Married per 10,000 residents:

Married per 10,000 residents:
Minors who married in 38 states
that provided records, 2000-10
Minors who married in 38 states that provided records, 2000-10
In fact, more than 167,000 young people age 17 and under married in 38 states between 2000
and 2010, according to a search of available marriage license data by a group called Unchained at Last, which aims to ban child marriage.
“They took the handcuffs from handcuffing him,” she says, referring to the risk he faced of
arrest for rape, “to handcuffing me, by marrying me without me knowing what I was doing.”
“You can’t get a job, you can’t get a car, you can’t get a license, you can’t sign
a lease,” she adds, “so why allow someone to marry when they’re still so young?”
Those are precisely the reasons marriages for even 17-year-olds are problematic, according to
Fraidy Reiss, who founded Unchained at Last to fight forced marriage and child marriage.
A judge approved the marriage to end the rape investigation, she says, telling her, “What we want is for you to get married.”
New Jersey state records show more than 100 marriages between 1995
and 2015 in which sex would constitute statutory rape because of spousal age differences: one person age 13 to 15 and a partner at least four years older.