Scared

I just came across an article I missed from the middle of September. Newsweek reported on a website called MarryOurDaughter.com. The site appears to be under construction right about now, but here is what it had offered (according to Newsweek): “a matching service for followers of ‘the Biblical tradition’ of arranged marriages.” It allowed people to look through profiles of girls… and when I say girls, I mean girls, the majority were apparently around 15… whose parents wanted to marry them off and were asking for a price for their hand in marriage, a dowry if you will, usually something in the low to mid- 5 digit range.

Seems like an obvious choice for Newsweek to write about. Mail-order brides are not a new thing to the internet, but usually hey are from foreign countries and they are not underage girls. The thing is, Newsweek was not ‘exposing’ this site and telling us about the dangers of the internet, instead they were discussing the true mission behind the site.

According to MarryOurDaughter.com the site was not exactly a hoax, but rather an attempt to educate folks through something they call ‘viral politics’:

Call it an experiment an experiment in Viral Politics. That children can marry down to twelve years old in America, which they can do, is Not Right. That the age of consent is higher than the age of marriage is Not Right. That parents can marry off their children for money or for any other reason is Not Right. Railing about it on the web, as many do, wasn’t making a difference. Thinking outside the box led us to marryourdaughter.com.

It sounds like it was a pretty interesting experiment and I was really surprised by some of the stuff I read int he Newsweek article… Okay, well maybe surprised isn’t the right word exactly- of course there were a number off men who wrote in to “propose” to the girls and others who wrote in disgusted by the site and the entire concept- Neither of those things surprises me in the least bit. Nor does it surprise me that a number of states in the US have antiquated marriage laws that are desperately in need of an update (should 13 year olds really be allowed to marry?- come on New Hampshire).

I was a bit surprised that some of these states that allow a minor to marry also have statutory-rape laws that prevent the couple from legally consummating their marriage, though I love that their were folks who would marry a couple and then, after they left, report the couple to the authorities for statutory-rape. And I must admit I was really surprised that there were parents writing into the sites trying to marry off their kid for a price.

Also, I was… I guess the word would be disappointed by Arkansas (okay, in fairness the only thing Arkansas really has going for it, as far as I am concerned, is damn good BBQ, so being “disappointed” by Arkansas isn’t that huge…) that in August law makers passed a miss-worded law that was intended to set 18 as the minimum age for marriage (unless they are pregnant and have their parents’ consent) but instead, due to a misplaced ‘not’ eliminates any restrictions on marriage age. This mistake has led to at least 2 underage marriage licenses and according to a policy specialist in the Children and Families department of the National Conference of State Legislatures “that once it’s brought to legislators attention, it’s a quick fix,” of course the only problem being that the legislature is recessed until January ‘09 (so if you need a quick underage marriage license head on down to Arkansas).

The two issues brought up by the website and in the Newsweek article touch on both underage marriage and human trafficking, both pretty serious issues, for more information you can check out HumanTrafficking.org and the MarryOurDaughter.com which has links to other sources and should be updated soon.