I don’t know if other states are like this, but I was looking at Ohio law and saw this sentence in the section defining who may be married:
Why the lower minimum age for females?
That’s been going on for a long time. Men have usually been expected to be older than their brides. Under common law it’s 12 for girls, 14 for boys, 21+ without parental consent. 12 for girls and 14 for boys derive from canon law which derives from Roman civil law. In ancient Greece women married at 14 but men had to be 30! The logic was that if a man were older than his wife he could control her better. Plus the younger a girl was the more likely it was that she was a virgin.
So it’s just that old habits die hard?
Just ignore state law, and rely on the Full Faith and Credit clause of the US Constitution. Years ago, because my state prohibits marriages by first cousins, I got around it by marrying my first cousin (we are now since divorced) by travelling to Virginia and getting married there. Virginia was ideal for marriage. Not only could first cousins marry, there were no blood tests or waiting periods. Within the same day, we got the marriage license and found a preacher to marry us. If you can travel, marry in whatever state is convenient. My understanding in Las Vegas this is legal loophole is a major industry. Unless laws have changed in Virginia, legally it is the Vegas of the Eastern US.
Uh uh. You’re not going to drop something like that on us and just leave.
Your 1st cousin?
Like,* cousin * cousin? Full first cousins?
As in, you two have parents that are siblings?
So how’d that happen, anyway? Did your family freak?
What do you do at family reunions?
Historically, this is commonplace, and in fact, in many cultures today it’s common - sometimes even encouraged. And the genetic consequences of it are minor to nonexistent.
Still, though, what made you decide to do that? Were your families - family, sorry - ok with it? is it easier or harder to have ones aunt and uncle as in-laws?
Ah. One of Iceland’s pet topics. Supposing I were to travel to another country where the AOC for marriage is lower-13/14 and marry say a 14 yr old. What happens if we come back to Britain where the AOC is 16? Are we treated as married because we already have been or not because we’re going by the rules of the country we’re in?
And if we’re not married,then what on Earth are we?
This is a purely hypothetical question… so far
Over here, cousin marriages are common. You know the girl was raised in a religious family and it keeps the bride-price in the tribe. The age of consent seems to be puberty.
That’s debatable. States almost always accept marriages from other jurisdictions except when the go against public policy. Once a state lets non-resident same-sex couples marry the extent of the public policy execption will be defined by the court (probally the Supreme Court). In theory a state could declare that 1st cousin marriages are against it’s public policy and not recognize. States used to do that with interracial marriages and marriages of divorcees. Some still do with transgendered’s persons marriages.
Seriously, this sort of thing surprises you? When I checked at the time, first cousins could marry in 12 US states, and in the US Virgin Islands. And as others have pointed out, this sort of thing is quite common in other parts of the world.
In my specific case, before I became an adult I had personally met with this cousin just a few times. Thus there was no close emotional family relationship between us. And close emotional relationships between cousins doesn’t stop them from marrying in many places. Are you familiar with the play “Cyrano de Bergerac”? A key element in the plot of this tragedy is that while Cyrano has a deep romantic interest in his cousin Roxanne, she is unable to realize it and thinks of him as being more like a brother. Note that in this play Cyrano is characterized as a man of the highest honor. The playwrite just assumed that the French audience would think that a man having a passionate love for a cousin was normal and in no way perverse. The play makes no sense on the assumption that Cyrano had an incestuous love.
Really, if the idea of first cousins marrying shocks you, it is just because of where you live. This is common in many countries.
Hmm…a quick check shows the population of Iceland is a scant 280,000. But I’ve got to assume that the UK is significant enough that Iceland has diplomatic officials within the UK. Imagine if the UK arrested some Icelandic national for having sex with their 14 year old spouse. And then the ambassador from Iceland contacts UK officials outraged saying “You arrested one of our citizens for pedophilia for fucking his wife??? This is totally unacceptable.” I can’t imagine the UK not backing off on such a trivial matter unless the UK for some reason wanted to break off diplomatic relations with Iceland. I have to assume that the UK trades goods with Iceland, and some people in the UK want to visit Iceland. If this is so, breaking off diplomatic relationships with Iceland over trivial issues would be all kinds of stupid foreign policy.
The same-sex marriage issue is a new wrinkle, and probably will have to be dealt with by the US Supreme Court. However, I can’t conceive the US Supreme Court would hold marriages between first cousins of the opposite sex weren’t valid nationwide. I doubt this issue has ever reached the Supreme Court so far, as likely no state has been so silly as to criminally prosecute first cousins legally married in other states on incest charges. I guess theoretically I could have been charged with incest in Michigan for fucking my wife I married in Virginia. Most likely if I had the MI judge at the arraignment would have tossed the case out, and kicked the ass of the prosecutor for bringing such a case to his court. Imagine at the trial my attorney holding up before the jury our Virginia marriage license and calling the prosecutor a fucking idiot. There are lots of first cousins married in the US, and I doubt any state is so outraged by this they would want to take the matter to the SCOTUS.
In the United States at least, marriage is complete defense against what otherwise would be ‘Statutory Rape.’
