In Kansas, teens under 18 can marry. A former 17-year-old bride wants that changed
Lauren Van Wagoner married her boyfriend when she was just 17.
Growing up in a religiously conservative home in small-town Alabama, Van Wagoner and her boyfriend came under pressure to wed after both families found out they’d had sex. They were Mormons and feared being ostracized.
The decision permanently altered the course of Van Wagoner’s life. Suddenly saddled with the responsibilities of adulthood, she had four children before divorcing 12 years later.
Kansas is among the dozens of states that continue to allow people under 18 to marry. Marriages of 15-year-olds are allowed with a judge’s permission while 16-and-17 year-olds can wed with various combinations of parental and judicial permission.
But Van Wagoner, a Shawnee resident who owns a political consulting firm, wants a change. Rep. Stephanie Clayton, an Overland Park Democrat, introduced a bill on Van Wagoner’s behalf Tuesday that would raise the minimum marriage age to 18 with no exceptions.
“I think because we had been married so young, I literally did not know how to live without him,” said Van Wagoner, who moved to Kansas in 2013. “There was a sense of codependency that was there.”
Clayton’s bill appears to mark the first attempt in recent years at changing the minimum age in Kansas. Until 2006, the state allowed children of any age to marry with parental permission. The Legislature and then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius set a minimum age of 15 after a pregnant 14-year-old Nebraska girl came to Kansas to marry a 22-year-old man.
The measure is one of many across the country attempting to raise the minimum marriage age over the past decade. Bills have failed in at least 10 states, however, according to a group that advocates against child marriage. The measures are driven by both a growing recognition of the dangers of child marriage and an ongoing national conversation about consent and sexual assault.
Missouri was one of the easiest states for weddings at 15 until Gov. Mike Parson signed a bill banning the practice in 2018. The change followed reporting by The Star showing the state had become a destination for 15-year-old brides.
“Obviously, there are instances where the minors are giving consent. But sometimes, minors are not really able to fully consent to these marriages,” Clayton said. “Sometimes it’s done by coercion by their parents and it’s one thing for parents to make decisions about children that are in effect while those children are minors. But marriage is oftentimes forever.”
Invoking the Virgin Mary
It isn’t clear how many child marriages occur in Kansas. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which releases annual marriage statistics, doesn’t specifically report the number of marriages involving people under 18. The agency instead reports the number of marriages of people ages 15 to 19.
In 2019, 309 Kansas grooms and 675 brides were ages 15 to 19 — about 6% of all people who were married in the state that year -- according to KDHE statistics.
The number of young couples getting married has dropped in recent decades. Nearly 12% of all Kansas brides were under 20 in 1997. By 2019, only 4.4% were under 20.
Four states — Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Minnesota — have banned marriage for individuals under 18. Bills to end or limit child marriage have failed or are still pending in at least 20 states, according to Unchained.
“If Kansas were to do this, it would join a very short list of places with 18 as the absolute minimum,” said Nick Syrett, a University of Kansas professor who wrote a book on child marriage.
Arguments against abolishing marriage for people under 18 often center on sex, Syrett said. They include beliefs, typically put forward by conservatives, that girls who become pregnant should be able to marry to legitimize the child or that marriage can resolve other tough situations.
When Kansas lawmakers in 2006 debated setting a minimum age for marriage, then-Sen. Kay O’Connor, an Olathe Republican, invoked the Virgin Mary in arguing against the change. “Every family has their own circumstances. Sometimes the best decision is to allow the marriage to go forward,” she said at the time, according to the Lawrence Journal-World.
Arguments also exist on the left in favor of allowing minors to marry but are less common, Syrett said. It is sometimes framed as a reproductive rights issue or as a way for foster children to be emancipated from bad foster parents.
‘OK, I can be married, this is cool.’
Van Wagoner, who crossed over from Alabama into Florida to get married, said she was happy with the decision at the time.
“I loved my church, I loved my religion, so I agreed to it,” she said. “Of course, I’m 17. I’m like, ‘OK, I can be married, this is cool.’”
The couple eloped at a courthouse on Nov. 3, 2006. She wore the same dress her mother wore to her own wedding. There was no crowd, just her now ex-husband and her mother.
Looking back, Van Wagoner said she wasn’t in the right place to make that kind of decision. Not everyone agreed with her at the time, either. She recalled how a close friend voiced concerns and how one of her teachers had cried.
The marriage lasted 12 years and produced four children, but fell apart after her husband, Colby Van Wagoner, an EMT in Jackson County, Kansas, pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal drug charges. He had been stealing morphine from vials and replacing it with saline solution. He was sentenced to five years of federal probation.
Van Wagoner said sometimes she daydreams about what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten married so young. She had thought of owning a dance studio and attended college for a semester before dropping out under the weight of juggling household responsibilities and her studies as an 18-year-old.
Van Wagoner ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat in 2016 against Republican Rep. Francis Awerkamp in House District 61. She is currently completing a data analytics program at the University of Kansas.
Her children are 4, 6, 10 and 11 — with the oldest turning 12 this Friday.
“This is what I have and I have to find joy in that and I have to find thankfulness in that, and I think that I have,” Van Wagoner said.
“I’m very, very grateful for my four kids. I would not take that back,” she said. “However, if I can stop it from happening to someone else, from someone else from going through what I went through, it would definitely make me feel better about my situation, knowing something good came out of everything that I went through.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
