In this post I mentioned the 51 marriage licenses the state of Texas issued to brides under the age of 14 in 1970 and speculated that based on our current thinking these must all be awful marriages with such terribly young brides and such. So bad in fact that today we’d make their marriages illegal, jail the parents, and take away their children.

Well, we now know how 7 of these brides lives turned out. 4 are still married, 1 died, 1 was widowed after 27 years of marriage, and 1 divorced after 11 years of marriage. The 4 who are still married all said that they are still HAPPILY married. They’ve had some rough times and one of the couples separated for a year, but all are still married, all have kids, and all said they have no regrets about their marriage.

The bride who died was married for 31 years, died when she was 43 in a car crash, had 7 children and 4 grandchildren. According to her 29 year old son his parents were the happiest people he’d ever known. They loved each other and loved their family. They were, and are, Baptist and were married in a Baptist church. Shame on the Baptists and state of Texas for allowing such an atrocious marriage.