Fifty-one-year-old County Judge Robert Henderson refused to perform a marriage ceremony between fourteen-year-old Lucy Martin and thirty-eight-year-old widower Thomas Crawford on August 12, 1925, in rural Tennessee, and Judge Henderson told the families “I will not participate in the legal sale of a child, regardless of parental consent or community tradition,” and Judge Henderson’s refusal sparked outrage in the community that eventually cost him his elected position, but during his final two years as judge Henderson refused to perform seventeen child marriage ceremonies and used his authority to delay or block dozens more, and Henderson spent those two years giving speeches about raising the minimum marriage age and advocating for child protection laws, and though Henderson lost his judgeship in 1927 he helped inspire Tennessee’s 1933 law raising the minimum marriage age to sixteen, a law that protected thousands of girls from being married as children.
Judge Henderson had been performing marriage ceremonies for twenty-three years when the Crawford-Martin marriage request came to his office. Henderson had performed several marriages involving young brides before—it was common in rural Tennessee for girls as young as twelve to be married to much older men—but something about this particular case bothered Henderson. He asked to speak with Lucy Martin privately. Lucy’s father objected, saying a judge had no right to question family decisions, but Henderson insisted, using his judicial authority to require a private interview with the prospective bride.
In his private office, Henderson asked Lucy simple questions: Did she want to marry Mr. Crawford? Did she understand what marriage meant? What did she want to do with her life? Lucy’s answers shook Henderson to his core—she said she didn’t want to marry Thomas Crawford, that he scared her, that she wanted to finish school and become a teacher. Still, her father had arranged the marriage because Crawford had money and Lucy’s family was poor, and Lucy had been told she had no choice, that this was what daughters did for their families. Lucy was crying as she told Judge Henderson this, and she begged him “Please don’t make me marry him, I’m only fourteen, I’m still a child.”
Judge Henderson made his decision in that moment—he would not perform this marriage ceremony, would not use his judicial authority to legally bind a fourteen-year-old child to a man nearly three times her age, regardless of consequences. Henderson returned to his courtroom where Lucy’s father and Thomas Crawford were waiting with the marriage license and witnesses, and Henderson announced “I am refusing to perform this ceremony. Miss Martin is fourteen years old and has clearly expressed that she does not wish to marry. I will not compel a child into marriage against her will.” Lucy’s father exploded in anger, shouting that Henderson had no right to interfere with family business, that Lucy’s marriage was already arranged and paid for, and Henderson responded “A child is not property to be sold. This marriage will not happen in my courtroom.”
The community reaction was severe—Henderson received threats, his church asked him to resign from the congregation, businesses refused to serve him, and local newspapers condemned him for “destroying family values and interfering with parental rights.” But Henderson didn’t back down, and over the next two years Henderson refused to perform sixteen more marriage ceremonies involving brides under age sixteen, and each refusal generated more community outrage and more pressure for Henderson to resign or be removed from office. Henderson used each case as an opportunity to speak publicly about why child marriage was harmful, why girls needed education and development time before marriage, why older men seeking child brides were predators not suitors.
Henderson began traveling to Nashville to lobby state legislators for a law raising the minimum marriage age, and he compiled statistics showing that child brides had higher rates of maternal mortality, domestic violence, and poverty, that early marriage trapped girls in cycles of abuse and dependence, that society had a duty to protect children from marriages they couldn’t meaningfully consent to. Henderson’s advocacy made him enemies—he was called a radical, an interferer, a destroyer of tradition—but Henderson kept fighting because he’d seen Lucy Martin’s terrified face and heard her begging not to be married, and Henderson knew there were hundreds of other girls like Lucy being sold into marriages they didn’t want.
In 1927, Henderson lost his re-election bid—his opponent ran on a platform of “restoring traditional values and respecting parental rights,” and the community voted Henderson out of office as punishment for his child marriage refusals. Henderson’s final act as judge was to issue a written opinion explaining his position: “Marriage should be a union of equals entering freely into a partnership. A fourteen-year-old child cannot be equal to a forty-year-old man. A child cannot freely consent to something she doesn’t understand. These marriages are not unions—they are transactions where children are sold to men who want compliant, controllable wives. I have refused to participate in these transactions because my duty is to justice, not to tradition, and justice demands protecting children from exploitation, even when that exploitation is wrapped in the language of marriage and blessed by parental consent.”
Henderson continued his advocacy after leaving office, and in 1933 Tennessee passed a law setting the minimum marriage age at sixteen with parental consent and eighteen without, and while this law wasn’t perfect—sixteen was still too young—it was progress, and it protected thousands of girls who would have been married at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen under the old system. Henderson lived until 1949, dying at age seventy-five, and at his funeral several women attended who said they’d been the young brides whose marriages Henderson had refused to perform, and they thanked him for saving them from marriages that would have destroyed their lives, thanked him for standing up for them when no one else would, thanked him for losing his judgeship rather than participate in their exploitation.
Lucy Martin, the fourteen-year-old whose case had started Henderson’s crusade, attended Henderson’s funeral and spoke about how Judge Henderson had saved her life by refusing to perform her marriage ceremony, how she’d been able to finish school and become a teacher like she’d wanted, how she’d married at age twenty-two to a man she chose, how she’d had a good life because Judge Henderson had the courage to say “No, I will not marry this child to this man, regardless of consequences.” Lucy said “Judge Henderson lost his position, his community standing, his church membership, all because he refused to participate in child marriage. He sacrificed everything to protect children like me. That’s what real courage looks like. That’s what real justice looks like. Judge Henderson showed me that one person standing up for what’s right can change lives, can save lives, even when everyone else says you’re wrong.”
Source: https://www.facebook.com/share/1DpMQ2YE3z/?mibextid=wwXIfr
