The beginning of child marriage restrictions in New York, 2017

The state of New York has been allowing children to marry at ages as young as 14-15 since 1929; now, governor Andrew Cuomo along with various other state lawmakers including states from New Jersey to Missouri, are pushing to change these laws and completely end child marriage.

           Although this seems like the right and modern thing to do, early marriages have been a tradition, whether religious or nonreligious, for the past century. Just recently between 2000 and 2010, 3,900 minors married in New York State most of them due to religious values, and that’s one of the many issues that may arise when enforcing these new laws. If states ban child marriage, religious values are restricted, thus causing controversy.

           Experts, on the other hand, argue that early marriages further create economic, social  and emotional issues that have the power to forever change youth lives for the worse. Often in these cases, the women are respectably younger than the men resulting in them to stop their education and suffer domestic violence. And to only make matters worse, women aren’t able to legally divorce until 18 years of age.

    A resident of Northern New Jersey, Fatima, was a straight-A student in the Brooklyn school district in the 1980’s. Her dreams of enhancing her education and becoming a doctor was suddenly crushed when her muslim parents forced her to marry at 15 years old to a first cousin. She is now living happily with four children and single.My dad said, ‘He’s your cousin, he’s going to take care of you, it’s great for the family’, “I’ll never forgive my father,” she exclaims. “Because this happened to me, I didn’t live out my youth. I was forced to grow up too fast.”

    Currently, the pending legislation would raise the minimum wed age to 18 yet 17 year old can still marry with a parent’s approval and judicial consent. Will this be a positive impact on our generation or cause even more conflict with religious rites and customs in the future?