By Michael Casey
Associated Press
CONCORD — The New Hampshire House voted Wednesday to raise the age for marriage in the state to 18 in an effort that supporters say could keep more girls in school and reduce the risk of domestic violence.
The vote to end the practice of child marriage was approved by a vote of 207 to 132. If passed into law, New Hampshire would join Delaware and New Jersey, which last year banned marriage for anyone under 18.
“We already have the tools available to empower the children. We just have to use them,” Rep. Cassandra Levesque, a Democrat from Barrington and the primary sponsor of the legislation, told lawmakers. Two years ago, a law that Levesque championed increased the marriage age to 16, up from 13 for girls and 14 for boys.
“I urge you to remember there is no data, no facts, no studies that say child marriage is beneficial to any child,” she said. “We as lawmakers, especially when we are making laws pertaining to children, have to base our laws on facts and not opinions.”
Fraidy Reiss, the founder/executive director of the group Unchained At Last which has pushed for the end to child marriage, welcomed the vote. “Child marriage is a human rights abuse that destroys girls’ lives,” she said in a statement.
Opponents argued that raising the age for marriage to 18 would be unfair to girls in relationships who end up getting pregnant and wanting to marry. Several pointed out the age of consent in the state was 16.
“It would be like saying that a person can operate a motor vehicle at 16 but cannot obtain a drivers license until the age 18,” Rep. Deanna Jurius, a Republican from Meredith, said.
“This statute, even as amended, would make it illegal for two people to marry with the intention of raising their child together if either is under 18,” she continued. “The state forbidding marriage when a baby is involved is really concerning overreach.”
Rep. Werner Horn, a Republican from Franklin who is also an Army veteran, said he worried a young woman would be unable to get military benefits such as prenatal care if she wasn’t able to marry a boyfriend who was in one of the services.
“The state is now in a position of preventing these couples from starting a family,” he said. “They are prohibited from doing the right thing in the case of a father and an unwed teenage mother.”
According to data from Unchained At Last, there were more than 167,000 child marriages nationwide from 2000 to 2010. In New Hampshire, the group has documented 202 child marriages from 2000 to 2017, mostly involving girls as young as 13.
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