Instigator / Pro
11
1527
rating
61
debates
54.92%
won
Topic
#5383
Child marriages should be illegal (FOR BEST.KOREA)
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 2 votes and with the same amount of points on both sides...
It's a tie!
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Rated
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
- Minimal rating
- None
Contender / Con
11
1309
rating
269
debates
40.71%
won
Description
No information
Round 1
1: A huge number of adult marriages end in divorce. If adults don't even know what is right for themselves and can't maintain a healthy relationship, what makes you think children are ready to achieve that?
2: The dynamic in a marriage which involves an adult and child is unfair. The adult can manipulate and take advantage of and physically abuse a child far more easily than another adult.
3: Children cannot be expected to have the same agency as an adult. A child may consent to something that they regret later, and while this is also true of adults it should be society's duty to protect people who's brains have not yet fully developed from their own lack of agency.
4: Pedophilia is a mental illness which is often caused by trauma. The pedophile often wishes to rape a child because they were raped as a child in order to reverse the dynamic of when they were raped and become the one who holds the power rather than the one being taken advantage of.
5: In much of the world it would be hard to legalize child marriage, only degenerates such as Muslims actually support child marriage. These are also people who stone gays, remove girl's clits and believe that anyone who doesn't worship their imaginary sky fairy deserves to be treated as a second-class citizen or worse.
2: The dynamic in a marriage which involves an adult and child is unfair. The adult can manipulate and take advantage of and physically abuse a child far more easily than another adult.
3: Children cannot be expected to have the same agency as an adult. A child may consent to something that they regret later, and while this is also true of adults it should be society's duty to protect people who's brains have not yet fully developed from their own lack of agency.
4: Pedophilia is a mental illness which is often caused by trauma. The pedophile often wishes to rape a child because they were raped as a child in order to reverse the dynamic of when they were raped and become the one who holds the power rather than the one being taken advantage of.
5: In much of the world it would be hard to legalize child marriage, only degenerates such as Muslims actually support child marriage. These are also people who stone gays, remove girl's clits and believe that anyone who doesn't worship their imaginary sky fairy deserves to be treated as a second-class citizen or worse.
Definition
Child marriage - a marriage between an adult and a child or a marriage between a child and a child.
All of my opponent's arguments are wrong.
All of my arguments are correct.
In most cases, child marriages should be legal because:
1. Children have sexual urges
Sexual urges dont start at age 18. In fact, they sometimes start as young as 7 or 8. Some children masturbate as young as 4.
In USA, 30% of children had sex before age 16.
50% of children watched porn before age 13.
30% of children had sex before age 16.
Thats over 90 million people in USA in total, but almost none ended in prison.
And thats just whats reported by surveys.
The main point is that children arent going to stop having partners just because its banned.
Ban just makes it impossible to regulate, as relationships become unknown.
Whats unknown cant be regulated.
People claim that children shouldnt have sex because they cant consent and it doesnt benefit them.
That means children cant have sex with other children, which increases pressure and judgment upon children.
But 30% of children have sex, either with adult, either with other children. 50% of children watched porn before age 13.
2. Children have problems in controlling sexual urges
Children struggle to control their sexual urges. There is simply no way from preventing children from acting on their urges. Children have urges. Children need a safe outlet for their urges.
3. Marriage is the best way to control urges
Having multiple sexual partners is harmful. However, children will act on their urges. Marrying to a person and committing to that person is the best for those children who have problems with urges. If children dont marry, then they will have more sexual partners.
If children do marry, then they will have less sexual partners. They will bond with one partner.
Marriage will allow them to have stable relationship before they reach adulthood.
It will help them avoid making risky choices later on in life due to loneliness or restlessness.
In marriage, they would have sex with just one person, which is the safest type of sex. Even if marriage ends in divorce, it still limited the amount of sexual partners while it lasted. Child marriages usually last for many years or for a lifetime. Child marriage makes a person commit to just one person while marriage lasts.
4. If there is no child marriage, there is harm
Legalization would help protect children from exploitation by ensuring they have legal protection under the law, and that relationships are regulated by the law. Without marriage, children will still have sexual urges and will still act on them. They will do so with much more partners. They will change lots of partners and increase risk of STI and STD. Having lots of partners throughout life increases depression and suicide rates. Marriage would make it so that child has only one partner and is committed to one partner, and not separated from the partner by others. Stigma causes harm to children. If there is stigma, stigma causes harm to everyone in adult-child relationships. If child marriages are banned, then there is stigma on adult-child relationships. Legalizing child marriage would help to reduce the number of people who resort to sex work in order to earn money. People who resort to sex work are often those with failed relationships early in life. Child marriage helps protect relationships.
5. Banning child marriages increases prison population and torture in prisons
Torture is a very serious problem in prison. Prisons are, in most cases, forms of torture. Prisoners are often treated poorly, abused and violated.
Not arresting adult who has sex with a child means that adult will have sex with a child and adult wont be tortured in prison.
Arresting adult who has sex with a child means that adult will have sex with a child and adult will be tortured in prison.
Having sex with child and being tortured is more harmful than having sex with a child and not being tortured.
Arresting adult who has sex with a child is more harmful than not arresting an adult who has sex with a child.
Decreasing prison population would improve lives. It would also improve economy, with less people in prison there is more available workforce for buisnesses.
6. Allowing child marriage increases child's happiness
Removing stigma would help children who are in sexual relationships. It would allow them to marry the person that makes them happy. Children in foster care would also have opportunity to marry and be saved from foster care. Child marriages save children from poverty. They make it possible for children from poor families to marry and live in a wealthier, better family. This helps those children, as well as their families who no longer have to provide for the child by themselves.
7. Society should listen to child's voice
Most of children who are in relationship with an adult dont want for that adult to go to prison. Sending that adult to prison would destroy child's happiness. It is better to let them marry. Society cannot decide what child does with own body. Child's body belongs to the child, not to society. Children have autonomy. By law of autonomy, you cannot use someone else's body without consent. Allowing young people to make decisions about own bodies without fear of judgement creates safe environment. In such environment, everyone feels that their decisions are respected no matter what kind of a relationship they are involved in. This promotes overall sense of autonomy among all population. Giving children ability to choose allows them to decide about their relationship which they are involved in, as opposed to adults making those decisions instead of them.
