Toddlers Can No Longer Marry in Arkansas

Thank goodness!

Arkansas’ marriage-age crisis is over. A law that mistakenly allowed anyone – even toddlers – to marry with parental permission was repealed by a measure signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Mike Beebe, ending months of embarrassment for the state and confusion for county clerks.

Lawmakers didn’t realize until after the end of last year’s regular session that a law they approved, intended to establish 18 as the minimum age for marriage, instead removed the minimum age to marry entirely. An extraneous “not” in the bill allowed anyone who was not pregnant to marry at any age with permission.

You have to admit this is pretty funny.

They repealed the botched law, and reinstated 17 as the minimum age to marry for boys and 16 for girls.

Does this confuse anybody else? Why should girls be able to legally marry at a younger age than boys? Oh, right, because girls need a man to take care of them and should get hitched at the earliest opportunity! (And why are we referring to sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds as “girls” and “boys” anyway? That’s just annoying. We’re talking about almost-adults here.)

Anyway…

Bond, a Democrat, said there hadn’t been any reports of young children attempting to marry under the 2007 law.

Color me shocked. I know if it were legal for toddlers to get married here I’d have had my two-year-old married off months ago. One less mouth to feed…