      1. NewJazz · · focus · HN ↗
        California had/has until jan 1 no minimum age. But it requires judicial approval.
    5. GeekyBear · · focus · HN ↗
      As long as your definition of "child" is any person who is not yet legally an adult.
    6. socializer · · focus · HN ↗
      It's really adolescent marriage (the threshold was moved from 16 to 18). Teenage marriages were still fairly common in the West in the first half of the 20th century. Vatican City had a minimum age of 12 on the books until 2013.

      Europe is now more or less consistently 18 for parental consent, but marriages at a younger age are still permitted across the EU with judicial consent.

      1. rsynnott · · focus · HN ↗
        > Vatican City had a minimum age of 12 on the books until 2013.

        I mean, are there any children who are citizens of the Vatican City, given its bizarre citizenship situation? (Citizenship is based, essentially, on _employment_, and lapses when employees retire; sole exception, AIUI, is retiring popes, who get a free pass.) I would suspect that this is a holdover from the Papal States (which bit the dust in 1870, when this sort of thing was more acceptable), which someone finally got around to cleaning up.

      2. NewJazz · · focus · HN ↗
        This is factually untrue. There was no minimum age.
    7. nine_k · · focus · HN ↗
      What they mean is the ability to marry at 16. It's not exactly a small child age, it's teen age.

      I suspect that this norm lingers from times of stricter social norms and before the pill, when a marriage would be a way to avoid a scandal when the prospective bride were pregnant.

      1. em-bee · · focus · HN ↗
        i don't think it had anything to do with lack of birthcontrol or fear of scandals, but rather with the religious definition of a marriageable age. there is also is also the biological definition which would make you marriageable as soon as you are able to conceive. but it is worth noting that apparently in the 19th century girls average age for puberty was 15 and for boys it was 17.
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