8. Banning child marriages causes trauma for the child
If child has a parter, if child is in love with that partner and if that partner makes child happy, to separate them would cause trauma for the child. They should be allowed to love each other and give each other happiness.
9. Historical proof of valuing marriage and valuing child marriage working for the benefit of children tells us that child marriage isnt bad
In countries where child marriages are legal and where marriage is valued, there is much less STI, STD, and much less suicides.
In Afghanistan, child marriages are common. Marriage is encouraged and divorce is discouraged. Afghanistan has more birth rates, less suicides, less divorce, less STI, and less STD than USA. If arranged child marriages have all those benefits, then it logically follows that valuing marriages and child marriages is good. Of course, I argue for child marriages that are not arranged by adults only, but also where child desires to be in that marriage. Such marriages would provide even more benefits for children. Child marriage also increases care between people, as it strengthens ties between families.
10. Allowing child marriages controls birth rates much better
Woman will give birth to most children if she starts giving birth as early as possible. The longer she waits, the less children she can give birth to. Allowing child marriages makes it possible to raise more children. Allowing child marriages lowers the cost of raising children, as children no longer have to be provided by the parents until 18. Child marriages lower birth rates if society regulates them to lower birth rates. Society can educate children and teach them about safe sex in marriage, and about how to prevent getting pregnant. Banning child marriages increases birth rates more than allowing child marriages and regulating them to lower birth rates. When child marriages are banned, children still have sex and get pregnant more. They are not guided and regulated by society if child marriages are banned.
Child marriages historically do tend to increase birth rates, which is beneficial for society.
Banning sex with children does not benefit children, because children cannot be stopped from having sex and judgment from ban just harms them.
Usually, it is better to regulate something than to ban it.
11. Allowing child marriages helps adults, teenagers and children who are attracted to children
There is a significant amount of people who are sexually attracted to children. If society condemns child marriages, and calls those people monsters, then those people feel bad from their teenage years when they realize that they are attracted to children. Allowing child marriages would help them satisfy their urges in a way that is safer.
About 15% of minor attracted persons are children and teenagers who feel pressure because of society's judgment.
12. Allowing child marriages allows society to better regulate adult-child relationships
Most of adult-child relationships are never discovered. Both adults and children in such relationships have no one to guide them or to set rules of behavior. Adult has no guide on how to better treat a child. Child has no guide which could explain to a child how adult-child relationships are supposed to work. Allowing adult-child relationships changes that. Allowing adult-child relationships by allowing marriage would mean that both adult and a child would get more advice from others, and child would be better protected. It would be possible to regulate those relationships, and make them better for children and secure that children are happy in them.
This topic does not deal with abusers. Abusers should still be punished. However, if an adult is kind and friendly to the child and doesnt force a child to anything, and if child is happy and wants to be with that adult, judging such a relationship would be harmful for that child and for that adult.
Punishing such an adult by torturing him in prison is wrong. Prisons are always torture, as lack of desired options is always a torture.
Sources for information used in this debate:
"The Trauma Myth" - book about adult-child relationships. Its available for free online.
Round 2
Sexual urges dont start at age 18. In fact, they sometimes start as young as 7 or 8. Some children masturbate as young as 4.
They can just masturbate or have protected sex with other minors.
Ban just makes it impossible to regulate, as relationships become unknown.
Are you saying the purpose of marriage is to track and regulate who is having sex? In that case, why should adults be allowed to date and fuck without getting married? The fact that you're conceding that there is something that needs to be regulated is a concession of an important difference between adults and minors unless you're saying no one should be allowed to date or fuck without getting married.
People claim that children shouldnt have sex because they cant consent and it doesnt benefit them.That means children cant have sex with other children, which increases pressure and judgment upon children.
Marriage doesn't help you track or regulate anything but the fact that they are married, so they could still have unprotected sex resulting in 12 year olds being pregnant or do any number of irresponsible things. As you already demonstrated children will have sex anyways, so the only thing that can be done is promote safe sex to reduce the number of pregnancies of people who are obviously not ready to raise kids of their own and prevent adults from fucking and marrying kids so that kids are not preyed upon.
If kids aren't ready to be parents, then they aren't ready to be married.
Marriage is the best way to control urges
Masturbation is the best way for kids to deal with sexual urges. I did it since 10 years old and I was fine.
Having multiple sexual partners is harmful. However, children will act on their urges. Marrying to a person and committing to that person is the best for those children who have problems with urges. If children dont marry, then they will have more sexual partners.
Someone hasn't heard of polyamory or open marriages. Nothing is stopping minors from doing these.
Legalization would help protect children from exploitation by ensuring they have legal protection under the law, and that relationships are regulated by the law.
Sounds like you want the government's nose in everyone's relationships and want to make things more invasive and authoritarian while also allowing 45 year old men to marry 12 year old girls.
Even if the government could make things safer for said 12 year old girls, no one wants the government to surveil them while having sex
Even if the government could make things safer for said 12 year old girls, no one wants the government to surveil them while having sex
Stigma causes harm to children. If there is stigma, stigma causes harm to everyone in adult-child relationships. If child marriages are banned, then there is stigma on adult-child relationships.
The stigma is worth it and justified. The stigma will also remain because child sex with adults will remain a morally contentious issue, leading to vigilantes who seek to attack adults who fuck minors. Another reason not to legalize child marriage is that it may very well be impossible to begin with, as most civilized people would be against it.
Not arresting adult who has sex with a child means that adult will have sex with a child and adult wont be tortured in prison.
Most of the time when an adult fucks a child it is rape. Adults who rape children deserve to have their toe/finger nails ripped out, bleach splashed in their eyes, razor blades inserted into their urethra and titty twisters applied to their nipples.
with less people in prison there is more available workforce for buisnesses.
First, prisoners are good for the economy because they provide free slave labor. Second, even if you legalize child marriages there will still be a stigma and many still won't want to hire child fuckers.
Allowing child marriage increases child's happiness
People being happy is bad. Since I am miserable, everyone else should be miserable too or it is unfair and therefore immoral for others to be happy.
Even if happiness for people other than me was good though, any happiness this brings would be temporary in most cases as people tend to divorce after getting married.
They make it possible for children from poor families to marry and live in a wealthier, better family.
This would mostly help female children and not male ones. Females are already privileged enough.
Legalizing child marriage would help to reduce the number of people who resort to sex work in order to earn money.
