American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States

This object is a review of Nicholas Syrett’s book American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States. In it, Allison Lefkovitz describes the project of Syrett’s book, its overarching argument that movements surrounding child marriage have historically been about a variety of other topics - parents’ rights, eugenics, the status of women, the sanctity of marriage, the definition of consent - rather than children themselves, and the questions the book raises for further study. She quotes extensively from the book and gives a brief overview of its contents - how historical eras have grappled with the question of child marriage differently. Lefkovitz argues that Syrett poses questions about consent and how we as a society have to grapple with the idea of consent in our laws as opposed to other ethical and material considerations.