The minor was dressed in white: child marriage as a legal cultural right for conservative Christians in the USA

Abstract

Under UN interactional conventions, child marriage has been found to be a harmful cultural practice. Despite the international precedence, the United States of America (USA) allows the practice to legally continue. This thesis will focus on the continuation of child marriage within conservative Christian communities within the USA, where the abolition of this practice would be considered unconstitutional state intervention within the sacrament of marriage. This is due to state interference being seen as an infringement of the conservative Christian community's cultural rights and freedom of religion. This thesis will analyze the conjunction between international law and the use of legal loopholes by the conservative Christian community within the USA as a direct correlation to the perpetuation of child marriage, which is a violation of the rights of the child under international law as well as of various human rights norms.