American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States

by Nicholas L. Syrett

Most in the United States likely associate the concept of the child bride with the mores and practices of the distant past. But Nicholas L. Syrett challenges this assumption in his sweeping and sometimes shocking history of youthful marriage in America. Focusing on young women and girls--the most common underage spouses--Syrett tracks the marital history of American minors from the colonial period to the present, chronicling the debates and moral panics related to these unions.Although the frequency of child marriages has declined since the early twentieth century, Syrett reveals that the practice was historically far more widespread in the United States than is commonly thought. It also continues to this current estimates indicate that 9 percent of living American women were married before turning eighteen. By examining the legal and social forces that have worked to curtail early marriage in America--including the efforts of women's rights activists, advocates for children's rights, and social workers--Syrett sheds new light on the American public's perceptions of young people marrying and the ways that individuals and communities challenged the complex legalities and cultural norms brought to the fore when underage citizens, by choice or coercion, became husband and wife.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, American History

362 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 2, 2016

About the author

Born and raised in Peterborough, Ontario, Nicholas L. Syrett is a historian of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century US and Professor of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities (2009); American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States (2016); and An Open Secret: The Family Story of Robert and John Gregg Allerton (2021). He is also a coeditor of Age in America: The Colonial Era to the Present (2015). His most recent book is The Trials of Madame Restell: Nineteenth-Century America's Most Infamous Female Physician and the Campaign to Make Abortion a Crime (2023).

Reviews

[Петър Стойков · Rating 3 out of 5]

На български отдолу :)

Maybe you haven't noticed, but in the last 20-30 years, there has been a revolution in the civilized world, and it may not have had entirely positive consequences: people are now having children much later in life.

For our mothers, the normal age for a first child was 20. Even now, "family dormitories" still exist in our country because it was a normal part of college life for many people: freshman year they would meet, sophomore year they were in a serious relationship, and by junior/senior year, they were married with their first child on the way. These days it's the doctoral students who live in those dorms.

Today, having a first child at 20 is looked upon almost with fear, as if a woman is throwing away her future and will be content to stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, while her drunken husband beats her. I've talked to women who seriously believe 40 is a good age for marriage and a first child, though to be fair, most people I know aim for somewhere around "30 or after".

These trends started earlier in the richer countries and are only now entering the developing ones. That is why it is precisely in the richer countries that people remember less and less of how things used to be just a decade or two ago and how they are now in other places. Generally, as with all things, people tend to think their present reality is the only thing that's "normal". That they themselves and the people like them are "the normal ones". And everything and everyone else who do things differently is "Nonsense! How can these people live like this?!?". And this goes doble for "civilized people". Cultural imperialism wasn't born yesterday I'm afraid.

Regarding the "revolution" I mentioned earlier, especially in the USA but also in other countries (after all, as Rammstein sing, We all live in America), with each passing year the intolerance towards age-gap couples is increasing, I would say to absurd proportions in some places.

Years ago, no one would bat an eye at a 30-year-old man dating a 20-year-old woman (and let's be honest, the reverse almost never happens). Today, such an age gap leads to raised eyebrows in liberal American cities, and sometimes accusations of grooming and "pedophilia." Yes, I am citing the most striking examples, but this trend is evident in our country, although not as strongly.

On Internet forums, Reddit, Discord and tiktok (I know, I know, tiktok is brain cancer) young people are shocked and ask each other if their fathers are pedophiles because they met their mothers when the latter were in their teens, while the fathers had already finished high school.

Given all this, the attention given to "child marriage" in the US is quite expected, as is this aptly and eye-catchingly titled book.

The book comes just in time to explain to today's youth some facts about life and about the world. Facts that are otherwise quite obvious to anyone who's a little older or who is just not immersed in the modern ultra-liberal culture. Obvious facts, such as the fact that women usually like older men and men usually like younger women.

And while we are at it, the book also shows that men everywhere have always found teenage girls attractive. An uncomfortable fact indeed. We can also feel uncomfortable about the fact that men's love and attraction to women and children gets a bit mixed up in their emotions, but that's also a fact nevertheless. Greater neoteny in women is not accidental, and there are evolutionary reasons for it.

