Marriage of Charlie Johns and Eunice Winstead

Charlie and Eunice Johns

The marriage of 22-year-old Charlie Johns and nine-year-old Eunice Winstead was a child marriage that took place in the state of Tennessee, United States, in January 1937.[1][2][3] The event received national attention after Life magazine published an article about the union the following month.[4]

In response to Johns and Winstead's marriage, the state of Tennessee introduced a law setting the minimum age of marriage at sixteen years. Other jurisdictions (including Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C.) introduced similar laws.[4] The couple remained married after the Tennessee law was passed,[5] and the marriage lasted until Johns' death in 1997.[2] Johns and Winstead had nine children.

Marriage

On January 19, 1937, 22-year-old tobacco farmer Charlie Johns married his 9-year-old neighbor, Eunice Winstead.[1][6] The couple was joined by Baptist preacher Walter Lamb in Sneedville, Hancock County.[1][2][4] Johns offered Lamb a dollar (equivalent to $21 in 2023) to perform the marriage.[7] To get to the wedding without her parents' knowledge, Winstead told them she was going out to get a doll.[8]

Johns falsified Winstead's age in order to obtain their marriage license.[9][1] At the time of their marriage, the state of Tennessee had no minimum age for marriage.[10][4] Winstead's mother had married at the age of sixteen, and her sister Ina married at thirteen.[1] Though the mothers of Johns and Winstead initially believed that Eunice was too young to marry, they ultimately decided to approve the matrimony.[11]

Reactions

Johns and Winstead's marriage was discovered by the press approximately ten days after the wedding.[8] It was then widely covered by American newspapers and magazines.[4] The union was reported by The Times and Life magazines, along with The New York Times. It also inspired the 1938 film Child Bride.[3] Johns avoided media attention, accusing reporters of making things up, and he disallowed any photographs to be taken of his wife and children.[8]

A 1937 piece published by Life about the case displayed a picture of Winstead and Johns at their home in Sneedville.[4] In a news article published that year, The Knoxville Journal reported that "The Winstead family seems complacent over the future of the 9-year-old bride because Charlie, the bridegroom, owns 50 acres of mountain land, several mules and he's a good farmer".[1][2] Another article in Newsweek portrayed Winstead sitting on Johns' knees.[12]

Reactions to the marriage triggered a change to the law in Tennessee, forbidding marriage of individuals under the age of 16, even if they have parental consent. It provided for exceptions in cases such as pregnancy.[13]

Later life

Winstead dropped out of school in 1937.[14] She attended school for two days but her husband pulled her out after she was switched for misbehaving.[15] State law was changed to reflect that married children were exempt from compulsory education.[16]

As of 1938 the couple still lived with Johns' parents.[17] They slept together in the same room.[7] In December 1942, at the age of fifteen, Winstead gave birth to the couple's first child. They subsequently had eight more children.[2][9] Johns objected when his oldest child, 17-year-old Evelyn, eloped in 1960 with 20-year-old John Antrican. He alleged that Antrican had falsified Evelyn's age to obtain a marriage license.[13] Johns and Winstead remained married until Johns' death in 1997. Winstead died in 2006.[2][9]

See also

• Child marriage in the United States
• Marriage age in the United States
• Peaches Browning

References

1. L. Syrett, Nicholas (2016-10-03). "Chapter Eight. Marriage Comes Early in the Mountains: The Persistence of Child Marriage in the Rural South". American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States. University of North Carolina Press. doi:10.5149/northcarolina/9781469629537.003.0009. ISBN 978-1-4696-2953-7.
2. Carey, Bill (2023-10-09). "The creepy stories behind Tennessee's marriage laws". Tullahoma News. Retrieved 2023-10-10.
3. Syrett, Nicholas L. (2014). "Imagining Rural Sexuality in the Depression Era: Child Brides, Exploitation Film, and the Winstead-Johns Marriage". American Studies Association. Archived from the original on 2017-09-19. Retrieved 2023-11-15.
4. Tsui, Anjali. "Married Young: The Fight Over Child Marriage in America". PBS. Retrieved 2024-07-09.
5. Fox, Lauren (2019). "Child Marriage in the United States". Law School Student Scholarship – via Seton Hall University repository.
6. Nivès, R. (March 1937). Enlèvement de Mineure ou Mariage Légal (in French). Police Magazine.
7. "Religion: What God Hath Joined". Time. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
8. "Child Bride, Wed Nine Years Ago, Now 18, Happy With Mate, Babies". Chattanooga Daily Times. May 21, 1946. p. 9.
9. Pylant, James (2020-09-28). "A Child Bride in Tennessee". Genealogy Magazine. Retrieved 2023-10-10.
10. Mensah, Ebenezer (2023-09-11). "Unearthing a Forgotten Chapter: The Marriage of Eunice Winstead Johns and Charlie Johns in 1937 Tennessee". BNN. Retrieved 2023-10-10.
11. John, Mary E. (2021). Child Marriage in an International Frame. Taylor & Francis. p. 75. ISBN 9781000373448.
12. Robertson, Stephen (2006). Crimes Against Children: Sexual Violence and Legal Culture in New York City, 1880-1960. University of North Carolina Press. p. 191. ISBN 9780807876480.
13. "Tennessee School Board Are Faced With Problem of Student Marriages". Morristown Gazette Mail. August 21, 1963. p. 16.
14. "Private Lives". LIFE. Vol. 3, no. 8. Time Inc. 23 August 1937. p. 65. ISSN 0024-3019. Retrieved 14 December 2023.
15. "CHILD BRIDE SWITCHED; Two Days of School Discipline End Her Education in Tennessee". The New York Times. August 9, 1937. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
16. "Education: Exempt Bride". Time. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
17. Child Bride Asks to be Let Alone (January 1938). Daily Illini.

External links

• "Child Bride Happy in Play with Doll". The New York Times, January 1937.