The only issue with sex work is that it is a form of female privilege, since males consume far more porn and have far more variation in taste making it so that a morbidly obese ugly woman can become an OnlyFans star because of men who like fat women for example but only a male who is a Chad can benefit from sex work.
People who resort to sex work are often those with failed relationships early in life. Child marriage helps protect relationships.
Marriages usually just end in divorce.
Society should listen to child's voice
Wrong, adults are stupid and children are even more stupid. Everyone should stfu.
Society cannot decide what child does with own body.
This contradicts what you said earlier about tracking and regulating relationships.
If child has a parter, if child is in love with that partner and if that partner makes child happy, to separate them would cause trauma for the child.
If a child has a partner they are privileged and said trauma would be nothing compared to the pain of never experiencing romantic love because you are not privileged. I am left wing and believe in equality, therefore I believe that those who are privileged must suffer to make up for the suffering of those who are not privileged.
In countries where child marriages are legal and where marriage is valued, there is much less STI, STD, and much less suicides.
Let me guess, those are also the countries where they chop your penis off for being gay or having sex outside marriage?
Afghanistan has more birth rates, less suicides, less divorce, less STI, and less STD than USA. If arranged child marriages have all those benefits
Correlation does not equate to causation, you will have to demonstrate that this is a direct result of child marriages.
Woman will give birth to most children if she starts giving birth as early as possible.
The planet is overpopulated so more births is bad. Also the Christian God said to be fruitful and multiply which means more births is bad, because the Christian God promotes the inverse of everything which is good. The Christian God hates pleasure and loves genocide, slavery and bigotry.
Most of adult-child relationships are never discovered.
Most bigfoots are never discovered either, that's how we know there are so many of them.
All of my opponent's arguments are wrong.
All of my arguments are correct.
It stands correct that in most cases, child marriages should be legal.
My opponent's arguments are negated by these arguments:
13. Great majority of adult-child relationships are not violent
In great majority of adult-child relationships, adult never used force or threat against a child, and never caused pain to a child. In great majority of cases, adult didnt have real sex with a child, but only did gentle sexual activities.
14. Children can consent to be happy
Relationship with an adult in most cases causes happiness to a child. If the adult was friendly and nice to the child, respected child's desires and interests, and respected child's consent and respected what child says, then he didnt force a child to anything.
That is the opposite of forcing. To say otherwise would make every activity with a child forced, including school, playing, learning or reading bed time stories. Force would become an irrelevant word that can be applied to every activity. If the adult is kind and friendly to the child and doesnt force the child to anything, then the child will like that adult.
Children know what happiness is.
15. Child marriage increases relationship stability
Allowing children to marry gives them more control over their lives. If two young people have known each other since childhood and decide they want to get married before reaching adulthood, then this would give them more stability in their relationship than if they were not allowed to marry until 18. This would also lead to better financial security. Marriages provide more wealth than if person lived alone, while they cut down on expenses.
16. Child marriage improves education for children
Child will have much better education if married, since then both the partner and parents can provide for the education. That is more resources than having parents alone. This especially helps single parents. Allowing child marriages also removes stigma from sexual education, allowing children to be better educated about their rights in a relationship, and about how to protect themselves from diseases.
They dont learn that when child marriages are banned, and banning child marriages doesnt stop adult-child relationships.
17. Child marriage protects pregnant teens and unborn children
There is a common misunderstanding that banning child marriages prevents early pregnancy. It does not.
Allowing child marriages allows society to better educate children, and lower or increase birth rates if necessary.
Without child marriages, children still get pregnant. However, it is more difficult to regulate and educate children about safe sex if child marriages are banned. It is also more difficult for pregnant teens to maintain their relationship if they are judged and not allowed to marry.
Pregnant teens often have their reputation ruined by pregnancy. Sometimes they end up as single mothers. Sometimes the father of the child leaves the pregnant teen due to society's judgment. Sometimes a teen is forced to have an abortion due to stigma, and due to the lack of marriage that is needed to have economical stability and support to raise a child. Allowing child marriages would prevent this.
Being allowed to marry, and father being made responsible for his child would help pregnant teens and unborn children.
18. Children are held accountable for their actions
We cannot say that children arent accountable for their actions. If a child commits a crime, child goes to prison. If child behaves bad, child gets punished. In the same way child is held accountable for bad behavior, the decisions that child makes are also to be considered important.
We cannot say that child is only accountable when doing something bad, but not accountable when consenting to marriage. The decision of a child to enter marriage should be respected.
If a 12 year old murders someone, she would be charged. However, she wont be charged if she has sex with another 12 year old. But if she is 18 and has sex with a 12 year old, she will be charged.
Therefore, we see that person's age in one crime is much more relevant to sentencing than in the other crime.
In fact, in the case of sex, it literally goes from "not a big deal" to "very horrible" just because of the age of a person doing the action, not the action itself.
19. Child marriages are the tradition of our ancestors
By legalizing child marriage, we can preserve cultural heritages that have been passed down from generation-to-generation since ancient times.
Our ancestors married sometimes very young, at age 12 or 11. The age of consent 1000 years ago was usually 12, but it was not enforced and people married even younger.
Indigenous cultures around the world rely heavily upon early marriages between partners so that family lines remain intact. It also serves as strengthening of ties between clans through intermarriage agreements made prior birth.
This becomes difficult without legal recognition.
Allowing these practices legally ensures continuity within societies. It gives people freedom to express themselves culturally regardless of external pressures placed upon them by society.
20. Allowing child marriage gives child a choice
If a child is treated badly by her own family, allowing child marriages would allow that child to leave family and marry for someone who will treat her better.
Maybe you cant always find someone you love, but sometimes you can. That sometimes should not be prevented.
21. Banning child marriages harms innocent people who are in prison
There is no doubt that there are innocent people in prison. Some people didnt commit the crime, but the witnesses lied about them and put them in prison. If someone is put in prison for having a relationship with a child, but is in fact innocent and didnt do that, he would still be beaten and abused in prison.
22. Sexual activities in marriage are healthy for children
There are plenty of benefits of sexual activities and orgasms. The benefits include living longer, being less likely to get ill, having better mood and improved reasoning.
There is no reason to believe that only adults receieve benefits from sexual activities. Children receieve same benefits. Sexual activities make children happy when they are desired by children themselves.
