• shalafi@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Religion aside, I have a solid argument for child marriage. Funny that no one who espouses the idea ever brings this up.

    Being married gives one a lot more legal options and rights. Say an old man marries a young cousin so as to grease the wheels on his inheritance. Americans often marry so the other party can get health insurance. As with inheritance, the child could realize property rights they would not have access to.

    Point being, people get married for reasons outside of love and sex.

    Another thought, as socially conservative as we Americans are, it’s a wonder no politicians run on moving state marriage and consent ages to match our nationwide age of majority (18). Maybe it turns out to be a poisonous talking point? Can’t imagine anyone arguing, out loud anyway, for teen marriage. Weird.

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      8 days ago

      Another thought, as socially conservative as we Americans are, it’s a wonder no politicians run on moving state marriage and consent ages to match our nationwide age of majority (18). Maybe it turns out to be a poisonous talking point? Can’t imagine anyone arguing, out loud anyway, for teen marriage. Weird.

      No, we do have Republican representatives who do openly argue for lowering the minimum marriage age. Like…a lot. All the fucking time, really

      Here’s a duck duck go search

      This happens so often I can’t even give you a list of names… And I have no idea why no one seems to talk about this

      Also, they get caught with CP or kids a lot. Lot of venom diagram overlap… Go figure

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Didn’t mean conservative politically, meant to comment on our overall sexual and social conservatism. America is, and always has been, weirdly Puritan.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social
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      8 days ago

      Being married gives one a lot more legal options and rights.

      Where? Because it’s not like that anywhere I know of. At best you get some small tax breaks. Certainly no more rights or legal options other than those purely related to marriage. Like being able to get divorced.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Ever been married? Sure seems to grease a lot of legal wheels, makes life easier, like it’s the “default” position in life. That’s all I meant.

      • theneverfox@pawb.social
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        8 days ago

        I think the inheritance part is true, if your spouse dies and you have joint ownership of the home and bank accounts, they’re not being inherited, you already fully own them

        You can do this without marriage, but you can’t do this for the purposes of tax avoidance… If you give your child joint ownership out of nowhere, you’ll need to explain why if the IRS starts asking questions. And there are valid answers, like if they work the family farm or business, it does make sense that they should gain ownership as their responsibility grows. Things can also be gifted for less tax obligations or put into a trust (and those rules are very wonky), but this is a simple traditional practice

        But with marriage? You can claim “this is just how we do marriage, we have joint finances”, and that is an accepted cultural behavior in most places. You can do it immediately, and it offers legal protection as well… For things such as medical malpractice, only the negligent party is exposed, so you cut the maximum amount that can be collected to your combined ownership/2 - primary home and other basics

        Granted, I think “but this way we can cheat the system and pay less taxes” is a terrible rationale for child marriage…

    • PastafARRian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 days ago

      Why not adopt the child instead? It bestows far more protection on the child, including protection against sexual abuse. It has every other advantage that marriage would have.