For years, the United States has campaigned against child marriage around the world, from Guatemala to Zimbabwe. But we should listen to ourselves: Forty-five states in America continue to allow girls and boys under 18 to wed.
Girls as young as 10 are occasionally married quite legally in the United States. Nine states have established no absolute minimum age for marriage.
A study this year found that nearly 300,000 children – meaning age 17 and younger – were married in the United States from 2000 to 2018. An overwhelming majority were 16- or 17-year-old girls, on average marrying a man four years older. But more than 1,000 were 14 or younger, and five were only 10 years old. Some were wed to people far older.
“There was nothing romantic about it. I wasn’t in love with him. I didn’t have a crush on him. I was afraid of him,” remembered Patricia Abatemarco, who as an eighth grader was married just after her 14th birthday to a man who was 27.
A judge in Florence, Alabama, married the couple in the courthouse, and then the couple went to the park outside – where the new bride spotted a playground and left the groom to play on the jungle gym.