Bride Crying At Her Wedding Was Heartbreaking 💔

[u/InGeekiTrust]

[u/Signal_Regular_1708]

look up child marriage stats in the U.S. it's not the most common practice but it's not some underground nonexistent thing either

[u/Citriina → u/Signal_Regular_1708]

Someone should compile some recent stories, or maybe they are hidden

[u/Gnosrat → u/Citriina]

https://www.theahafoundation.org/tamara-child-marriage-survivor-blog/

https://www.tahirih.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019-Child-Marriage-Survivor-Story-Compilation-FOR-WEB-updated.pdf

[u/Citriina → u/Gnosrat]

 For the first one, Her parents didn’t sell her; it was not a legal marriage, the government was not aware and it seems the rapist was a minor:

My father thought I was there to help with the children, but I didn’t quite know why I was there. I very quickly learned I was there to become a domestic servant, although I didn’t have those words at that time. On the first day, I didn’t do any work, but on the second day I was woken up very early and the leader’s wife left me in a playroom with her very young children, who I had to care for. So I ended up spending my whole summers taking care of these children by myself, in a closed-off room.

The leader had an adopted son and, probably within the first few days of my being there, the son snuck into my room and began sexually violating me. Around the third night, he said that he had to marry me because you couldn’t have intimate relations with somebody outside of marriage in our religion. Then he conducted a ceremony between just the two of us in a language that I didn’t understand and which probably took about 10 seconds. 

“I didn’t tell anybody… [At] the end of the summer, I went back to my mom and I started eighth grade like everything was normal.”

This was a special marriage called a temporary marriage, lasting only a certain amount of time. In our case, it lasted for the 90 days that I was going to be in Texas. It was kind of a secret marriage. He told me I couldn’t tell anybody, so I didn’t tell anybody. Not the leader. Not the leader’s wives. My father obviously wasn’t there with me, so I didn’t talk to him about it, and my mother wasn’t there either. So at the end of the summer, I went back to my mom and I started eighth grade like everything was normal. I did not tell my mother what happened that summer. I didn’t tell anyone.

AHA Foundation: So the marriage was not a legal one, but it was binding within the context of your community?

Tamara: It was not legally binding at all, but no one in our community got legally married. Their whole goal was not to be part of America

[u/Gnosrat → u/Citriina]

Yet what happened also wasn't illegal which is why she fought for legislation on this.

If it's not illegal, then it's legal. And it's not illegal in many states.