I was under the impression that some teen marriages are informed by necessity.
I'm sure that's true.
Also, you can join the military at seventeen with parental consent. There was a seventeen-year-old kid in my combat parachute jump school class.
I understand, being a navy brat. But the armed services aren't out recruiting for 17 year olds who need a special waver. And while war time has been known to dramatically impact the ages of those serving and giving orders, the average age for an army captain today is closer to 27 and that holds true across ranks as I understand it, for a number of reasons, beginning with simple process.
Do you have to be able to give sound life advice advice to be qualified for marriage?
Legally no, but if you're incapable of sound judgment the chances of you making one are pretty much nil and the chance of a marriage that survives about on par with that.
If you restrict child bearing to twenty-one and over, it would have disastrous consequences to women's health and society. Can we agree on that point?
No, but I'm not trying to do that.
The law in New York is made for the exceptional, as are all the state marriage laws that allow for young teens to marry with a judges consent.
Most of the original laws relating to marriage and consent were made prior to our having the science to understand the problem and given the statistics on divorce they might be revisited at some point. But I'm not talking about altering age of consent law. I'm speaking to the wisdom of biologically impaired and experientially lacking youngsters entering into a life long commitment. And I'm noting that it mostly doesn't work, which should concern anyone who is concerned with the institution and the welfare of children.
You'll have to show me the research else I have nothing to comment on. Does the data prove an under-developed brain is the cause of failed marriages? I'm skeptical.
I'll find it again, but it's pretty cut and dried. Over half those marriages under that figure end in divorce. It's not within a statistical variation for happenstance. And the only common denominator across a wide sampling is age. And the prime distinguisher there is judgement. Once upon a time observation led to restrictive laws predicated upon the lack of life experience. We now understand there's a less flexible, biological element to it as well.
I'll go back and dig it out later, but I just came across a NJ Law Firm that referenced the source and quick data:
We always hear that “50% of marriages end in divorce.” That’s a somewhat mythical figure, and in reality, divorce rates have been estimated as landing closer to 30 or 40%. But for people within certain age ranges, the famous 50% statistic is actually low. To quote the National Center for Health Statistics:
60 percent of marriages for couples between the ages of 20 and 25 end in divorce.
For couples were are even younger, the prognosis becomes bleaker still. In their article titled “Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the United States,” cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), M.D. Bramlett and W.D. Mosher found that nationally, 59% of marriages to women who were younger than 18 at the time of marriage will end in divorce within 15 years.
Some said that about mixed race marriages, too.
Not the same animal, though depending on where you lived I'm sure it was true. The stresses on mixed couples not that terribly long ago would I'm sure have a serious impact on the failure rate.
But those couples, if they were of sufficient age, could understand that in a way young people simply aren't in a position to.