Let’s make 2021 the year state ends child marriage under 18

In Massachusetts, the marriage age is 18, but dangerous loopholes in the law allow children of any age to be entered into marriage, even if they are too young to consent to sex. Children as young as 13 years old can and are being entered into marriage in the commonwealth.

From 2000 to 2018, our Massachusetts courts married

1,246 minors. More than four out of every five were young girls married to older men. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, at least 14 petitions were filed for child marriage.

Child marriage, or marriage before 18, is demonstrably dangerous and a fundamental violation of human rights. We condemn forced child marriages in foreign countries as “human rights abuse” but have scant legal protections for our own children.

Married children lack essential rights of adulthood, such as the ability to independently file for divorce. Children also face difficulty retaining legal counsel, as contracts with children are voidable. Many shelters do not accept unaccompanied minors; even youth shelters often notify parents as a first recourse.

Child protective services do not protect children from a legally binding marriage, and the Department of Children & Families will only intervene in cases of parental/guardian abuse, not spousal abuse. Yet we know that women married before the age of 18 are three times more likely to suffer intimate partner violence than women married at 21 or older. For these reasons, it is important that we end all child marriages under the age of 18, no exceptions.

Pregnant teenage girls are at a particularly high risk of forced marriages, sometimes even to their rapists. This is sometimes because parents believe that marriage will somehow benefit their children. However, child marriage is associated with higher risk of death from childbirth, malnutrition in the newborn, unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. Married teen mothers are less likely to return to school than their unmarried counterparts and more likely to suffer economic deprivation and insecurity if the marriage ends, which is likely to happen as 70-80% of all child marriages end in divorce.

Women married as teenagers are 31% more likely to live in poverty compared to unmarried women from similar economic backgrounds. They are more likely to drop out of school and earn lower wages. This creates a vicious cycle of lost education and poverty that leads to increased risk of serious health conditions.

Regarding a child who may willingly wish to be allowed to enter into marriage: We ask children to wait before entering almost any other contract. Surely, we can ask them to wait when it comes to marriage, given the known dangers, and until they have the legal rights needed to navigate this serious contract. We have multiple age-dependent rights, including driving and voting. Further, it may not be possible to weed out the child who wishes to be married from one that is being forced.

United by the belief that even one child forced into marriage is one too many, we support a minimum marriage age of 18 with the bills H.1709/ S.937, an act to end child marriage in Massachusetts. This is the third time state Rep. Kay Khan, D-newton, has filed this bill, along with state Rep. Paul Donato, D-medford, and state Sen. Harriett Chandler, Dworcester, working closely with Unchained at Last, an organization dedicated to ending forced child marriage in the United States. At least half the country has reformed their state child marriage laws in the last five years. Six states — Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania — have also set a minimum age of 18 years.

Let’s make 2021 the year that Massachusetts ends child marriage.

State Rep. Natalie Higgins is a Democrat from Leominster.

From 2000 to 2018, our Massachusetts courts married 1,246 minors.