Married at Age 14 - Goodyear,AZ

I cannot imagine ANY circumstances where I would give permission for my daughter to marry at 14 - not if she were pregnant, not if they were madly in love, not if he were being shipped out to Afghanistan the next day, not if the fate of the free world was at stake.

Well, she was probably had to be a stay at home mom because she only had the education and ability to work a minimum wage job anyway. If she worked at all, her wages wouldn't have even been enough to cover daycare expenses for 2 kids. They could have only gotten married with parental permission at that age. Sounds like the article really didn't elaborate on "how" they lived at first. Did they live in one room or a basement of their parent's house? Did they require foodstamps or government provided housing? They may have risen above their circumstances now and are thriving. However, I highly doubt that they were completely self-sufficient at 14 and 16...

Well since some people do not believe in sex before marriage, here is an example of them getting married so they could have sex. Lots of young people do this in super religious communities. I am going to bet, she was already pregnant though.

I have mentioned this before that my husbands grandparents secretly got married so they could have sex, they admitted it. They did not tell a soul.

After a few years he moved here to Austin to attend College, but Grandmother could not afford to be down here so she stayed home.

For 2YEARS he was here and no one knew about their marriage. . Until someone in their little town, read a letter he had written her. He drove up to her, it took him 8 hours.

When he walked into her house, she was all dressed up coming down the stairs. She asked him "what are YOU doing here?" He said " Everybody in town knows we're married, so you are coming back to Austin with me." She said, "I can't, I have a date!". He told her "not anymore.. pack your bag." She was doing her part of keeping the secret!

Do you think it is the magazine you're reading? Haven't seen it myself but from what I understand Above Rubies is a very extreme, fundamentalist Christian magazine that promotes woman and families living according to strict religious rules. I'm sure others would disagree but it seems if they are holding this union up as "doing well from the beginning and still thriving as a loving family" then the message is pretty clear. Good for the young family but that is not what I would want for my girls!

Every state has different laws...I think in Kansas - I'd have to google it - you can get married at the age of 16 without parental consent...

the media has to do things to "grab" your attention - shocking pictures, shocking statements, etc. since we have become soooooo desensitized to violence, sex, drugs, etc...they have got to do or say something, ANYTHING that makes you want to grab the article and read it...they succeeded with you! :)

however, at 14 and 15? Betcha the parents had to sign something - and instead of being parents and setting boundaries, they agreed to the marriage...you know the - "I can't fight them" mentality?

Since she doesn't even have a high school education - not many employers would hire her - if they did - she'd be making minimum wage and we all know that day care costs are HIGH!!!

Hopefully - he was encouraged to complete high school so that he could get a better than minimum wage job in order to support the family...that's a lot of pressure on a CHILD....and while they may have THOUGHT they were adults - they were still children.....how sad that the parents didn't step up and parent...glad to see their marriage wasn't just another statistic and bound for divorce...would be even happier to find out they didn't use government support to get by!!

I hope they continue to thrive and NOT be a statistic of divorce!

I bet 'Above Rubies' never publishes the stories of the vast majorities of the married at 14 and 16 demographic...because most of those marriages are train wrecks!

The magazine has an agenda, and that is to promote the ideal of female purity (i.e. married as a virgin), Christian marriage, and full-time Quiverfull-style motherhood as the best way, and indeed the only right way for a woman to live. That's my insight. :)

This may be a case of "if their (idiot) parents agree to give their consent, then it's called legal." I call it crazy! What do you really know about llife at 14 OR 16 for that matter?

There is a couple in my church who have been married for 55 years and they have been married since she was 15. she had 4 kids by the time she was 20. J.

I think it's a total fluke in this day and age. Were they kept in a cave in their parent's house? My grandmother married at 16 but she was from Lithuania and that was a million years ago. Wouldn't happen at my house, my daughter was much more concerned about preparing for college and pitching in the next game.

My guess is she was pregnant at 14, more-or-less made to get married, then the baby was born after she turned 15. And I wonder if they had to live with family at first until the guy was 18 and old enough to be done with high school and able to work a higher-paying job full-time. Plus she could have qualified for government assistance (WIC, etc.). It would be interesting if history repeated itself and they found themselves becoming grandparents at the ripe old age of 30. My cousin has a PhD in human development and did a study once in some small towns in PA of teens that get pregnant very early (i.e. 13 or 14) - apparently it's endemic and so engrained in those families and communities that's it become almost normal for them. All the teens get pregnant because their parents got pregnant as teens, and THEIR parents got pregnant as teens, etc. Nobody goes to college or considers making a better life for themselves. The girls all get pregnant by their boyfriends hoping to keep the boyfriends around and all smoke to keep their babies small and make giving birth easier. It's really sad that nobody teaches them any different and they don't have any better role models to follow or a more positive message to listen to. Some areas of the country (i.e. Appalachia) I suspect are like that.

I did know a couple once that found themselves pregnant at 17, made plans to get married, then had a miscarriage - but still got married anyway and had a healthy baby a year later. I also used to work with a girl in whose family every girl ended up pregnant and married at 16 or 17. I was working at that practice while pregnant with my one and only and I was 34. This girl was trying to at least complete college and wait until she was in her 20s before getting married and becoming pregnant but to her, I seemed incredibly old to be having my first baby!

Personally, I would want my daughter to have a college degree and some kind of way to provide for herself before getting married and having children of her own.

I know a couple who got married at that age and now they've been married for ten years, have two beautiful sons, and are a wonderful young family. He is a deacon for the Hispanic congregation at my church, and she teaches children's church.

