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Last updated on July 7th, 2024 at 10:23 am
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Hampshire allows child marriage !
The New Hampshire House recently approved a bill to stop child marriage in the state. This bill, sponsored by Senator Debra Altschiller, aims to make the minimum age for marriage 18 years old. It passed the Senate collectively earlier this year and the House with a vote of 192-174.
This isn’t the first time New Hampshire has looked at changing marriage laws. In 2018, they raised the minimum age to 16. Before that, for more than 100 years, it was possible for 13-year-old girls and 14-year-old boys to get married with their parents and the court’s permission.
Representative Cassandra Levesque, who was a high school senior and a Girl Scout in 2018, supported the 2018 bill. Now, she’s one of the co-sponsors of this new bill and spoke in favor of it in the House. She explained that child marriage can lead to serious problems like human trafficking, domestic violence, and poor economic outcomes. Girls who marry before 18 are also more likely to drop out of high school and less likely to finish college.
Although the 2018 bill aimed to set the marriage age at 18, it ended up at 16 due to compromises. Levesque and others have tried to raise the age to 18 in the past, but they were unsuccessful. During this recent session, there were suggestions to allow exceptions for those under 18 who are legally emancipated, but those ideas were rejected.
Some representatives, like Margaret Drye, opposed the bill without exceptions, saying that young people may need support from family or marriage. But others, like Tony Lekas, who got married at 16, disagreed, saying they didn’t need outside input.
Despite the debates, the bill passed without changes. Levesque emphasized that child marriage is never good for the child, and just because something has been done for a long time doesn’t mean it’s right. The bill now heads to Governor Sununu’s desk for approval. He supported similar legislation in 2018.
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