Getting back to the OP, I would speculate that the Ohio legislators may have just taken the ages of consent for males and females at common law, as noted by Hadrian0117, and tacked four years onto both. May have thought that the original common law ages were too low, but kept the distinction.
The original common law ages were tied to puberty, and since puberty normally comes later for boys than for girls, the age of consent to marry differed accordingly.
Howver, I would disagree with Hadrian0117’s statement that without parental consent at common law, the individual had to be at least 21 to have capacity to marry. That requirement was based on a statute of the British Parliament of 1754, not the common law, and was considered a procedural requirement, not a question of capacity.
The difference was that if a person lacked capacity to marry (e.g. - a 10 year old), and went through a form of marriage, English law did not recognise the marriage as valid. However, if the person had capacity to marry (e.g. - 18 years old) and went to a jurisdiction that did not require parental consent and got married there, the marriage was valid under English law. Hence the Gretna Green marriages so beloved by Regency novelists: the law requiring parental consent only applied in England, not Scotland. So if a person aged 18 fled to Scotland and got married there without parental consent, it was a valid marriage under English law.
This also answers Iceland_Blue’s hypothetical question: under English common law, capacity if governed by the law where the person lives (“lex domicilis”), even if the person goes elsewhere and goes through a marriage ceremony. However, the law relating to the necessary procedures for a valid marriage ceremony is governed by the law where the ceremony takes place (“lex loci celebrationis”). So to take Iceland_Blue’s hypothetical question: if the person you’re marrying is domiciled in a country where the age of consent permits him/her to marry, and you yourself are of the age of consent in the U.K., then the marriage may well be valid. However, if the person you want to marry is domiciled in the U.K. and is under the age of consent, going to a jurisdiction with a lower age of consent will not allow a valid marriage under English law.
All of which, of course, is a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question, discussing a matter of public interest. It’s not legal advice, and if you want to marry someone younger than yourself, you should seek legal advice from a lawyer trained in the law of your jurisdiction.
It just seems a little too close for comfort to me. I’ve never seen siblings fantasize about their future children marrying each other.
From what I have read in anthropological literature, in many cultures siblings actually arrange marriages between their children. In much of the world, one doesn’t choose their spouse, but instead their family makes the choice for them. Note Paul in Saudi wrote in this thread:
“Over here, cousin marriages are common. You know the girl was raised in a religious family and it keeps the bride-price in the tribe. The age of consent seems to be puberty.”
Hmm…
http://www.cousincouples.com/info/facts.shtml
“Fact: The range of consanguinity in Saudi Arabia is between 34 to 80+ percent. A study has been done on birth defects resulting from consanguineous marriages in this country.”
http://www.cousincouples.com/info/saudi.shtml
"J Community Health 1998 Feb;23(1):75-83
“Consanguineous marriage in an urban area of Saudi Arabia: rates and adverse health effects on the offspring. al-Abdulkareem AA, Ballal SG Department of Family and Community Medicine, College of Medicine and Medical Sciences, King Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to determine the pattern and time trend of consanguineous marriage and its adverse health effects on the offspring in Dammam city, Eastern Province, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This city is known to attract Saudis from different parts of the country because it is in the heart of this industrial region. Five primary health care centers were randomly selected from different sectors of the city in addition to the city’s only Maternity and Children’s Hospital. For inclusion in the study a wife must have at least one pregnancy that terminated in either full term liveborn baby, still birth, or abortion. A total of 1307 ever-married Saudis completed a pre-structured questionnaire during an interview. The rate of consanguineous marriage was 52.0% with an average inbreeding coefficient of 0.0312. First-cousin marriages were the commonest (39.3%) of all matings. The consanguineous groups had a significantly higher number of pregnancies. The mean birth weight of the offspring of consanguineous couples was not statistically significant being less than that of the non-consanguineous. However, within the consanguineous groups the more closely related couples had smaller babies on average. No significant differences were noted for the rates of inherited diseases and reproductive wastage. The rate of consanguineous marriage in this city was high and so was the inbreeding coefficient. These figures place this nation among the countries with a high rate of consanguineous marriages. A nationwide study to determine accurately the relationship between consanguinity and inherited diseases has much to commend it. PMID: 9526727, UI: 98187475”
Looks like first cousin marriages are all sorts of common in Saudi Arabia.
I don’t care how many countries do it, I still think it’s strange.
Slightly off-topic, but I knew a couple who were step-siblings but not blood relations. Her father married his mother. So after they had a child, she was not only their daughter but their neice.
OK. I just thing your attitude is strange. I also found this on that site:
“Fact: No European country prohibits marriage between first cousins. It is also legal throughout Canada and Mexico to marry your cousin. The USA is the only western country with cousin marriage restrictions.”
So it just isn’t a matter of societies much different than the US consider cousin marriages normal. ALL the countries that are most similar to the US allow it. And according to that site it is estimated that 20% of all marriages worldwide are between first cousins. I don’t know why, but for some reason the US is the only Western country that banned first cousin marriages. And according to that site there were laws against cousin marriages in the US even before modern genetics, and concerns about birth defects. The taboo predates scientific concerns.