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And You Thought Child Brides Don't Exist in America?

Millicent Carlisle, a second novel by Lisa Lahey and soon to be published by PublishAmerica, is based on an actual biography in a Canadian current affairs magazine. Although set during the 1940s and detailing life on the American home front during the Second World War the teenage marriage presented in the novel is based on marriages currently taking place in the rural Midwest and South Western United States. It would appear that time has not caught up to these antiquated rural communities and neither has a high school education, travel and reaching an age of maturity before marriage.

Interestingly these regions do not involve cults or other religious practices nor are they polygamous marriages. Very few if any of the young girls who enter into these marriages are forced to do so against their will even if they become pregnant out of wedlock. Their communities simply continue a tradition that has existed for centuries without seeing a need for change. Needless to say many of these American teens live and die in poverty. Very little opportunity presents itself to uneducated, married children and particularly those who have children themselves. Millicent and Louis Saggs for instance live in a trailer, a typical household for young marrieds in these communities. They never achieve stable financial status and Millicent starts and ends the novel in a trailer with only cold running water and limited room for her family.

As a rule domestic violence is more likely to occur in youthful marriages than in marriages between adults. Similarly Millicent experiences violence at Louis' hands after she births her second baby, a boy she has with Billy Pates the only black teenager living in their community. However it is Louis' emotional and verbal abuse that permeates much of the marital relationship as it deteriorates with Louis' drinking and loss of his job at the local sawmill. As the wife within a complementary Southern Baptist marriage Millicent feels subservient to Louis and doesn't question the abuse or his domineering treatment of her person. Instead she tolerates it and suffers silently until the tension in their household builds to a climactic breaking point.

Very few teenage marriages survive past a few years and they typically end in divorce. When this happens it is often the case that the young wife is financially bereft since she is left raising children without an income. In the novel Millicent and Louis rely upon government issued ration books for food and gas but after Louis loses his job it is Millicent who seeks outside work at an automobile factory, a significant social change for women in both rural and urban areas in America during this time. Millicent's employment places further strain upon her marriage and she is caught in a struggle between her husband's pride and her family's welfare. This mentality was common during an age when women were new to the workplace yet in remote parts of the country it continues today.

Interracial marriage is also explored in Millicent Carlisle. Earlier in twentieth century America it was unheard of and seldom occurred since it typically meant ostracism for both parties within their community. Presumably the spouses do not view ethnicity as a social barrier however the majority of people around them do. Even today interracial marriage promotes the blurring of racial segregation and in many southwestern rural America communities, is unlikely and unwanted. Millicent's affair with Billy Pates sets off a scandal throughout her community. The affair ends her marriage to Louis Saggs however not simply because she has committed adultery. Louis is mortified about Millicent's choice of partner. "You had to get with a black man just to humiliate me Millie, just to act like yer husband weren’t man enough for you!" Louis rages at Millicent after she admits to her affair. He is equally irate about her choice of partner as he is about the actual affair. Fittingly in spite of their love for one another Millicent and Billy are unable to marry in the novel and are obliged to settle for shared custody and access to little Moses.

Millicent Carlisle is not a tragic novel yet it doesn't end "happily ever after". Instead the reality of teenage marriage and its many overwhelming challenges are presented through a realistic portrayal of events leaving the reader with a bitter-sweet experience at its conclusion.

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