There are plenty of examples of children engaging in sexual activities with other children. Child marriages make children happy and serve for their benefit.
Banning child marriages wont make relationships with children go away. Banning child marriages will just cause more broken relationships and more sex outside of marriage. Sexual activities are safest in marriage.
23. It is wrong to say that if children dont fully understand something, it should not be done
It is wrong to say: "Children shouldnt be vaccinated. Children cannot fully understand vaccinations. Children should not be born. Children cannot fully understand life.".
If children dont fully understand child marriages, that does not mean that child marriages are wrong.
Children can desire to be married. Children have partial understanding of child marriages. Partial understanding is enough to have a desire. Most adults dont have complete understanding of each other, as they cant read each others thoughts.
Allowing child marriages is beneficial for children. Child marriages make children happy and provide health benefits.
24. Judgment harms children
Society's judgment harms children who are in relationship with adults, teenagers or other children. They would not be able to figure out why society hates their relationship. This would make them feel shame, and be uncomfortable to even mention their relationship due to fear of upsetting others. The judgment would make them feel like they are approving of something bad and participating in something bad.
The judgment would make them blame themselves. It would make them more scared, confused, depressed and suicidal. That blame comes once they grow up and learn that society strongly judges such relationships. Its the society that puts pressure on those children and makes them think that what they agreed to was horrible. Also, they hear rape stories on media, and believe that they are bad for approving that which society condemns.
25. Judgment causes general harm
People often justify their evil actions by saying that they are still better than others. For example, a person might justify polluting the environment by thinking that it is not bad because he is still better than map which he judges. Judgment causes harm by harming children who are futute scientists. It harms innovation.
26. Child marriages help prevent violence over children
Banning child marriages wont make violence go away. Banning child marriages will make violence harder to detect. Allowing child marriages makes the relationship known. If the relationship is known, it is easier to regulate it and prevent violence.
Violence and dropping out of school is common in poor communities, just as child marriages are common in poor communities.
Banning child marriage will not make violence go away, as violent people dont stop being violent if they are not married to a person they commit violence against. Child marriages make the relationship known and easier to regulate, making it easier to prevent violence. In USA, there is plenty of violence over children, plenty of depression, plenty of suicides. Child marriages are banned in USA.
Sources for information used in this debate:"The Trauma Myth" - scientific book about adult-child relationships
Round 3
Great majority of adult-child relationships are not violent
Since con merely asserts this with no source, I shall counter-assert that the majority of adult-child sexual relations are either rapes or involved some type of manipulation and coercion of the minor.
Children can consent to be happy
Children are more stupid and more impressionable than adults thus they can be manipulated more easily and are therefore not granted the same agency to consent for their own protection.
All of Con's arguments are stupid and are shot down by this simple concept alone.
All of Con's arguments are stupid and are shot down by this simple concept alone.
All of my opponent's arguments are wrong.
All of my arguments are correct.
It stands correct that in most cases, child marriages should be legal.
My opponent's arguments are negated by these arguments:
27. Child marriages give the child more autonomy
Child's body belongs to the child. It does not belong to anyone else. Therefore, only child can make decisions regarding own body. Other people dont get to decide instead of the child. Child marriages allow a child to make a choice, and make it so that the child is better informed. Child marriages allow a child to marry for who child wants, who child likes, who is kind to child and who makes child happy, and who doesnt force a child. Children are not a property, and banning children from marrying who they want would decrease child's autonomy. Banning children from making important decisions decreases their knowledge about important things, and harms them once they are adults. Child marriage teaches a child to be more responsible by educating a child and giving child more knowledge in decision-making. Even if child makes mistakes, child learns from them, as opposed to not making a mistake and not learning.
28. It is not possible to prevent children from having sex
We see that it is not possible to prevent children from knowing about sex, with all the movies containing sex, and with child's curiosity to discover themselves, and with regular community talk which informs children, and with people who seek to inform children to build a relationship with them. You cant teach children not to have an urge. Entire history shows that controlling sexual urges is impossible to implement. It is also harmful and causes mental pain and discomfort, along with losing health benefits of sex, along with those who cant control their urges be judged by everyone and therefore, harmed. No country was able to stop children from acting on their urges, or adults from being with children. When it comes to sex, no country has lowered sex rate by making it illegal. They have increased prison population, and caused many problems such as adultery, but they didnt lower the percentage of children who had sex.
29. Future consent tells us what is right
Preventing children from learning would be bad for them. Banning child marriages prevents children from learning. They will be less informed if they are not allowed to be in relationships. It was shown that child marriage benefits children by reducing depression and suicides, by reducing sex outside of marriage, by making children happier and healthier, by protecting children in relationships, by removing stigma which hurts children. It also helps better guide adults on how to treat children, as opposed to increasing prison population and torture. It was also pointed out that most relationships are never discovered and great majority of children dont want for their partner to go to prison. They keep same opinion even when they grow up. Their opinion should be respected. Children do not need to fully understand child marriages. Society can understand child marriages, and decide that children should be allowed to marry because of the benefits it gives. Children in child marriages are not on their own, as society and parents are there to advise them and protect them if something goes wrong in marriage. Banning child marriages leaves children on their own, as there is no one to guide them as the relationships are secret when child marriages are banned.Child marriage is a child's choice. When child grows into adult, she doesnt want for her partner to go to prison. Since adults are well informed, it follows that child marriage is well informed decision of a person who approves of her child marriage after becoming adult. This is what is known as "future consent". When child grows up, she agrees that her marriage as a child wasnt a bad thing.
30. Power doesnt matter in a loving relationship
Most of child abuse is caused by children. A 14 year old can easily abuse a 10 year old if in relationship with her. A 14 year old can easily abuse another 14 year old if he is much stronger than her. Even among adults, man can easily abuse a woman due to being stronger. Children are more likely to get abused by other children than by adults. Adults have more control over their actions. They can be better educated by society. They also have more moral maturity.In every relationship, one person is more "powerful". In parenting, parents are more powerful than children. However, in loving and consensual relationships, power doesnt matter as there is no force at play. Adult and child have attachment to each other. They love each other and make each other happy. They do that which both have the desire for. Child marriage helps create stronger attachment and increases happiness.
31. Child marriages prevent children from being in bad company
Most of the children who enter into bad company do so because they dont have guidance and because they desire sex. Child marriage satisfies child's sexual urges and gives guidance to children.