Despite its provocative title however, American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States says nothing about child marriage. It describes the history of teenagers (typically 15-17 year olds, with isolated cases in the distant past of 12-14 year olds) marrying each other or older partners in the United States since the founding of the country to present day.

The author rightly feels he clearly needs to explain to his readers what kinds of reasons would cause teenagers to get married - although that is something people in other countries and even in other places in the US know and understand very well. Today, teen marriages are not so common even in our country or even in poor countries, but only because weddings themselves are not so in vogue. People just get together and have children without marriage.

The explanations in the book go quite contrary to the provocative title, even get a bit boring with the endless listing of specific cases from the history of the USA. The reasons why teenagers might want to marry are quite mundane: many young people see early marriage as an opportunity to escape from the family home where they may not be treated very well, as an opportunity for independence, as a way to raise their social status, as the only way to be able to have sex in a conservative society, etc.

Centuries ago, people also did not have the clear distinction between children, teenagers, and, adults we have today. Many did not even keep track of exactly how old they themselves were. For things like marriageability and ability to work young people relied on the physical manifestations of growing up.

Even today the poorer sections of society simply don't see the need to wait with these things, when they don't see a better future for themselves anyway, which children and marriage could potentially hinder in some way.


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Не знам дали сте забелязали, но в последните 20-30 години в цивилизования свят протече една революция, която не мога да кажа, че има положителни последици: хората започнаха да имат деца по-късно. Ама досто по-късно. Направо се изгуби едно поколение.

За нашите майки нормалната възраст за първо дете беше 20 години. Даже и до сега има "семейни студентски общежития" защото това беше нормалното протичане на студентството за много хора: първи курс се запознават, втори сериозна връзка и трети-четвърти брак и първо дете. Сега в тях живеят докторантите...

Днес на първо дете на 20 се гледа с едва ли не уплах, демек жената си хвърля бъдещето на боклука и се задоволява с това да седи боса и бременна в кухнята, а мъжът й пияница да я бие ;) Наблюдавам около себе си жени, които сериозно вярват, че 40 години е добра възраст за брак и първо дете. Не са много де, за повечето, които познавам тая възраст е около 30.

Тия тенденции започват по-рано в по-богатите държави, а сега тепърва навлизат в развиващите се. Затова именно в по-богатите държави хората все по-малко помнят (понеже хората имаме памет като на златни рибки - 2 минути) какво е било преди и как са нещата по други места. И си мислят че само тяхното настояще е нормално, само те са нормални и всичко останали е "Ебаси! как живеят тея хора така?!?".

Във връзка с горната революция, особено в САЩ, но и по други държави що годе (все пак както пеят Рамщайн, We all live in America) се увеличава, бих казал до абсурдни на места пропорции, нетърпимостта към възрастовата разлика в интимните и брачни двойки.

Преди години на никого не правеше впечатление да види 30 годишен мъж с 20 годишна жена (няма какво да се лъжем, обратното почти не се среща). Сега подобна възрастова разлика води до повдигания на вежди в либералните градове на САЩ, а понякога и до обвинения в grooming и "педофилия". Да, извеждам най-фрапиращите примери, но тоя тренд се наблюдава и у нас, макар и не толкова сериозен.

Получава се така, че в интернет форуми и тикток (знам, знам, той е рак за мозъка) млади хора с шок се питат един друг дали бащите им са педофили, защото са се запознали с майките им, когато последните са били в тийнейджърска възраст, а бащите са били завършили училище вече.

Предвид всичко това, скандалите относно "детските бракове" в САЩ са съвсем резонни, както е резонна и настоящата книга, която е подходящо и ловящо окото озаглавена.

Тя иде съвсем навреме, за да обясни на съвременната младеж някои факти от живота и света, които са иначе съвсем очевидни за всеки малко по-възрастен или даже само не потопен в съвременната ултра-либерална култура. Очевидни факти, като например, че обичайно жените харесват по-големи от тях мъже, а мъжете - по-млади от тях жени и така е било вовеки веков.

А като стигнахме до тоя въпрос, книгата иде да покаже, че мъжете отколе масово харесват момичета в тийнейджърска възраст, както и леко неудобния даже да си го мислим факт, че при тях любовта и привличането към жени и към деца е малко омешана. Но по-голямата неотения при жените не е случайна и има еволюционни причини за нея.

