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Comment by Svekax | Hacker News Reader

Rape, imprisonment, threats, assault, etc. are already illegal. I fail to see how adding an additional law will suddenly fix these situations.

But raising the marriage age above the age of consent (like what was attempted in New Jersey) will cause real harm to people who have nothing to do with those situations. Teenagers won't be able to cover their pregnant partners under their insurance. Soldiers won't be able to get married before joining. More children will be born out of wedlock. What do democrats shout at Trump's plans to end Obamacare? "If you do this, people will die!"

The minimum marriage age should be the age of consent and not a year higher.

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According to the article, more than half the states have no firm minimum age for marriage. For many states, it is below the age of consent. In some states, statutory rape is not considered such if the partners are married. It seems that the laws need an overhaul like you say, to bring in line with age of consent at least.

And?

You said that rape is already illegal.

Children are being raped, and then pressured to marry their rapists. This means that the rapists can't always be prosecuted.

There is a reason why marriage age limits are frequently below the age of consent.

One of important reasons why society wants to push age of consent way above puberty age - is because society wants to prevent teenagers from having promiscuous sex and have pregnancies out of wedlock. Marriage helps to reduce both these risks. That is why marriage is allowed at a lower ages than age of consent.

Did you read the article? They are making the case that communities are using early marriage as a way of covering up rape in places where underage sex is legal (or at least overlooked) if the person is married. Hence banning it would reduce the amount of rape going unpunished, and therefore the amount of rape.

Does it really matter if a child is born out of wedlock?

Yes. Children with only one parent are more likely to be physically and mentally unhealthy, go to prison, not go to college, use drugs, abuse alcohol, etc. It should be obvious that children are better off when there are two people responsible for taking care of them.

Being born out of wedlock does not mean there there is only one parent...

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/wedlock

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/parent

I believe you are confused. This is a discussion about marriage, not parenthood.

You were the one that introduced parenthood, by conflating "outside of wedlock" with, and I quote, "children with only one parent".

You're the one who brought up parenthood. You're the one making the claim that having unmarried parents is the same as having only one parent.

What is that supposed to prove?

Prove?

How is out of wedlock the same as 'only one parent'? Can't you have two unmarried parents?

In the situation from this article, without marriage one of the parents would likely go to jail. Then the child would be raised by a single parent (a teenager).

Who, exactly, would have benefited from that?

Children with only one parent

If your two parents aren't married you still have two actual parents.

Perhaps rather than "parent" you meant "active caregiver" or similar.

The reason I asked this question is because my parents have always been, and will continue to always be common law. They love each other and raised my brother and I together.

I was born out of wedlock, and still raised by two parents.

There are studies that show correlations, for example, with income and education [1]. Correlation, however, does surely not proof causation.

Personally, our son was also born out-of-wedlock and we are still not married. For us it was simply a choice of wanting children but not seeing the need to affirm our relationship through the public statement of a wedding. While in our country no one is taking offense with that, it is unfortunate that there are still negative side effects such as higher taxes and a lot of paperwork to ensure my spouse and I have the same rights and obligations with regards to our son

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/why-are...

You mean the USA allow underaged boys and girls to enlist as soldiers?

What do you mean by "underaged"?

17 years old or less, I presume

The minimum enlistment age is 17 with parental consent. Underage would be 16 or younger.

I'm a little unclear how that's different from any of the other things US federal, state, and local law allows minor children to do with their parents' consent. In any case under federal law, the lowest age limit for enlistment is 17 with parents' consent.

I've always found it exceedingly bizarre that in the US, one can enlist in the military and be prepared to kill or be killed at age 17, while even at 20, it's illegal to purchase a non-alcoholic beer. I think America is very strange.

>Teenagers won't be able to cover their pregnant partners under their insurance

Then maybe force insurance companies to cover partners too?

>Soldiers won't be able to get married before joining.

Then maybe they shouldn't be sent to kill and get killed before they are like 21 either? This way they have 3 full years to get married and enjoy their marriage, even after joining at 18.

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