America's child marriage problem
Some US states have no minimum age for marriage, and that is a problem. In this video, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, the hosts of The Young Turks, explain why.
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One woman's story
The hosts discuss a news report about a woman who walked into the clerk's office in Colorado sure that someone would save her.
She was 16 and pregnant. Her Christian community was pressuring her family to marry her off to her 19-year-old boyfriend. After the mess she felt she had made, she did not think she had the right to refuse.
"I could be the example of the shining whore in town, or I could be what everybody wanted me to be at that moment and save my family a lot of honor," she said.
She assumed the clerk would refuse to approve the marriage. Surely the law would not allow a minor to marry? It did, as she learned. She is now 42.
Exceptions in every state
Most states set 18 as the minimum age of marriage. But exceptions in every state allow children younger than 18 to marry, usually with parental consent or a judge's approval.
How much younger? Laws in 27 states do not set any age below which a child cannot marry.