The Great American Controversy Over Underage Marriage [Table Of Contents]

in #news7 years ago (edited)

Welcome to my article.  Recently there has been panic stirring up in the press and the media regarding underage marriage throughout the United States of America.  This panic has caused uninformed individuals to confuse voluntary teenage marriage with forced child marriage.  Now, I'm emphatically against forced child marriage.  However, I am a grandson of a 17-year-old bride, a grandnephew of a 15-year-old bride, and a great-great grandson of a 16-year-old bride; and I can honestly tell you that voluntary teenage marriage is NOT the same thing as forced child marriage.  My maternal grandmother, my maternal great aunt, and my paternal great-great grandmother were all three adolescent girls under 18 years of age when they got married, and all three of them lived long, happy lives.  As a matter of fact, all three of them lived past their nineties.  My maternal grandmother married a young man who was only two years older than her. My maternal grandfather, that is.  However, my maternal great aunt and my paternal great-great grandmother married men approximately a decade older than them.  Neither one of them suffered any psychiatric problems.  At least not any that I am aware of.

I realize that there are girls (and even boys) throughout the world who are getting married way too young.  I come from the school of thought that if a girl still watches Saturday morning cartoons, believes in the Easter Bunny, and has all of her baby teeth, she is definitely too young to be getting married.  By virtue of the same school of thought, I've known of adolescent girls as young as their early teens who have gotten married, not necessarily to boys the same age as them, and have lived long, happy, productive lives.

There are certain political activists and elected state officials who are attempting to ban all underage marriage here in our nation.  That is, they are pushing to pass Draconian laws that would make it illegal for anyone to get married before 18 years old under any circumstances anywhere here in the land of milk and honey.  These people are misinforming the public and misleading others to believe that there is no difference between voluntary teenage marriage and forced child marriage.  However, any intelligent individual knows that these self-righteous do-gooders' perspective on this topic could not be any further from the truth.  My article explains why we as Americans need to stop these self-righteous do-gooders from having their way.

I would be interested in reading any comments that any of you who are reading this article might have to say.  I may not agree with everything that you say in your comments.  However, I will keep an open mind to anything that any of you have to say about this issue and about my article.  I realize that there will be people out there who are going to disagree with my position on this topic.  However, the concern that I have is that the press and the media have been giving this topic attention from only a one-sided perspective, when the public has the right to be able to hear both sides of the issue.

Here is the table of contents:

Table Of Contents:

(This article is laid out in thirteen Steemit posts, including this table of contents)

Part A:  Introduction

Part B:  Fanatical Femi-Nazi Propaganda Against Underage Marriage

Part C:  The Historical Background Of Adolescent Subculture In Relation To Underage Marriage

Part D:  The Age-Of-Consent Laws’ Relationship To Teenage Marriage

Part E:  My Personal Experiences With Events Encompassing Teenage Marriage 

Part F:  The Obnoxious Facts Regarding Societal Ideals Of Normal Adolescent Behavior

Part G:  The Politics And Controversy Behind The Age-Of-Consent Laws

Part H:  Debunking The Lie That Teenage Marriage Is Legalized Pedophilia

Part I:  The History Of Movements Against Teenage Marriage Here In America

Part J; Section 1:  Current Movements To Ban Teenage Marriage Here In America

Part J; Section 2:  Current Movements To Ban Teenage Marriage Here In America (continued)

Part K:  Conclusion To My Argument And Solution To The Issue

Using the above table of contents should make it easy for you to navigate through any segment of my article.  I have also placed links in my article to allow for you to go to either the next segment of it or previous segments of it.  Enjoy! :-)

[Article Continued In Part A]

This article is copyright-protected.  


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Ladies and gentlemen? I realize that I was supposed to italicize the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) throughout this entire article inasmuch as that same manual is a book publication, and I failed to do so. My sincere apologies for any confusion that my blunder in that regard may have caused. This was my first major article that I published here on Steemit. In any event, I will be more careful about italicizing books and other such types of publications that I mention in future articles of mine.

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Thank you! :-)

Ladies and gentlemen? I must apologize for a typographical error in the third paragraph of the above post. Therein I typed, "There are certain political activists and elected state officials who are attempting to ban all underage marriage here on our nation." I really meant to type, "There are certain political activists and elected state officials who are attempting to ban all underage marriage here in our nation." I apologize for any confusion that this typographical error may have caused.

This same typographical error has been corrected in the above segment of my article.

but not all young marriage live happily, mostly they didn't manage the family well maybe because they we're too young to do so.

tjminer01? I appreciate your comment, but here is my response to it. I'm not mindless to the reality that there are teenage marriages that don't work out for the reasons that you described. For example, Macauley Culkin and Rachel Miner were both 17 years old when they got married back in the late 1990s, and their marriage ended in disaster after only two years. (Legally, after four years). However, here is the thing. If Fraidy Reiss and Jeanne Smoot were to have their own way and every state jurisdiction here in our country were to set the marriageable age at a solid 18 years old with no exceptions, it would affect a lot of people and not necessarily in a positive sort of way as I have described in detail throughout the above article. Therefore, if any of our states are to entertain such a drastic change in their laws, I say that it would only make sense that it be done in the form of a proposition, a measure, or a question on a state's November ballot rather than leaving it up to the state legislators themselves to change these laws. That way whatever gets ultimately decided will be by the will of the people rather than allowing for overzealous state legislators to shove these laws down people's throats only to serve their own agenda rather than the good of the people. If it were handled in the manner that I suggest, I think that everyone would be able to live with the outcome of such a decision. However, if state legislators simply change these laws in such a way that it gets shoved down everyone's throat, I think that we will have to expect that this controversial issue will end up on the floor of the Supreme Court of the United States. A lawyer in Tennessee has already brought this matter to the Supreme Court of the United States, because he disagrees with Fraidy Reiss and Jeanne Smoot's efforts to pass a marriage law in his state that would make the marriageable age a solid 18 years old with no exceptions.

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