Virginia lawmakers have voted to raise the marriage age to 18. Most states haven't

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

April 4, 2024 6:00 AM ET


Brigitte Combs lives outside of Richmond and said she came to the Virginia state capitol when she heard legislators were discussing the issue of minors and forced marriage. Taking a deep breath, she told them that decades ago in Texas she had been married at 15 years old to a 37-year-old man.

"I could not speak up then. But I can speak now. And I will fight tooth and nail for others who are not able to speak," she said in late February. Combs was able to escape her marriage at age 18 — temporarily leaving two children behind, initially facing homelessness and eventually getting a divorce.

"Through time, and getting to meet people, then I found out more about it. And found out yeah, this is actually still a thing," Combs told NPR. "It's happening in America. It wasn't just me."

Lawmakers went on to pass a bill raising the minimum age for marriage to 18. It's currently pending action by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. But advocates say it would make Virginia just the 12th state to prohibit minors from getting married, which they say often leads to abuse.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/04/1240737573/virginia-legislature-marriage-age-increase

[CousinIT]

1. This is a human rights issue and should be federal law.

Child marriage should be banned. Period. Nationwide. This happens because privileged men believe they deserve to have young 'virgin' girls to rape, beat, enslave and impregnate.

It's hideous. Two kids by the age of 18? Oh hell no.

[cstanleytech]

2. Why not 21?

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Mgiht go back to the draft at 18 and voting at 18

[cstanleytech]

5. Why not 21 though? It's the arbitrary age you have to be in the US to legally be allowed to drink alcohol.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Well again - since one of the things I mentioned got codified into the Constitution

that would engage a "battle of the ages" (pun intended ). That actually happened when the drinking age was dropped down to 18 in many states but then got moved back up to 21 again (for spirits).

I think there were supposedly "biological" and "psychological" reasons that "18" got fixated on a long time ago that seemed to have informed that decision.

[cstanleytech]

7. The only psychological thing I can think of is that's the age around where most people graduate from highschool.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. There's a whole school of psychology

that attempted to characterize "emotional and psychological maturity", although a later stage of maturity had been noted for age "25".

And I ended up graduating from high school at 17.

[localroger]

9. Mainly because you can join the military at 18.

This is not a thing the world's militaries are going to give up no matter what you think of it, and everything else flows from that -- both the voting and drinking ages were standardized at 18 because, if you're old enough to go to Vietnam and shoot people and get shot at, you're old enough to do those other things. In Louisiana, where our state constitution is based on the Napoleonic Code instead of English common law, an 18 year old has "all the rights and privileges of adulthood." And yes, increasing the drinking age to 21 violated our state constitution. The state supreme court said so the first time it came up and when they tried to amend the Constitution it was wildly unpopular with voters. But they finally just did it anyway because we were being blackmailed with our own tax money in the form of highway funds. And all that in turn has nothing to do with high school or any modern rite of passage, since it was written into the NC in the eighteenth century. All in all 18 is the compromise that conflicting interests have always managed to agree is reasonable, being neither so young as to encourage rampant exploitation nor so old as to unfairly bar young people from job markets and other opportunities.

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I was married at. 19 (the guy was 20). My parents had to grant approval. I was a

single mother by 22. The whole thing turned me so "off" that I never tried it again. I've been divorced almost 54 years.

[Backseat Driver]

10. And there you have it...I was also married at 19 (the guy had just turned 24)...

Mom signed at the marriage license counter...Over the years, her Christian fundamentalism grew and grew, especially after her church called a Texan to lead the flock. I was the married mother of two by my 9th anniversary...with gobs of love and support from the in-laws and little to none from mine. Marriage wasn't always great, but I chose the path less traveled and that has made all the difference, so to speak, because there were times of great happiness as well, a real roller coaster, but I was never, ever in any physical danger. That I now fear the GOPs administrative turn into MAGAts, Christofascist racisists approving of dictatorship of the super-wealthy elites and willfully ignorant tokens more than DH's flawed decisions and my reticense to break my promises post scientific "experimentation" is why we'll be "celebrating" 54 years of marriage. No practical reason to end the race to the end of it, though I wish I could spend a lot less time thinking, "what if..." Human nature to wonder, I suppose. There's always some much worse off and some brave surviving souls. However it's played out, I am grateful.