Nicholas L. Syrett
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469629537
- eISBN:
- 9781469629551
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469629537.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
By the later nineteenth century, ideas about childhood and about marriage had undergone significant transformations in the United States, especially among the middle class. Children were now seen as ...
More
By the later nineteenth century, ideas about childhood and about marriage had undergone significant transformations in the United States, especially among the middle class. Children were now seen as innocents in need of protection and marriage was meant to be a complementary (if still unequal) union of two companionate souls. Both of these trends meant that child marriage increasingly came into disfavor. Focusing on depictions of child marriage in newspapers, debates about statutory rape laws, and marriage and divorce reform leagues, this chapter documents succesful efforts to raise the age of consent to marriage. It also shows the ways that working-class parents, generally those least likely to identify age as a meaningful category of identity, used these new laws to prevent their minor children from marrying.Less
By the later nineteenth century, ideas about childhood and about marriage had undergone significant transformations in the United States, especially among the middle class. Children were now seen as innocents in need of protection and marriage was meant to be a complementary (if still unequal) union of two companionate souls. Both of these trends meant that child marriage increasingly came into disfavor. Focusing on depictions of child marriage in newspapers, debates about statutory rape laws, and marriage and divorce reform leagues, this chapter documents succesful efforts to raise the age of consent to marriage. It also shows the ways that working-class parents, generally those least likely to identify age as a meaningful category of identity, used these new laws to prevent their minor children from marrying.
Nicholas L. Syrett
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469629537
- eISBN:
- 9781469629551
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469629537.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
Focusing on the writings of antebellum women’s rights activist Elizabeth Oakes Smith, this chapter demonstrates that many objected to early marriage for girls, but for a variety of reasons. Some ...
More
Focusing on the writings of antebellum women’s rights activist Elizabeth Oakes Smith, this chapter demonstrates that many objected to early marriage for girls, but for a variety of reasons. Some believed that it was physiologically unsound, others that it would be detrimental to “the race,” and others like Smith believed that early marriage curtailed girls’ chances for a meaningful girldhood. Smith and other activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton also pointed out that legally early marriage was flawed because girls were permitted to contract marriage—which itself was disadvantageous for all women because of coverture—when they were not yet legally adults. While Smith and her contemporaries were astute in all these critiques, they rarely paused to consider the ways that early marriage was mostly detrimental for middle-class girls who really did have the opportunity of a protected childhood, unlike working-class children, who were laboring from early ages.Less
Focusing on the writings of antebellum women’s rights activist Elizabeth Oakes Smith, this chapter demonstrates that many objected to early marriage for girls, but for a variety of reasons. Some believed that it was physiologically unsound, others that it would be detrimental to “the race,” and others like Smith believed that early marriage curtailed girls’ chances for a meaningful girldhood. Smith and other activists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton also pointed out that legally early marriage was flawed because girls were permitted to contract marriage—which itself was disadvantageous for all women because of coverture—when they were not yet legally adults. While Smith and her contemporaries were astute in all these critiques, they rarely paused to consider the ways that early marriage was mostly detrimental for middle-class girls who really did have the opportunity of a protected childhood, unlike working-class children, who were laboring from early ages.
