As you know I’ve been writing a series on Marriage Laws in the 50 United States and I’ve discovered that the laws are changing all the time, even on pieces that I wrote just a couple of weeks ago. So what’s happening in Delaware? Because the state’s laws allowing under-age pregnant brides to marry without consent conflicts with laws governing statutory rape – a new law now requires all minors under the age of 18 to petition Family Court for permission to marry.
Until recently, pregnancy offered minors an exclusion and reason to marry under the state’s laws, but no more. If a family court judge finds that marriage is in the best interests of the petitioning minors, then they may grant them the dispensation to marry, but otherwise – no county clerk will issue a marriage license to someone under the age of 18 just because they are pregnant.
The Age of Consent
According to the statutory rape law of Delaware, sex with anyone under the age of 16 is a felony. Issuing marriage licenses to girls who were 14 or 15 and obviously pregnant disturbed many county clerks, because it flew in the face of the statutory rape laws. Some minors, who came in to marry utilizing the marriage code that allowed them to marry due to pregnancy would find one or both arrested for statutory rape shortly thereafter.
Those charges rarely stuck – especially if the couple were now married because they claimed the act was sanctioned by the state the minute they were given a marriage license. Due to those types of defenses, lawmakers wanted to amend the laws and now they have. There are many other states that have similar conflicts in their marriage laws versus their statutory rape laws. Those states include:
In cases like these, it’s the circumstances that drive the laws. In Delaware, the conflict was obvious and reported – so Delaware law has been changed. In other states, that situation simply hasn’t come up yet. Marriage is considered a defense against statutory rape charges. It’s not always successful, such was the case of Matthew Koso, age 24, who was just released from Nebraska prison. He served 15 months for statutory rape.
At the age of 20, he began dating a 12 year old. He got her pregnant when she was 13. They were married in 2005, just after her 14th birthday. They were married in Kansas, where the laws set no minimum age for a minor if they have their parent’s permission. The law was changed in May of 2006 requiring a minimum age of 15 whether they have parental consent or not.
Koso was charged by Nebraska’s Attorney General with first-degree sexual assault and convicted. The attorney general was blasted by many for prosecuting a man that seemed willing to be a father to his child despite the fact that he was sleeping with a child. They also said that as long as he was taking responsibility, the law should leave well enough alone.
The purpose of a statutory rape law is based on the idea of protecting minors who are not legally able to consent to contracts and other decisions much less consensual sexual relations. When men, ten and fifteen years their senior are dating children – a marriage license shouldn’t get them out of criminal charges.
Would you support changes to marriage laws in your state preventing pregnancy being an automatic waiver for a minor to get married?