Opinion on- http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-29/us-has-forced-child-marriage-problem-too
The US has a forced child marriage problem, too
This isn’t an issue that we here on a constant basis, specially in a country like United States. But this issue can be certainly found on growing third world countries. It’s kind of interesting to me that this matter of subject about child marriages is existing in a world class country like U.S.
In US, a person is legally allowed to marry at the age of 18 which is passed by majority of the states. But there is still an issue with this age and kids are even getting married earlier than that according to the article. So, how do we deal with this issue in this country? First of all, I personally believe that there is “too” much freedom that are supplied by this country. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against that. My only concern is when this freedom thing can become a problem for the country in general. As mentioned by the article “In most US states, guardians can provide parental consent in order to allow children under the age of 18 to enter into a legal marriage. But Reiss says that, “consent” can also be an issue.” Consent are supposed to be confidential and reliable for constitutions and other parties. But we can’t always trust on consent forms because there is no process that confirms that they are the legalized parents. I have one major issue when this consent thing. How do we know that they are the real parents of the child? The child could have been simply forced to hide the fact that whoever is writing the consent, is not their real parents. There might be some kind of evil intuitions to whoever is writing the child for a marriage consent. What is so rush for the marriage to the place? If it’s a topic of pregnancy, than there’s even a bigger issue that we need to face. The girl is thrown into a deeper pit if marriage is only being performed to keep the pregnancy safe. Marriage is supposed to be between two and their love for each other and not to save some kind of pregnancy.
The judicial system is corrupted as well. When it comes to young marriages, many US states allows the “Judicial approval.” This is a major decision that needs to be revised. This gives the judge to approve early marriages for ages that may consider as statutory rape under state law. There have been cases where the judges have been bribed in order for the judge to prioritize one side over the other.
Even though US is a country that is known to follow laws in a strict matter, there are many cases where we our laws are corrupted and kind of inhumane. If these major issues are not resolved in a fast pace, US won’t be any differ from any other third world countries.
Work Cited
* B., Ecebiun. "US Force Childhood Marriage." Www.pri.org. December 29, 2015. Accessed January 1, 2016. http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-12-29/us-has-forced-child-marriage-problem-too.