According to a new study, women in the US who marry during their teen years (before age 18) make up about 9% of married women, and that 9% had a 41% increase in psychiatric problems over women married later. The most common disorders were anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. This was a first of a kind study on mental health and adolescent brides in the US. Other issues it addressed were that young brides also tend to come from rural areas, have lower levels of education and income, and are more likely to be smokers.
Although the occurrence of marrying under the age of 18 is rather low is the US, studies of child brides around the world have been occurring for some time and typically focus on more health related issues such as rates of HIV, death from childbirth, abuse, etc. The problem with these studies is that there are a lot of cultural issues that go along with child brides that may also impact those issues. Knowing that, having some specific data about young brides in the US may be helpful to lawmakers and families struggling with how young is too young to be married.
I found the research interesting primarily because I read a lot about child brides in other countries in one of my psychology courses, but I don’t think much about it here in the US. Sure you hear the occasional tale of a teen getting married to an older man, but it is not something that is built into our culture. Yet I have to wonder about those women who married in their teen years a few generations ago. My great-grandmother married as a teen and had a lot of kids because that is how families survived back then. It was common during her time in her cultural group – an expectation even.
Do you think those women had higher rates of mental health problems because they married young? I doubt it, because cultural norms and expectations supported them at the time. So maybe the problems we see now are not as much about age as they are the norms of what is going on around these girls. If you are 16 and married, and have all of the responsibilities that go along with that, you may feel like you are missing out on something. You may grow resentful of everything you missed as you get older, resulting in mental health problems. The research did not address this, so I am just speculating, but it makes sense that age is less of the issue than cultural norms. Something to think about if your kid comes to you asking for permission to marry early!