A friend pointed out this article in The Idaho Statesman, entitled “This bill would have ended child marriage for those under age in Idaho. The House voted it down“. I’m finding the objections, listed here, to be ill-thought out at best, and perhaps disingenuous, and because the whole subject is making me slightly ill, I think I’ll have to disassemble them:
Several lawmakers who spoke against the bill cited government overreach.
“I do not think courts should be involved in marriage at all,” said Bryan Zollinger, R-Idaho Falls. “I don’t believe there should be a license required to get married. I think two willing people should be able to go and get married.”
Given the inequalities possible between the parties, especially how an older party can manipulate a younger party, and the immaturity implicitly involved, this appeal seems ignorant and ideological, at best. Worse yet, though, is the hidden contradiction. The statement is all about freedom, from government oversight in this case. Yet, this very advocacy will result in marriages in which one of the spouses is trapped, even forced into the marriage. In the name of freedom, freedom will be erased.
Rep. Julianne Young, R-Blackfoot, said: “This is a decision I think should belong with families. I believe parental consent, which is what is in the law right now, should be sufficient.
Parental consent is, too often, code for arranged marriages. The use of children as a way to enrich family fortunes, whether it be material or societal, teaches those children that human beings are merely objects to be moved around at will. This is not healthy.
Rep. Christy Zito, R-Hammett, complained that the bill would make it illegal for a 15-year-old girl to get married but not to get an abortion.
In Idaho, a girl younger than 18 can get an abortion with permission of one parent or a judge.
“If we pass this legislation, it will then become easier in the state of Idaho to obtain an abortion at 15 years old than it will to decide to form a family and create a family for a child that has been conceived,” Zito said.
So? This is one of those shiny thing arguments, to my mind. You cite an irrelevant, yet emotionally inflammatory argument, and soon the air is fouled with the smoke of battle, and nothing gets done. It’s much like the drinking age battle, wherein a teenager can join the Army, potentially end up killing other people, yet they can’t drink themselves under the table in order to forget about it.
After a couple of months of chasing the rhetorical tail in circles, you realize the connections between the arguments are tenuous and unhelpful. But the battle is lost to the forces of chaos.
Look: Marriage is an institution which should be entered into by two[1] consenting adults. Those last two words are loaded with meaning and implication, and to write them off with empty ideological trigger words is gobsmackingly wrong. Considerations of maturity, power relations, and other topics must come into consideration, and in this context a few simple governmental rules helps iron out a host of problems introduced by the entire concept of marriage before you’re ready for it.
1 My apologies to fans of more outré forms of marriage, such as polyandry and others, but in this context those would be another shiny thing.
