The last thing we need are more laws protecting yet more classes of people from doing silly, even stupid, things. If people are not free to take risks and make choices that can come back to haunt or even hurt them, there's no reason for them to learn to exercise good judgment -- we can just let the government make all our decisions for us.

Indeed, that likely far greater than 99% of all young women in this country manage to keep their panties on when in a setting where their otherwise private acts might become fodder for the general public tells me that people still do as a general rule learn to exercise proper judgment. That only an extremly tiny minority are unable to do so is no reason to start legislating on the matter. Even if they suffer the worst of consequences in terms of lost job opportunities or whatever, the economy is not going to collapse as a result, nor does this phenomenon seem to be all that threatening to the overall moral or ethical foundations of our social fabric.

The problem with Franke-Ruta's proposal is that she does not go far enough....

I don't disagree that soldiering is a young man's game. My argument isn't so much about maturity, though, as it is about lining up obligations and rights. If we demand that 18-year-olds be prepared to put their lives on the line for society, then we ought treat them as adults.

As for getting married at young ages-I am guessing that it varies some by region and family. I had family from rural KY and TN mountains, and while a lot of people got married in their younger teens, I can't say my family tree is full of them. At least one side has the geneology done back to the 1700's, and most of the marriages were somewhere between 16 and 20 for the women, and similar for the men.

When you recognize that, you recognize the fallacy of the "old-enough-to-soldier == old-enough-to-[insert favorite activity requiring maturity]" argument.

As to whether they were affluent, I'd say it was various. Some were quite prosperous; some were desperately poor. But as best as I've been able to tell family income has little to do with age or marriage and childbearing by women in my family.

Take a look at what Saudi women are up to!

What the nanny staters don't want to face is that this is a consequence of the surveillance state. Having grown up under the all seeing eye of the school and the mall security camera, many people today see no reason to not take the private public. If your always going to be seen, why not let them see it all. Not exactly what the nanny staters intended but they usually are bit by the law of unintended consequences.