Suppose a boy and girl get married…they are both 14 in a state that allows such things with parental permission(both sets of parents all sign off on the deal)
Six months down the road the girl gets a wandering eye and has an affair with a 35 year old man…is the guy she has the affair with guilty of statuatory rape in spite of her being married?
Do I have to add this is purely a hypothetical situation?
Just curious
You can fudge the ages a bit if there are no states that allow 14 years olds to marry
Obviously local laws may vary, but generally yes, the man is guilty of statuatory rape. Most SR laws do not recognize the younger person’s sexual history (even a marriage) as being a defense.
It would be in a statutory rape case, Derleth. SR is rape only because a minor is incapable of giving consent, not because it was forcible assault. If a minor is emancipated, they are capable of giving consent, therefore there is no statutory rape.
Emancipation has nothing to do with statutory rape laws. Statutory rape laws are typically triggered by age, which is used as a proxy for incapacity to give consent. While emancipated minors are independent from their parents and do not need parental consent to perform a variety of legal actions, that does not mean that an emancipated minor is thereby legally able to consent to sexual intercourse with someone much older.
While you could be right Mr. Hand that doesn’t seem right that someone can be an adult in most every way and yet STILL be unable to give consent to sex.
If they were emancipated they would be able to enter into contracts for instance…they’d have to simply to rent an apartment. So why are they grown up enough for that and still not “competent” to give consent for sex?
Like I said you could be right but it seems screwy.
One thing that comes to mind after reading that Reeder
What exactly is the rational of making someone who’s home-life was so awful the they wanted to emancipate themselves get their parents consent to marry?
Presumably if they went to the drastic step to get out of that situation for whatever reason how is it just to let their parents have this control over them still?
I can see MAYBE making them get a JUDGES’ permission to marry but not their parents’.
As for the sex thing maybe the reasoning is the authorities don’t want to give a potential ‘dirty old man’ an affirmative defense against statutory rape with them claiming “But your honor she told me she was emancipated!”.
It depends completely on the laws in the state where this takes place, since that is how “statutory rape” is defined. Either it is, or it isn’t, but all conjecture is meaningless without knowing WHERE this situation ocurred.
Regardless of where this occurred, I am comfortable in saying that if the act was illegal without the marriage, it’s still illegal with the marriage. The minor’s sexual intercourse with her husband may now be legal, regardless of their ages; her intercourse with a third party is absolutely unaffected by her marriage.
The point of my post was that state laws on this subject vary. You simply can’t make a blanket statement such as “if the act was illegal without the marriage, it’s still illegal with the marriage.” You are probably correct, but without perusing the statutes of all 50 states, we really can’t be certain there are no exceptions.
I tried to find a link, but maybe I’m googling the wrong words or have a faulty memory, but…
I seem to remember a recent news item in Texas where a 30 something year old man and his 20 yr old GF were involved with the Law for some reason, and the county DA tried to bring statutory rape charges against the man because they had a 5 yr old kid, meaning the man fathered his GF’s child when she was just 15.
In my state, it’s illegal for someone who is 18 or older to have sex with somebody under the age of 18 who is not married. In Oregon, as long as she is married (even if it’s not to you not to you) she can consent to sex.
Of course, the minimum age for getting married here is 17. So you’d only get a year younger than you would normally even under the best case scenerio.
I cannot imagine what rational purpose might motivate a legislature to carve out an exception such as you describe. Therefore, I am going to go out on a limb, and witrhout actually checking all fifty states’ laws, declare that no such exception exists.