Въпреки провокативното си заглавие, в American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States не пише нищо за женитби на деца. Тя описва историята от създаването на държавата до наши дни на женитбите на тийнейджъри (обичайно 15-17 годишни, с отделни случаи в далечното минало на 12-14 годишни) в САЩ един за друг или за по-възрастни партьори.

Авторът правилно преценява, че явно има нужда да обясни на читателите си какви причини биха накарали тийнейджъри да се оженят - нещо, което хората по другите държави и даже по другите места в САЩ знаят много добре. Днес тийн браковете не са толкова чести даже у нас и в бедните държави, но само защото самите сватби не са толкова на мода и хората просто се събират и си правят деца без брак.

Обясненията са доста в разрез с провокативното заглавие, даже са малко скучни с изброяването на конкретните случаи в историята на САЩ. Те съдържат просто нормални размишления от типа на това, че много младежи виждат ранната женитба като възможност за бягство от семейния дом където може да не се държат с тях особено добре, възможност за самостоятелност, за издигане на общественото си положение.

Преди векове пък хората не са имали ясното разграничение на деца-тийнейджъри-възрастни като сега, много даже не са следили точно на колко са години. За неща като годност за брак и работа на младите хора са разчитали на физическите белези на порастването.

По-бедните слоеве на обществото пък и сега просто не виждат нужда да чакат с тези неща, когато така или иначе не виждат някакво по-добро бъдеще за себе си, на което децата и брака да попречат по някакъв начин.

[Karen Adkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initial disclaimer: the author is a friend of mine. This book was published last year, but I picked up my copy to read during the (thankfully!) unsuccessful candidacy of Roy Moore for the AL Senate. And I'll admit that there were points that this book was hard to read because it was hard for me to separate out creepy mall-predator Moore from the far more complicated story Syrett tells about the history of child marriage (let's be frank, girl-child marriage) in this country. But I'm glad I did. Syrett's no relativist; while his really exhaustive research demonstrates conclusively that minor marriage has been part of this country's history since colonial days, there's a through-line of feminism running through his analysis. He is careful to note that the regions in which child marriage has been most common, and most defended, are ones where girls have the fewest options other than marriage, and in fact are sometimes exploited by their parents. In other words, marriage is the best of a very limited series of choices some girls have before them. He also notes our selective attention to child marriage; it became a "crisis" in the 1950s because affluent white girls were doing it, even though their rates of marriage were still lower than those of African- and Mexican-American teens. And Syrett's careful critique of naive assumptions about the power of marriage to transform people into adults (he refers to an ideology of the "magic of marriage" several times) is appropriate. His conclusion connects critiques of child marriage to antipathy to gay marriage (as opponents of both have explicitly done). In other words, this is good history, because it challenges easy assumptions with a wealth of data and careful analysis, but leaves you with specific and concrete conclusions, rather than simply historical indifference. Well worth the read.

[Aaron Haberman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick caveat: the author is a friend and colleague. That being said, this was a wonderful book. Through the lens of child marriage, Syrett uncovers the intersection of several prominent categories of historical inquiry, namely age consciousness, gender norms, marriage and the family, and sexuality. And for good measure the book also speaks extensively on how notions of race and class have shaped and overlapped with the debates over child marriage. What is most striking is that though the book contains ample analysis on the changing nature of age consciousness and the constructed nature of childhood, Syrett is most concerned about unpacking the social and cultural power of the institution of marriage. The belief that marriage transformed children into adults, legitimized what had been seen as illicit sex, and was so central to American society, elevated the institution to such a rarefied plane that generations of reformers and children's advocates could never bring the political and legal arenas to bare on what many came to see as an odious practice. For examples, Syrett notes several cases of judges being unwilling to annul or rescind marriages involving minors, even though the marriages themselves took place in violation of the law. As he did with his first monograph on fraternities, Syrett includes sufficient discussion of the larger historical context. The reader sees exactly how the debates over child marriage reflected deeper changes in America as he moves the story through the different eras of our nation's history. Though intended for an academic audience, the book is quite accessible to anyone who has an interest in the issue.