When I was in high school a friend got married at 14, she was nearly 15 though. They didn't have any children until they were in their 20's.

Another friend got married at 17, her husband had just turned 16. They are still together in their 50's and have lived through having 5 children, one child died after falling off the top mattress of a bunk bed, building a business and being very successful together, etc...they have never had marital issues and have been very happy for the most part.

Another friend had a daughter that wanted to go with her boyfriend who was joining the military. So the mom signed the papers. The girl got married just before her 15th birthday and had her first child on her 16th birthday, they day after their first anniversary. My friend was a grandmother at 31. She had her birthday the next week or so after but was the youngest grandmother at any gathering.

I know it happens. I can't imagine at 14. A hundred years ago it was much more common but even then it was closer to 16 I think.

I'm sure the parents had to consent to the marriage. Actually my parents married young. My mom was 16 and my father was 20. They only dated for 9 months or something like that before they got married. They just celebrated their 41st anniversary in August. My mom always tells people she married him because she loved him, she wasn't pregnant, and she wasn't. She waited 2 years before she started having children. My daughter just turned 16 this April, I cannot imagine her being married, nor does she. Some people are ready that age. I sure wasn't, but she was. She has no regrets either.

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It can work, but the odds are definitely stacked against those who marry so young. I have a few cousins who were married very young: pregnant at 14 and married at 15 for 1 couple, and pregnant at 16, married at 16 almost 17 for the other. They married because they became pregnant and also because that is what the family pressured them to do. This was about 16 years ago, and both couples are still married, have several children, and are successful. I am amazed it worked out, but they had a lot of help from their families and we also live in an area where most people place much importance on intact families (we live in Utah, the predominant religion is LDS). So I think there was more pressure for them to stay together and make it work, and also more help. **Both women were stay at home mothers for most of their marriages- one has recently gone back to work due to the economy going sour.

When I was a teen two different coworkers got married young. One was 18 and he was marrying a 14 year old. The other was 16 and marrying another 16 year old. Neither had baby issues, both spoke of living with their parents like that is just the normal way to live after you are married. Parents signed off on it. Granted these people lived in rural Missouri but apparently it is still the norm out there.

If both of their parents gave written consent they could be married at that young age. There may have been special circumstances, but they probably were young & in love and likely preggers based on the fact that she was 14 when she got married and 15 when the baby arrived.

My guess is she came from small community. This is a stereotype and I admit that but have seen it in action. I grew up in a small No. California town and this was not unheard of. There were a handful (but still a good percentage in a small community) of girls who were married before they graduated from school and not all of them were pregnant. If your community/beliefs are that the main purpose for a woman to be on this earth is to marry and have children, why not start ASAP? Sometimes it works out for people but I agree, I know I could have known what I wanted for my entire life at age 14.

Different states have different laws regarding the age of "adulthood". Some states it's 16, so in reality a girl of 16 in certain states can legally marry with out parental consent. With parental consent, in certain states, it is possible for a girl of 14 to marry.

This usually happens in very small towns. Places were everyone knows everyone else. No shotgun, necessarily. It could have been that the girl and the boy had known each other since birth and the families were also very close. The parents knew the character of the boy and knew that the love the two of them had was true and real. It also could have been an issue for the kids that they were dating for nearly forever, they honestly wanted to wait until they were married, figured they'd been together since gradeschool, so why not get married, granted they married young, but also it seems they're honestly committed to stay together. They seem to have truly understood what they were doing.

People use to get married young all the time, even younger then 14, due to a shorter life span, not as much school to get through or at all and that is the way it was. Now in the modern world it has become the custom to wait till "matured" or after schooling or more stable in this unstable economy.

I guess if they love each other, commited to each other, both want it and work at the marriage then I see nothing wrong with it. Of course I will STRONGLY encourage my daughter to wait till she is out of college because a person really does change during major life changes.

I am 21, I have a friend that is my age and has 5 kids, she had her first one when she was 13 (needless to say she was raped) but when she was 16 she had a little boy, 17 she got married to the boy's dad, 18 she had a set of twins, 19 she had a little girl and at the beginning of this year she had another little boy. They are still married and seem really happy, and even talking about more children!! lol Here in KS you have to be 18 to get married or you need parents consent. When I was in 9th grade 6 of my classmates where pregnant. Our school had 13 pregnant teens so to me it doesn't seem weird or out of the ordinary lol I had my daughter right after I turned 19, I am a single mom and we are doing great. Although a lot people don't seem to 'like' that I am single and raising her alone, I have had circumstances that would prove this is a great idea.

With consent of parents and a judge, males can marry at 14 and females can marry at 13 in Texas and New Hampshire.

http://family.findlaw.com/marriage/marriage-basics/state-...

I'm actually in favor of young marriage, although this isn't quite what I have in mind, lol! I can't imagine my son (16) married! My goodness, he still needs to be nagged to pick his socks up! But it's quite possible this couple were ready. I've read the whole "teenager" concept is a modern phenomenon, brought on by too little responsibility. I understand people used to be considered adults by their mid-teens until the past century, and they handled this fine.
I understand the statistics about young marriage tend to point to failure of the marriage; but also that these risks all but disappear by age 22. If both people are mature enough, young marriage is great. They can have kids while they're still energetic. They can experience the career building years together. They tend to stay out of trouble; and they miss those over-rated single years, during which people tend to be lonely and increasingly anxious that they'll never marry.