America's Child Brides
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 28 June 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A tense debate is taking place in states across America. At what age should someone be allowed to marry? Currently in 48 out of 50 states a child can marry, usually with parental consent or a judge's discretion. In 17 states there's no minimum age meaning in theory a two year old could marry. But there's a campaign to change the law and raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 without exceptions across all American states. But changing the laws state by state is not as easy as one may think. There's resistance and raising the minimum age to 18 has often been blocked by legislators.
Jane O'Brien speaks to child brides, the campaigners pushing to make it illegal and the people who say that the laws don't need to change.
Producer: Rajeev Gupta Editor: Amanda Hancox
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | Hey there podcast listener, I'm Alex Kratoski. |
| 0:42.9 | We'll get to the show in just a second, |
| 0:44.4 | but I wanted to quickly tell you about the digital human, |
| 0:48.2 | the podcast which explores what it means |
| 0:50.4 | to be human in the digital age. |
| 0:52.4 | So if that sounds like your kind of thing, come check us out. |
| 0:55.6 | Subscribe to the digital human exclusively on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:59.7 | Hi, I'm Riana Dillon. Welcome to Seriously. |
| 1:07.0 | A tense debate is gripping legislators across the US, and it's one that surprises many Americans. |
| 1:14.6 | Few people realize that in all but two states, |
| 1:17.7 | children can legally marry, and in a third of states |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.