[Noël Ingram · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Child Bride offers a fascinating exploration into the history of child marriage in the United States and the way that history intersects with citizenship, individual agency, sexuality, gender, and religion. Most notably, American Child Bride sheds light on the discursive relationship between the state and individual citizenship, revealing the power of marriage to construct the categories of adulthood/childhood and ideas of substantive citizenship. Structurally, the project explores the history of American child marriage chronologically, beginning with the founding of the United States and continuing through the recent past. Each chapter is bookended with a story of a specific marriage, providing unique glimpses into individual cases that serve to create a narrative rhythm in the reader's experience with the project. Offering new insights into contemporary debates about the meaning of marriage, specifically with members of the LGBTQ population, American Child Bride is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the complex web of legal and cultural forces that define marriage.

[wiggles · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author did a great job to word this book of what was done back then as neutral and analytical as possible. Which I think is necessary for such an emotionally charged topic. However, it does it so well that it starts giving off a vibe of like a scientific paper in some sections. So I had to read it in spurts to not be overwhelmed by the horror of their morale, pseudo-scientific justification, and reasoning of why girls (and boys as a slight side effect) should be sold off and made pregnant like cattle as soon as possible (by their first bleeding or even before); and why, at the time, people of then felt like it would be doing a disservice to all girls and women to allow them to have an education, hold power, and think of their own volition without their owner's say when that was not what they created for.

[James Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can be a bit dry at times, but overall an interesting analysis of the ways our views on child marriage has shifted over the years. The most interesting fact that is so obvious I'm surprised I didn't realize it before: anytime in history people have wanted to reform child marriage is because middle-class white girls were increasingly getting married--even when their rate of marriage was dramatically lower than the rates of poor, rural girls of all races in the south and southwest.

[Judy Egnew Ness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this appears to be a textbook, I found it very interesting. As a therapist working primarily with women's issues, I was interested in the history of child marriage in the United States, and how early marriage impacts girls and women.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Illuminating and the very obvious answer that tying religious customs to state rights is never a very good idea

[Maddie Lauria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super fascinating and very well written!!

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States (Hardcover)
by Nicholas L. Syrett
ILL
from Worldcat:
Contents: Any maid or woman child: a new nation and its marriage laws -- The child was to be his wife: patterns of youthful marriage in antebellum America -- Wholly unfit for the marriage condition: Parton v. Hervey and struggles over age of consent laws -- The great life-long mistake: women's rights advocates and the feminist critique of early marriage -- My little girl wife: the transformation of childhood and marriage in the late nineteenth century -- I did and I don't regret it: child marriage and the contestation of childhood, 1880-1925 -- Marriage reform is still an unplowed field: reformers target child marriage during the 1920s -- Marriage comes early in the mountains: the persistence of child marriage in the rural South -- Are they marrying too young? the teenage marriage "crisis" of the postwar years -- There was no stopping her: teen marriage continues in rural America.

[busybel🪻 · Rating 2 out of 5]

The information presented was very helpful (though at times redundant) in understanding the cultural norms of each decade in American history, but doesn’t do enough to challenge these norms in my opinion.

Particularly, there was little to no discussion about the developing brain and no exploration on the topic of grooming, which plays a HUGE role in all of the marriages referenced.

The author includes this sentence in the epilogue:

“Although most teens in the United States do so of their own volition, the practice should continue to give us pause for three reasons.”

In a book about child brides, it feels essential to argue that cultural norms, parental pressure, and grooming from the suitor, makes it nearly impossible for the bride to know their own true volition - yet this is not one of the authors three reasons.

I’m sure the author holds this position personally, or at least I hope, and if so it really should have been specified in his writing.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very academic in nature, although I like the author's decision to frame each chapter around a specific marriage of a young girl. The notes section is almost a third of the book: it is well researched and it is clear where the statistics and charts come from. I also appreciated the observations around what is missing: there has been little written about child brides in and from communities of color. Various reformers and movements that have decried and attempted to end underage marriage only concerned themselves with urban and suburban middle and upper class white girls.

[Kristen Luppino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview

This has a lot of sources of support which i love, but parts are repetitive, probably because of some of the subtleties from time to time around the way of child marriage in the US.