32. Child marriages ensure that children have same rights as adults
Children have the right to love and to form relationships. It would be cruel to deny children of that until adulthood, as certain percentage of children never reach adulthood. Child marriages are in child's interest. Future consent demonstrates that. Child desires love and creates attachments. To destroy child's love and child's attachment would be very cruel and inhumane, and would reduce children to mere property without a voice.
33. Banning child marriages increases the number of child sexual abuse
You cannot reduce sex with children by criminalizing it. The victims, as explained before, dont want to speak out. They like the adult and dont want him harmed.The number of abuse cases keeps growing. Map always assume they wont be caught. Due to lack of marriage and lack of legality, some map resort to having sexual activities with lots of children. There were even cases of one map being with over 100 children. Without the ability to marry and without legal protection, map person has less reasons to stay with just one child. There is no education to guide map in behavior. There is no legal law that he must follow. The longer map stays with one child, the more likely map is to get caught. Due to having to hide the relationship, map is more likely to end a relationship and seek other children when map suspects that the current relationship will be discovered if he continues. When child marriages are banned, map would impose himself more on a child, due to no education and no legal guide for behavior. Map is also more likely to use threats against a child, in an attempt to hide the relationship. Map is also more likely to hurt a child when child marriages are banned. This is due to less reasons to treat child well. If he is nice, he might go to prison. If he is not nice, he might go to prison. No matter what he does, he might go to prison. If child marriages were legal and regulated, map would be able to satisfy his urges legally and at the same time follow the rules not to hurt a child. He would be punished if he hurts a child, but tolerated if he doesnt. This gives him a reason not to hurt a child, as he would be much safer and in much better position if he doesnt. Most map are kind non-violent people. However, there are those who are violent. Banning child marriages makes them much more violent and harder to control.The proof for child marriages reducing sexual abuse is Afghanistan and USA. In USA, 30% of children have sex before age 16. In Afghanistan, only 4% of children are married before age 15. In USA, child marriages are banned and condemned. In Afghanistan, they are seen as normal. We see that allowing child marriages does not harm children, not in terms of scale and not in terms of abuse, as Afghanistan has less suicides, less divorce and less STD than USA. STD is confirmed even by random testing, and all sources agree that STD is lower in Afghanistan. Let us be reminded that Afghanistan is a poor country, and that USA is among world's most developed nations. The fact that Afghanistan has child marriages and outmatches US proves that there is value in child marriage.
34. Banning child marriages increases the number of forced abortions
If child is in a relationship with an adult, and if child gets pregnant and relationship is discovered, child will be convinced to have an abortion. Even if child doesnt want to abort, the pressure of adults will break her. The decision to have an abortion will be, by all standards, an adult's decision imposed on a child.
35. If child marriages are banned, child is treated differently
When the police gets involved, child is scared and confused. The police will persuade a child that what happened to her was wrong. Parents will continue the persuasion. Child will even visit psychologists who will add to persuasion. In short, entire society will try to convince her that the adult who was so kind to her was in fact a monster. This confuses the child who cannot find a reasonable explanation for adult's reaction, and is forced to accept adult's explanation that was imposed on her so many times. She simply isnt allowed to disagree, or she will be faced with more convincing, more emotional attacks and more visits to psychologists. Adults, who are in greater number and better at reasoning than she is, will simply outmatch her. That is the true power imbalance.
Sources for information used in this debate:"The Trauma Myth" - scientific book about adult-child relationships. It is available for free online, and it talks about how most adult-child relationships are non-violent and how most children who are in such relationships dont want for an adult to go to prison.
Round 4
Everything con says is wrong.
All marriage should be illegal because marriage comes from religion and religion is anti-logic and causes wars and child abuse etc.
All marriage should be illegal because marriage comes from religion and religion is anti-logic and causes wars and child abuse etc.
All of my opponent's arguments are wrong.
All of my arguments are correct.
It stands correct that in most cases, child marriages should be legal.
I want for my opponent to read my arguments, because my opponent's arguments are negated by these arguments.
36. This society doesnt care about child's well being
Plenty of people spank children, even tho it was proved by many studies that spanking harms children. Plenty of people give children junk food, knowing it is bad for child's health, teeth and brain, and that it causes obesity. Plenty of people lie to children and therefore, teach children to use lies. Plenty of people break the speed limit, knowing that it increases the chances of children being hurt and dying in traffic. They dont care. Plenty of people support circumcision, knowing that it harms children. Plenty of people dont bother to try to fix foster care system, knowing that plenty of child abuse happens in foster care. Children abuse children there. Plenty of people smoke, knowing it increases the chances of birth defects and makes children more likely to smoke. People upload porn to internet making it easily available, knowing that children might see it. Its not the map who needs to change. This society is wrong about child marriages. This society is blind. Its this corrupt society which harms children while claiming that map harm children. This society harms animals too, by torturing them, slaughtering them and turning them into meat. These are double standards that society should abandon. You cannot judge others for that which you yourself do.
37. Being married to adult carries benefits for the child
Child being married to adult will learn a lot from that adult, much more than she would have learned from having other child as partner. Adults are much more morally advanced than children and have greater knowledge. Child cannot teach a child as much as adult can teach a child. Adult is also more likely to behave well and maintain a stable marriage, where relationships between child and child are much more likely to break.
38. Banning child marriages leads to age discrimination
Adult child relationships are the crime in which crime is only a crime due to age of an adult. For example, two 12 year olds being in sexual relationship is condemned, but not a crime. But a sexual relationship between 12 year old and 18 year old is a crime. Therefore, person is assumed to have caused harm only because of his age, not because of the activity he does.
39. Banning child marriages harms child-child sexual relationships
Our society condemns children for having sex with other children and for masturbating. Parents still condemn if their 9 year old had sex with a 12 year old. Parents still shame 4 year olds if they catch them masturbate. This causes children to feel shame and guilt, which increases depression. If child marriages were allowed, relationships between child and child would also be better tolerated and children would be less depressed and less shamed for having sexual activities or masturbating. This would help them grow into free persons without judgment or fear.
