Southwest Washington labor press. [volume] (Hoquiam, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1925-03-27
MARRIAGE LAWS NEED
REFORMING, IS REPORT
OF SAGE FOUNDATION

By international Labor News Service
NEW YORK CITY, March &c.
There is need for important reforms
IN the marriage laws and their admin
istration, either or both, in virtually
every State in the United States, &C.
cording to a 160-page report on
"Child Marriages." issued here by the
Russell Sage Foundation as the re-
suit Of several years investigation
extending into 90 cities.
The report takes the position that
at this stage reforms must be affect
ed State by State. The report calls
upon associations of parents, wom-
ems Organizations, school authorities,
ministerial associations, social work
ers, Legislators, and others interest
ed In the problem of child marriage
to undertake the following ten steps
toward a solution of this problem:
1. Work toward reasonable and
enforceable minimum manageable
age law; the minimum for girls
should be at least Is; in many States
it is still IL.
2. Procure in the States which
now are without it a law requiring
five days advance notice of intention
to marry; such law is now in OPP
Grafton in eight States.
3. Put the marriage market town
out of business; there are at least 40
Y,of0vso.,a Ero4.o Cocoon. .,.ko-- Al
exploitation and commercialization of
marriage are responsible for numer-
Gus child marriages.
a. Through cooperation with adj
joining States, discourage hasty mar
riages across the State border, where
out-of-town marriages are railroad
ed through either at the license office
or the justice of the peace Office, or
both.
5. Know the work of your license
issuers, so that the difficulties with
which they are now contending sin
gle-handed may be brought to light,
and that they may be encouraged to
use the discretion which the laws Of
many States now empower them to
exercise.
6. Destroy the fee system; in so
far as the system of fees in lieu
Of salaries to license issuers survives,
it interferes with the disinterested
character Of their service.
z. Strengthen requirements as to
proof of age of applicants for mar
riage licenses; at present no proof
of age is required in most marriage
license Offices and the practice of ac-
cepting afidavits leads to falsifica-
tion by applicants and sometimes by
their parents, making possible the
marriage of children IL, IL, 10, and
Id years Of age.
8. Substitute better evidence Of
age for afidavits; no other form of
evidence is so unsatisfactory. Aside
from birth and baptismal certificates
Is other forms of documentary evil
dence of age are suggested in the re-
port.
9. Require both applicants for
marriage license to appear in person
before the licensing issuer.
10. Harmonize the different State
laws in which minimum age is re-
quired; the minimum marriageable
age should not be lower than the
minimum working age, and the COM
pulsory school attendance age should
fit into both these others.
Adoption of such reforms, says the
report, would act as a check upon
those parents who are willing to mar
ry off their boys and girls while they
are still children. What is more inn
portant, they would protect other
parents who at present never know
when some designing person or i'm
pulse of the moment may spirit away
the immature girl or boy from the
home and make the child the victim
of an administrative system which is