Child marriage

“ The present system of child-marriage, in addition to the physical and moral effects which the Indian Governments have deplored, produces sterility, and consequently becomes an excuse for the introduction of other child-wives into the family, thus becoming a justification for polygamy. ”

“ We can scarcely doubt that we are approaching a time when it will be generally understood that the entrance into the world of every child, without exception, should be preceded by the formation of a marriage contract which, while in no way binding the father and mother to any duties, or any privileges, towards each other, binds them both towards their child and at the same time ensures their responsibility towards the State. ”

“ All the reciprocity of rights and duties which have bound together the parent and child from infancy is considered to end with the consummation of her marriage; nor does the stain of any subsequent female backsliding ever affect the family of her parents; it can affect that only of her husband, who is held alone responsible for her conduct. ”

“ Parental Authority and Marriage.—The laws of family life are based upon a physiological or psychological foundation, the love of parents for their children. In cases in which the legal regulation of family life is unduly harsh—as in the case of the maintenance in former times of parental authority in the interest of the parents—parental love exercises a mitigating and counteracting influence.
To-day, the duty of parents to devote themselves to the careful upbringing of their children is universally accepted on principle. ”

“ The inexorable necessity for the marriage of sons is not suspended by the fact that the child is wholly unsuited for a real marriage, or indeed incapable of it. Cases constantly occur, in which a boy who is a hopeless and helpless cripple is married to a girl, whose family only assent to the arrangement, because of the advantageous terms which are offered. ”

“ Hence the child should recognize and submit to their authority. But this right to the use of coercive measures extends only to the prevention of unhappy marriages,—not to the forming of what the parents may regard happy alliances, against the will of the child. No parent has the right to compel a child under age to marry, because the marriage alliance implies the age and free choice of the child. ”

“ People talk of maternal love, and of woman's sphere, of her duty in the home, of her work for her babes, but the law has no reverence for the tie between mother and child, and ignores every claim of the mother who is also a. wife. The unmarried mother is far better off; she has an absolute right to the custody of her own children; none can step in and deprive her of her little ones, for the law respects the maternal tie when no marriage ceremony has "legitimated" it. ”

“ Divorce.—In cases in which one partner to a marriage suffers from disease, divorce should be rendered as easy as possible. The interests of the children are often put forward as reasons against this course. There is no doubt that many married couples to-day refrain from separation or divorce solely because they regard it as to their children’s interest that they should continue to live together. But it is precisely on the ground of the children’s interest that such marriages ought to be dissolved, and that the child or children should remain with the healthy parent. ”

“ But this resolution does not mean the continuance of real married life, but parenthood alone. Only so can it be really useful to the children that the marriage should not be dissolved. The parents, who are profoundly and finally alien [Pg 41] ated must not bestow life on any new being. ”

“ It is the circumstances under which the child is born and the circumstances under which it is reared to which women attach infinitely more importance than men are apt to do; but, of course, where child-bearing is compulsory—and until very lately it has been practically compulsory upon all classes of wives—such an instinct does not get free play. ”

“ But however we settle the question, we must make the parent justify his custody of the child exactly as we should make a stranger justify it. If a family is not achieving the purposes of a family it should be dissolved just as a marriage should when it, too, is not achieving the purposes of marriage. ”

“ The child has its rights, and every child has the right to be born in honest, respectable wedlock, of parents able to give it a sound constitution and the nurture and education it requires. The child who lacks these conditions is grievously wronged by both father and mother.
THE LAW OF MARRIAGE [108] is, that a mature man and woman, with sound health, pure lives, and a reasonable prospect of comfortably educating a family, when drawn to each other by the attraction of mutual love, should chastely and temperately unite for offspring. ”

“ When the law gives to every mother the rights which now only the unmarried mother possesses,335 but imposes at the same time on every father the obligations which now only the married have—then it may be that the child will become a new and more valuable possession in the eyes of the man. ”

“ In most cases, a young couple’s prospect of parentage leads their relatives to make their marriage possible. When this cannot take place immediately, the daughter and her child stay with the parents of one of them, or she leaves the child with them, while she on her side, and the young man on his, work for the future. Even when the man has not always been disposed for marriage, their common life of work and the sense of parentage soon show a uniting force. ”

“ Instances are, however, by no means rare of constant and virtuous attachments, which continue through life, though the laws prevent their being sanctioned by the form of marriage. In such cases, the children are frequently sent to France to be educated, where they often form highly respectable matrimonial connections. ”

“ Let us first see how far the popular critics of the Catholic doctrine of indissoluble marriage are wrong. They regard marriage as simply a contract, from which it follows that divorce should be obtained by mutual consent, or even on the application of one of the parties. But this ignores, among other things, one vital natural law. Marriage begets parenthood, and between the parents of the same child there is a definite and permanent relationship. No Act of Parliament can make men and women cease to be the parents of their own children. ”

“ Child-Marriages.
"Marriages are made in heaven," says the old proverb, and among some primitive peoples we meet with numerous instances of their having been agreed upon and arranged by prospective parents long before the birth of their offspring. Indeed, the betrothal of unborn children by their parents occurs sporadically to-day in civilized lands. Ploss has called attention to child-marriages in their sociological and physiological bearings (125.1. 386-402) , and Post has considered the subject in his historical study of family law. ”