40. Child marriages support LGBT rights
Trans children are being judged by our society, simply because our society believes that children shouldnt have a choice. The idea of individual's autonomy would be supported by legalization of child marriages. Child marriages support the idea of giving child a choice, which supports trans rights as trans children would be given a choice to make decisions about their bodies. Many people want to tell trans children that they are not trans, that boys cant dress as girls and much more. The idea that child shouldnt have a choice is a cruel idea, since some children never become adults. To deny them of choice during childhood means to deny them of choice for their entire life.
41. Banning child marriages harms economy and society
People who end up in prison stop being productive. Doctors who end up in prison are no longer able to provide medical services. Inventors who end up in prison will no longer invent. This makes everything more expensive, increasing poverty among adults and children. Children harmed by society's stigma will be less productive.
42. Survival of the fittest proves the power of child marriages and the value it has for society
Child marriage helped societies to survive. Societies before ours lived in a very difficult conditions. They needed to be at their best in order to survive. Those societies valued marriage and child marriage, and practiced it. If child marriage was bad for society, then societies who didnt practice it would be dominant. The opposite happened. Societies that practiced child marriage were dominant. Child marriage improved their birth rates, their economy and their ability to defend themselves. There were plenty of happy child marriages at that time. No one complained. Child marriage in ancient times saved children from being orphans. It took care of orphans. At that time, there was no foster care and no one wanted to take care of orphans except map. Without map, ancient orphans would all be reduced to begging in the street. People ignore all the benefits child marriages provided throughout history. Even Romeo and Juliet is based on child marriage that wasnt allowed to happen. Juliet was 14.
The birth rates are declining world wide. When child marriages were legal, in the past, birth rates used to be 6 per woman.Today, women are taught to wait until older. What they dont know is that the longer they wait, the less are the odds of giving birth.
43. Having unsatisfied sexual urges is like feeling pain
If map are allowed to have one partner, they can satisfy urges legally in a way that doesnt harm them. If they are not allowed any partner, they cannot satisfy urges legally at all. And urges would still be there. Having urges that are unfullfilled is an equivalent of pain, since sexual urges are very strong and people are ready to risk their life and freedom to satisfy them.
44. Comparison of child to a drunk person doesnt work
If a person who is not drunk has sex with a drunk person, that person goes to prison for rape.
If two drunk people have sex, no one will go to prison despite that drunk people cant consent.
Adult can get drunk and have sex with a child, and then no one would get charged for rape because adult wouldnt have power to consent to sex. We see that standards are inconsistent, and in one case drunk adult is considered as completely responsible but in other case completely non-responsible.
45. Attacking map means attacking victims of abuse
Life is not fair towards map. Many map were abused as children. They suffered a lot. To say that they should suffer more is a great injustice. This society abuses people and creates monsters. Stopping the abuse of map will help make society more humane.
46. Map are not at fault for being map
Map didnt choose to be map. It was never their choice. Yet they suffer because of it. They are in pain. They feel guilty. Life dealt them bad cards.
47. There is no proof that consensual sexual relationship with a child causes any harm
We have proof of stigma causing harm. We have proof of judgment causing harm. We have proof of broken attachment causing harm. We have proof of broken relationships causing harm. We have proof of multiple sexual partners causing harm. We have proof of non-valuing marriage causing harm. Do we have any proof of consensual sexual relationships in marriage that is valued causing harm? No. We only have proof of it benefiting the child.
48. What if your son or daughter was map?
Surely, you wouldnt wish them to be imprisoned or raped.
49. Some kids are very smart
There are 11 year olds with IQ of 160. Clearly, they can learn anything that an average 18 year old knows, if not even much more.
50. Children dont consent to be banned from choosing
Children want to have freedom like anyone else. They dont want to be property or have other people make decisions about their life.
51. What if you were map?
Surely, you would want for society not to judge you.
52. If everyone was map, society would still work good
We see from examples of old societies that they did marry young. It seemed to be one of the things which helped them thrive in a challenging world where mistakes of society could have easily led to extinction of that society. The issue today is that 90% of offenders are never caught and 90% of adult-child relationships remain unknown. If something is unknown, its impossible to regulate and ban is useless. If it was legal, there would be more education about it.
53. Adult-child relationships are less bad than circumcision
There is no logical explanation for why cutting a baby's penis is less bad than sucking it.
"Cutting baby's penis isnt traumatic for the baby, but sucking it is" is a logic that makes no sense.
If sucking baby's penis is bad for the baby, then circumcision is many times worse. Yet circumcision goes unpunished. We see that society is blind and unjust, so wrong about adult-child relationships.
54. What if the map is hot?
If map is hot, there is greater chance that little girl really falls in love with him deeply and really enjoys his company. So then it obviously isnt bad.
55. What if the little girl falls in love with map?
If little girl falls in love with map, she would be very hurt if society separated them. She would want to stay with him, and not be forcefully separated from him.
56. Making child marriages illegal would punish children with sexual urges.
Children with sexual urges would have no safe and legal way to satisfy those urges. Unsatisfied urges are like pain, which would ruin the lives of those children by forcing them into bad ways, such as watching porn or having lots of sex outside marriage.
Sources for information used in this debate:"The Trauma Myth" - scientific book about adult-child relationships
Round 5
This society doesnt care about child's well being
So you're going to trust a society that doesn't care about children to make sure children are safe in these marriages. Makes perfect sense, if your goal is to be as retarded as possible that is.
Adults are much more morally advanced than children
There are people who naturally have a strong moral compass, and people who are naturally immoral or amoral. It is much more true that adults are generally smarter than children, but someone who is naturally high or low in empathy and moral sensibilities is likely to be that way from a young age. This means that an evil adult can manipulate or take advantage of a good natured child and someone who is just naturally scummy will only get smarter, not more "morally advanced" with age.
Child being married to adult will learn a lot from that adult,
You don't need to fuck kids to teach them stuff.
Therefore, person is assumed to have caused harm only because of his age, not because of the activity he does.
The specific age being 18 is largely arbitrary but you need to draw the line somewhere. The only alternative would be to create some kind of maturity scale similar to an IQ test.
Generally, kids aren't mature enough to be in relationships or have sex with adults. It can lead to the child becoming dependent on the adult in a way that if mirrored by two adults in a relationship would be clearly recognized as unhealthy. Imagine if you had a gf who relied on you completely like a child relies on a parent and was very impressionable so you had a lot of control over her, even if you were nice to her it would be fucked up because she would be trapped in the relationship because her life would literally depend on it. She would be more of a hostage or a pet than an autonomous human being.
