St. Martin's Literary Fiction asked Bryn Greenwood:

This question contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

Bryn Greenwood There's no denying that we view underage sex completely differently, depending upon whether the participants are married or not. Our society prioritizes marital sex in such a way that it ignores the very reasons we have age of consent laws: to protect children too young to understand the implications having sex with adults. I never name Kansas as the place where All the Ugly and Wonderful Things takes place, but it is a fictional version of my home state. In Kansas, the age of consent for sex is 16. The age at which a girl can be married with parental or judicial consent? 15. But prior to 2006, during the time frame of my novel, Kansas didn't have a minimum age. With parental consent, a girl of any age could get married--and I know a few who married at 13 and 14. Wavy could have married long before her 14th birthday. That's right, I actually had to make up a different set of laws in my novel, because a.) the book would have had a very different ending, and b.) I didn't think a lot of readers could deal with that level of reality.

So what's going on in our society that an underage girl is legally prohibited from consenting to sex with an adult, unless it's her spouse? What is it about marriage that makes underage sex okay, when the very idea behind consent laws is about protecting minors? I don't know the answer, but I find it confusing.

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