Should a young woman who is under 18 and pregnant be legally able to marry without parental consent?

[Boojatta]

After all, a marriage is a contract.

[snooper2]

1. Do you have somebody in your life under 18 who is with child and can't figure out how to buy food?

or something?

[polichick]

3. What are you talking about? You may think your response is funny but...

...it's just ridiculous.

[Aerows]

8. Response to another

much more ridiculous thread this OP made. Something about people under 18 not being able to enter into binding contracts so they couldn't buy food.

Or some other such nonsense that also involved whether a 15 year old woman and a 15 year old man purchasing her in prostitution was legal.

I know, I couldn't make heads or fuck all of it, either. I think that was this poster's point.

[polichick]

9. I see - thanks!

[Aerows]

10. I know

I see, too.

We have some crazy people in the Democratic party, too, unless this one is a Republican plant designed to disrupt. Personally, I think it is a disruptor because this was the weirdest series of posts I've encountered, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are just nuts.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

12. That's his whole shtick

Young hipster, always ironic, all the time. He will get older and discover that no one ever really cared about his cleverness. It's a maturity thing.

[Aerows]

18. I'll wait for signs of cleaverness

Before I assume any was offered.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

19. Nicely played, Aerows

I like the way you turned that one on its side--it's a good point

Enjoy your weekend.

[Scuba]

2. I checked with my local State Senator, Republican Glenn Grothman. He said it would....

... be up to the man who owns her.

[polichick]

4. Personally, I would hope that such a young person...

...would want to consult her very loving and supportive parents - sort of like I would hope a woman deciding on an abortion or not would want to consult her very loving and supportive partner.

Legally, this is decided on the state level I assume.

[appleannie1]

5. It depends on the law of the state she lives in.

[Boojatta]

13. Asking what ...

should be the law is different from asking what is the law. The Original Posts poses the question: what should the law be?

[SoCalDem]

6. 13 is "under 18"..so is 17 and 11 months. .. n.t

[zbdent]

7. seems to me that there are laws in the individual states which actually spell out

when a person under 18 can marry without parental consent.

Maybe the question regarding the rhetoric that's being pushed by the right is, are they going to push for making marriage mandatory for pregnant females?

[Iggo]

11. Yes.

[Xithras]

14. No.

We don't permit minors to marry because they are generally immature and lack the foresight to pick good partners. In fact, I believe the actual statistic is that, of all couples together at 16, only 3% are still together at 25. People tend to change dramatically as they transition from childhood to adulthood, and it's fairly rare for two people to change in the same way, at the same rate, so that both are still compatible afterward. This is why we make them wait until they've grown to adulthood and matured.

Getting pregnant is a biological function that has nothing to do with mental maturity. The fact that a teenager is pregnant has no real bearing on her ability to pick a good partner, so there is no reason to relax the limitations on her ability to marry. In fact, if anything, those restrictions may help to prevent her from becoming legally bonded to a guy who, according to every bit of research ever done, will NOT be her life partner. By allowing her to marry, you simply make it more difficult for her to leave the relationship in a few years.

And I'm not talking out of my ass on this one. As anyone who's read my posts over the years is aware, my oldest daughter was conceived when I was only 17, and my girlfriend was 15. I WAS a teen parent. We had this romantic teen notion about falling in love and getting married, but both of our parents stepped in and prevented that from happening. We quickly drifted apart, our relationship ended, and I ended up having little contact with her outside of the occasional visitation with my daughter. We were both in college before we started seeing each other again and hit it off a second time, and my daughter was nine years old before we finally tied the knot. I was angry at the time, but nowadays I'm THANKFUL that my parents stepped up and prevented us from being married. I was an immature teenager, and their involvement prevented us from marrying before we'd finished growing up. Looking back on it, and on myself, I honestly doubt we'd still be together today if we'd rushed into marriage the moment she got pregnant. I had no idea how to behave in a real, collaborative partnership.

[Boojatta]

17. Thank you for that contribution.

Now, instead of simply entering into a spontaneous dialog, perhaps we should anticipate several steps ahead into the future and create a plan. We should plan very carefully because, as you can see if you read through this thread, people are starting to suspect. Yes, to suspect ... that we are young hipsters planted by the Republican party and dispersing seeds of non-stop irony.

[Nye Bevan]

15. No.

I'm not even sure that under-18s should be allowed to get married *with* parental consent. Some parents are stupid.

[The Straight Story]

16. Only if they can smoke, drink, and vote as well (nt)