Which begs the question, if kids can get married and be treated as adults in relationships then in what other ways would they be treated as adults in your ideal society? Would 10 year olds be able to drive? Would 10 year olds be able to seek employment or live alone in their own houses? Would toddlers become legal adults? It also begs the question, what would the new age limit be? Are you seriously going to advocate for literal one year olds to be in relationships with 50 year olds?
If your answer is "as soon as they want a relationship they should be able to have one" then shouldn't the same apply to other things? Doesn't that mean 5 year olds should be able to own cars and drive? If kids can't be treated as adults in other areas, it proves that there is a gap in maturity that can't be ignored but Con won't address this because he is just copy/pasting arguments he already wrote. Therefore all voters should keep in mind that every single argument I make is being dropped and unaddressed by Con.
Life is not fair towards map. Many map were abused as children. They suffered a lot.
Con is essentially conceding that pedophilia is a mental illness that is all to often induced by the trauma of being molested as a child. Instead of stopping child fuckers his solution is to create a sugar coated fantasy world where pedophiles have loving relationships with kids instead of raping them.
Map are not at fault for being map
Even if free will is 0% real it doesn't make murderers less of a murderer or rapists less of a rapist etc. I don't care if they didn't choose to be pedos and neither does society.
There is no proof that consensual sexual relationship with a child causes any harm
Often the child grows up to regret what happened and feel manipulated or guilty, which causes harm. Since children aren't developed enough to give proper consent they often don't know what they are supposedly "consenting" to.
There are 11 year olds with IQ of 160.
People with IQs that high are always either autistic or they are psychopaths. Autistic kids have trouble understanding social dynamics so they are arguably even more disadvantaged when it comes to matters of consent and being in relationships or sexual situations. As for psychopaths, they either don't care about sex/romance or only have a predatory interest in it.
They dont want to be property or have other people make decisions about their life.
Then the kids in relationships should also have jobs, cars, and all other adult responsibilities. They should also be able to drink and smoke. Except that would be stupid, because kids should have time to let their brains develop and get an education before having adult privileges and responsibilities.
Adult-child relationships are less bad than circumcision
Two wrongs don't make a right.
What if the map is hot?
Hot people deserve to be deprived of love and sex in general because almost all hot people turn out to be privileged douche bags who have life way easier than they ever earned for it to be while having no empathy or understanding of how average and below average people have to work harder to achieve the same success in all areas other than love/sex because no matter how hard they work that is the one area where ONLY being born with good genes matters.
What if the little girl falls in love with map?
Then they deserve to be heart broken and suffer because little girls grow up to be women and women are evil.
Making child marriages illegal would punish children with sexual urges.
No one deserves to satisfy their sexual urges, the entire human race should be castrated.
All of my opponent's arguments are wrong.
All of my arguments are correct.
It stands correct that in most cases, child marriages should be legal.
My opponent's arguments are negated by these arguments:
57. Lex talionis
Lex talionis is a law that says how punishment for the crime should be equal to harm done by that crime. Since in most cases, map does no harm and no pain to the child, it follows that map should not be punished with any pain. Therefore, it would be wrong to cause pain to map by not allowing him to be with the child, or by imprisoning him. Yet society causes great harm to both map and child through judgments, separations and punishments, and this society should stop doing that and change its ways for the better, and legalizing child marriages would be a step towards positive which would result in more positive things from it, where keeping things as they are is not beneficial.
58. Most children dont want to upset adults
Society places a lot of pressure on children, it shapes children. Currently, society teaches children to hate their partners even if they loved them while they were together. That is simply wrong.
59. Effect of social education
If children are taught to hate their partners, that will make those children sad and confused. But if opposite happens, if love is encouraged and not punished, then children will be happier and will go on with their lives as normal. They will not have to worry about if their love is wrong or if society will be upset about their love.
60. Social contagion
According to social contagion, if we teach that adult-child relationships are wrong, more children will feel that they are doing something wrong, and more map will be hated and subjected to violence. But if we teach that it is normal, more children will accept it as normal, and more map will be treated better.
61. There is no point when person reaches maturity
We cannot say that there is a point when person reaches maturity, because every such point would have to be able to be tested. For example, brain of a human keeps developing for the entire life. There is no point at which it stops developing. Also, every point of maturity would be arbitrary point. Even choosing maturity as a requirement for marriage would itself be arbitrary.
62. Is school wrong?
If child is unable to consent and if all actions done to children without consent are wrong, then school is wrong and children shouldnt go to school because they cant consent to it.
63. What if their love is cute?
If their love is cute, then even if it is wrong, it shouldnt be considered as such. The cuteness makes up for it.
64. The fallacy of consent laws
Pick your opinions please.
A.
1. Children can consent
Or
2. Children cant consent
B.
1. Lack of consent means that activity is wrong
Or
2. Lack of consent doesnt mean that activity is wrong
C.
1. Every activity done without consent of a child to that child is wrong
Or
2. It is false that every activity done without consent of a child to that child is wrong
Whichever opinion path you select, it follows that consent laws are wrong because:
1. Children can consent
Or
2. Consent is irrelevant to action being right or wrong
65. Lets assume that children cannot consent
If lack of consent was causing trauma, it would always cause trauma, and not just in few actions while not causing any in others. However, what always and consistently in all actions causes trauma is judgment from society.
66. Intelligence/knowledge cannot make consent invalid
If one adult is much smarter and knows much more than the other adult, that doesnt mean he gets to dictate other adult's life. If he knows more about love and girls, that doesnt mean he gets to choose who will the other adult marry.
Beneficial things done without consent can be considered wrong, like forced pregnancy to create more life.
67. Why are child spankers not hated?
Scientifically, spanking children hurts them, yet society doesnt go after child spankers at all.
68. There is no intentional harm
Most map dont want to hurt children. Even if they seek relationship with children, their goal is not to hurt children but just to build relationship with them.
69. Legalizing child marriages is beneficial for society
Arresting map and putting them in prison reduces the amount of workforce, which in turn increases poverty.
70. Children in foster care grow up to be worse than children raised by map.
It is obviously more beneficial to let children be with map than be in foster care.
So allowing map to adopt is more beneficial than not allowing map to adopt.
There is also an incorrect assumption that if map isnt allowed to adopt and bond to one child, that he is less likely to abuse children.
