Missouri lawmakers vote to outlaw marriage at 15

[TexasTowelie]

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Married into years of misery as a 15-year-old child bride, Ashley Duncan of Steele, Mo., couldn’t be happier — although activists against child marriage remain far less so.

“I think that’s like one of the greatest things that can happen,” Duncan, 24, said to the news that Missouri lawmakers Friday passed a bill Friday to set the state’s minimum marriage age at 16, with the approval of one parent or guardian. Marriages for anyone 15 or younger would be prohibited. The bill now awaits the governor’s signature.

Age 15 “is just way too young to get married,” said Duncan, who was profiled in a recent Star series on Missouri’s marriage law — the most lenient in the nation for 15-year-olds. The law allowed children even younger to marry, with a judge’s approval.

But activists against all child marriages, meaning anyone under age 18, note that the bill being sent to the governor is a poor excuse for child protection. The measure still leaves thousands of 16- and 17-year-olds open to the kind of abuse, poverty, helplessness, lack of education and exploitation that often accompany child marriage.

Read more: http://www.pjstar.com/articles/20180518/missouri-lawmakers-vote-to-outlaw-marriage-at-15

[lastlib]

1. In Missouri, this is called "progress"........

What a backward state I call home.........