so...at 15 years old she married a man??? how in the world did they expe
ct the viewers to believe this reality? 15 year old can't get married. even if they wanted to they wouldn't be allowed to get married.
shareAt the time of the marriage I think a year had passed so she was 16. Even back in the '70s you could get married at 16 in California with your parents' permission, though that wasn't shown in the movie.
In the 19th century it was perfectly legal to get married as young as 14 in many places. Life expectancy was in the mid-40s, so starting a family as soon as possible was a necessity. In several states, some of the laws allowing such young marriages took awhile to be changed and existed into the early 20th century.
no true I just watched a thing about Arnold palmer and his wife was 20 years old and they said when they got married they had to lie about her age to make her seem 21, so the legal age of marriage in 1950 something was 21.
shareOne thing is that Arnold Palmer grew up in Pennsylvania, where the laws are different. Also, without parental consent the age is higher, usually the age of adulthood which back then was often 21.
I actually misspoke in my original post. I was a junior high student in California back in the late '60s, and after my first post I remembered that a classmate got pregnant and with her parents consent got married to the father at 14 (I think he was 16). While they didn't exactly advertise it, it was common knowledge.
One thing younger people today don't realize, back before abortion became legal if you became pregnant you had two legal choices. One was to withdraw from society, have the baby, and give it up for adoption or raise it as a single mother. Back then this was still considered scandalous by most people (though that attitude changed in the '70s). The other option was to marry the father, which erased most of the social stigma. That's why many states allowed this with parental consent. But being pregnant was not a requirement to get married at such a young age as long as you had parental consent.
what was different about Arnold palmers' situation?
so, are you saying that he didn't have to deal with parental consent? are you saying that parental consent wasn't in every state back then?
wow, that amazing how back then as long as you had parental consent you could get married at a ridiculously young as in America if you weren't pregnant. how mean and uncaring and negligent parents were back then to actually allow their kid, who is under 18 to get married.
this is a complete and total abortion of parenting and the worst parenting and the worst irresponsible parenting. just, go free young one, I'm not going to take care of you anymore even though you are under 18. this is the worst thing ever. how could parents do this? how could they think this is ok to do? just stop being a parent? didn't they know that a kid under 18 is just a kid and can't take care of themselves yet, nor can they have a normal or healthy relationship with someone that will last by themselves?
Different states had (and still have) different laws about this.
And in past times, especially when things were more agricultural, people were expected to "grow up" and take on more responsibility at a much younger age. They couldn't just run off and play around at college on their parents' bill well into their 20s. They had to start taking care of the farm!