Is It Wrong to Marry a Fourteen Year Old Girl?

After reading my blog on "Texas' Kibosh of Big Love" a fellow sauna hog asked me to answer this question, a question he disgustedly said was skirted by a polygamist on national television. It was this, "Is it wrong to marry a fourteen year old girl, especially to old men?" While I kept him waiting to the end of my argument--for my family and community who are not a captive audience--let me answer this question now and present my diatribe later.

Answer: No. Fourteen year old girls (or boys) generally should not marry--especially not my daughter and especially not to old men (unless she's eighteen, she consents and he is filthy rich and about to die and leave her and I everything). Moreover, no kid should have children or marry until age twenty or older and then only after passing an exam on the following subjects: balancing a checkbook, planning a budget on the groom's projected wage; the origin of electricity; the origin of pork; and on child bearing and child rearing. Also, before marriage and having children, both males and females should be subjected to a simulated birthing and should be confined for a year and forced to raise a monkey. Then after a drug free, drug-hair analyzes, and the monkey is potty trained and on its way to College, then they can get married.

Diatribe: But this is not because it is "wrong," for fourteen-year-olds to marry or that it's "right" they marry at some later age. Anything that must be prohibited or banned by the force of law because it is "wrong" "contrary to God's law," or is "offensive" should be left to the individual conscious as guided by a person's chosen religious persuasion or personal philosophy. Fourteen year old girls should not marry, not because it is wrong, but because of the harm such marriages cause to the parties involved and to society. However, if you asked me this question while I was chewing on a Gazelle hock 10,000 years ago when humans didn't have to learn computer science to bring home the bacon and lived to age 22, I may have had a different answer.

My fellow sauna hog also asked, "Is polygamy wrong?" Granted, its excesses and extremes are patently dysfunctional but the same can be said about many mainstream heterosexual monogamous relationships and many practices like--consecutive polygamy (a la Larry King), 70 year old millionaires marrying 24 year old girls, singles having multiple liaisons they justify because they are not constrained by marriage, or legalized brothels in Nevada, etc. So, is whatever family or relationship arrangement people choose wrong? This again is not the proper question.

A better question is, "Is the harm that polygamy causes sufficiently severe that we should sanction its practice by force of law?" Or, similarly, is monogamy "right?" When both these questions are addressed in civil society, outside of religious circles, they should not be analyzed in terms of "right" and "wrong," but in the context of their benefits and harmful consequences. Without endeavoring to engage in this analysis at this time but to provoke discussion, I will simple state that while I believe that monogamy is the ideal that our modern society should champion, reinforce and promote, there is nothing inherently evil about polygamy. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, monogamy has not been the norm throughout human history.

Consequently, when government is constrained as it should be from interfering with religious activities, it is not proper for a democratic diverse society to proscribe a practice merely because we find it offensive or unwise. So, as long as our governmental coffers are not burdened by Polygamy (or any other relationship choice) and the practice thereof is engaged in by fully consenting adults, it should be ignored and only discouraged by the strength of our superior ideas and exemplary examples. As to its extremes, our law enforcement should very assiduously prosecute its adherents who engage in welfare abuse and practice underage marriages. I suspect that if this were done, the superiority of monogamy as a choice would render polygamy a rare practice only engaged in by those it makes sense to in their individual circumstances.

Loren M. Lambert, Copyright May 31, 2008