“ If marriage does not occur, and there are many cases of irregular sex-relationship where that is not the right solution of the problems involved in illegitimacy, then the unmarried mother is helped to establish herself with her child where cruel stigma and useless curiosity may be best avoided. ”

“ The custom of infant marriage is well established among the Todas, and a child is often married when only two or three years of age. When a man wishes to arrange a marriage for his son, he chooses a suitable girl, who should be, and very, often is, the matchuni of the boy, the daughter of his mother's brother or of his father's sister. ”

“ With youth, this may naturally be based on the ideal (which needs the merest suggestion) of worthy preparation for the future home, and the treating of other boys and girls as the child would have his or her future mate meantime treated by others. The significance of real monogamic marriage should be made clear, in its greater confidence and happiness between parents, and especially in the better care and training of the children. The child needs to be provided with inhibiting and controlling ideals before the stress of adolescence. ”

“ Those who strongly disapprove of child-marriages, point more particularly to the fact that when a girl-child is married to an adult man, she often receives mechanical injuries in the act of intercourse ”

“ Also the child does not suffer socially for its unfortunate birth, which is more humane at least than our method of treating such children. The children of a marriage take the mother's name and belong to her clan. She has absolute control of them until the girl reaches a marriageable age ”

“ A sum of money has to be invested annually for each child, in the great State Infant Trust; when the marriage is dissolved the mother has the sole custody of them, unless the father wishes to share it ”

“ “It is love that is sacred,” she said. “Listen, child, to an old woman who has seen three generations, and who has had a long, long experience of men and women. Marriage and love have nothing in common. We marry to found a family, and we form families in order to constitute society. Society cannot dispense with marriage. If society is a chain, each family is a link in that chain. In order to weld those links, we always seek metals of the same order. When we marry, we must bring together suitable conditions; ”

“ The Fatal Mistakes of Parents.—There is, however one way of effectually preventing an improper match, and that is, not to allow your children to associate with any whom you are unwilling they should marry. How cruel as well at unjust to allow a daughter to associate with a young man till the affections of both are riveted, and then forbid her marrying him. Forbid all association, or consent cheerfully to the marriage. ”

“ When we change the definition of something so central to the culture of any society—and that is what marriage is and what family is—it has profound consequences on children and thereby on the next generation. ”

“ Long, long ago; her thought was of that child
By him begot, the son by whom the sire
Was murdered and the mother left to breed
With her own seed, a monstrous progeny.
Then she bewailed the marriage bed whereon
Poor wretch, she had conceived a double brood,
Husband by husband, children by her child. ”

“ Where unhappiness has been prevented in the results of family choice doubtless the friendship of the two family heads has had much to do with such mitigation of bad effects of extreme parental control in marriage.
Social protection of the young has in a measure superseded the ancient family arrangement, but where it has not, a young person may be found to-day in as bad a position through personal choice as that of the girl set in a home without her own consent to be the future wife of a man she has not seen. ”

“ The result is few children, whose rate of mortality is exceedingly slow."
"How about the marriages?" the Very Young Man suggested. "You were going to tell us."
"Marriages are by mutual consent," answered the Chemist, "solemnized by a simple, social ceremony. They are for a stated period of time, and are renewed later if both parties desire. When a marriage is dissolved children are cared for by the mother generally, and her maintenance if necessary is provided for by the government. The state becomes the guardian also of all illegitimate children and children of unknown parentage. ”

“ All the care, discrimination, and judgment urged on young men in selecting wives, I would commend to young ladies, in accepting husbands. If to the former, marriage is an important event, fraught with consequences lasting as life, it is peculiarly so to the latter. It surely is no trivial event for a daughter to leave the home of her childhood, the tender care and watchful guardianship of kind parents, the society of affectionate brothers and sisters, to confide herself, with all her interests and her happiness, to another with whom she has hitherto associated only as a friend. ”

“ Many children never see any endearments between their parents, partly because when the children are old enough consciously to notice these, they have ceased to take place. The marriage of the parents has run down. They are no longer lovers but [87] purely egoistic-social business partners in the home.
But where should a tradition arise, and how be perpetuated, of a noble type of marital love, except in and by the children’s home? How should they learn anything or where should they best learn of married happiness except from their father and mother? ”

“ If, on the other hand, the divorce is brought about by a new feeling on the part of one of them, then this father or mother must be prepared one day—when the children can understand them—to justify the step by showing them how the new love has made him or her a richer and greater personality. The children have a full right not to be sacrificed to the degradation of their parents. In every case, the children are the most incorruptible judges of their parents. ”

“ On the other hand, it seems certain that as the thought of family duties disappears more and more from marriage, as it comes more and more to be legalised concubinage, in which legal formalities are employed only to guarantee the wife's self-respect and assure her social position, the whole condition of home-life will be- changed. It is not improbable that in many cases husband and wife, who are not very sure of themselves, will refrain from complicating their relations by having children. ”