Some map have over 300 partners. When you make something entirely illegal, you also make it entirely unregulated. Plus, children in foster care have high chance of being sexually abused.
Additionally, map can be a couple, as opposed to being just one map. So the number of children being sexually abused per map would decrease.
Foster care contributes much more to prison population than sexual abuse. Therefore, reducing the amount of children in foster care reduces prison population. We can also conclude that reducing time in foster care is beneficial.
There are cases where parents sexually abuse their child, but sending that child to foster care isnt beneficial.
Foster care contributes the most to prison population. Physical abuse also contributes 38%. Sexual abuse contributes only 14%.
Most map arent violent, so we can say there would be much less physical abuse with map than with foster care.
But foster care basically guarantees physical abuse, and has high rates of sexual abuse regardless.
71. STI are usually the result of having many sexual partners.
Afghanistan has less percentage of STI than USA, despite Afghanistan having child marriages and USA trying to protect children from that.
72. The Trauma Myth
The Trauma Myth talks about map relationships, and most of them arent violent.
Now, obviously, every case is different. There are probably many children who dont report map.
There are many studies and statistics, but even if you take lowest numbers, its still lots of cases.
"Research shows that one in 10 children will be the victim of sexual abuse"
That is 34 million people in USA, almost none caught and punished.
And I gave links before that 30% of children in USA have sex before 16.
Children having sex with other children cannot really be less bad than child doing something sexual with non-violent map. If sexual activities were very bad, they would be very bad in both cases.
73. History
The woman's value by society was mostly considered in ability to give birth to lots of children, which was the highest at ages from when she gets ability to get pregnant to about 22.
The older woman got, essentially more undesirable she became.
Giving birth to lots of children was important because 50% of children died before becoming adults.
So woman had to give birth to 6 children for 3 of them to survive.
It was the time when high birth rates were main condition for survival.
74. Diseases
Not all sexual activites transmit disease. For example, if an adult man mastrubates in front of a little girl and she watches him, it wont give her any disease. Same if they masturbate together.
If not all sexual activities, then why do you want to ban them all? Why ban and discourage sexual activities that transmit no disease? Why punish those map who only did those sexual activities which cant transmit diseases? Why punish those map who limit themselves to do only non harmful sexual activities?
If a map didnt cause any harm, causing him harm would be bad.
75. Unpunished harm
Plenty of harm was caused by society. So should we kill the entire society? Why do people support the idea that map should be harmed for causing harm, while at the same time ignoring harm done by society?
When that same map didnt hurt a little girl but she liked spending time with him, hurting him because they have some crusade against map is in itself harmful not just to the map but to the little girl as well. They are taking her friend away forever. What if she doesnt want him to be taken away? Their choice matters, but not hers? She doesnt get to say?
Harm is the inseparable part of every group of people.
Smokers literally tell their children:
"You should never start smoking."
Then the question:
"Why did you start smoking then?"
I even heard stories of smokers beating their children when they catch their children smoking.
And to make it even dumber, smokers often smoke in same room where their small children are, not only poisoning them but also increasing chances of addiction and health problems.
Whats even dumber is that children of smokers are more likely to be smokers themselves, but smokers still refuse to "quit smoking to decrease chances of their children smoking".
"harmful" and "should be punished" arent exactly one and same.
Tobacco is harmful and kills people, yet you dont see anyone saying "arrest all tobacco people".
And second-hand smoke is horrible.
There are plenty of things which are harmful.
It doesnt translate into "yeah we should really hate those people like they are our mortal enemies".
77. Countries which "protect" children too much have less children
Its silly, but countries that protect children from sex only end up with low birth rates, less children being born, and number of children decreases. We see this in almost every country that punishes/discourages child marriages.
It is not beneficial to protect children from sex, as it prevents many children from living and having a life.
Children dont later become better persons nor have better marriages when you protect them from sex. In fact, the families are mostly collapsing, have 1 child or are childless, in countries which try to fight child marriages.
Sources for information used in this debate:"The Trauma Myth" - scientific book about adult-child relationships
Honestly just didn't get to this one in time. Suffice it to say the vote would have been deleted, along with the CVB, so it would have ended in a tie regardless.
Whatever, people have had better votes deleted by mods.
It wasn't really cherry picking as much as I just skimmed the arguments and found some random claim that I thought was stupid.
Our battle was legendary!
Thats the spirit!
If I quit the site over my rating it will be because I feel like everyone else is biased/stupid rather than being ashamed for my own sake.
There is no shame in having your rating lowered below 1500. Just try your best and everything will be fine.
Go starve and under-hydrate yourself bitch.
Any vote bombs for me are greatly appreciated!
I hereby report Underdog's vote for cherry picking one thing to bitch about and not addressing 99.999% of the debate.
We need good votes on this.
Please give us your good votes!
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>Reported Vote: Benjamin // Mod action: Removed
>Voting Policy: info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/voting-policy
>Points Awarded: 3 to pro (arguments)
>Reason for Decision: Holy mother of god 77 point gish gallop! And he never even refutes that (1) children lack agency and (2) pedophilia is a mental illness caused by trauma. A million assertions with no evidence.
>Reason for Mod Action:
To award arguments, the voter must assess specific points brought up by both sides in the debate and evaluate them as regards the resolution. The voter instead determines that one side engaged in gish gallop (admittedly, that is a lot of points) and points to a lack of response to two points from Pro. The voter does have to provide some assessment of the other side's arguments. Simply stating that they're "assertions with no evidence" is not sufficient - there needs to be at least some recognition of what points were made and why they fall short of negating the resolution in their substance and not just in what is absent from them. Additionally, simply pointing to two arguments made by Pro is not enough. It should be clear why those points are sufficient to affirm the resolution in the eyes of the voter.
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If either of you get a little time, the first vote on this could do with a review.
https://www.debateart.com/debates/5383-child-marriages-should-be-illegal-for-bestkorea?open_tab=votes&votes_page=1&vote_number=1
I reported your vote since you voted against me. But if you voted same way just for me instead, then I wouldnt have reported it.
My argument 77 is actually 76 as I deleted 76 due to no space but forgot to change 77 to 76.
Thanks.
Alright, consider it done.
I need 5 rounds because my case consists of over 50000 characters.
No.
Make it 5 rounds.