That’s what happened with Tyree, whose marriage was in 1985. She said the abuse began when she was in the fifth grade in California and her parents moved to Texas, leaving her behind to be looked after by a family friend, in effect a male nanny, who soon took advantage of her. “My abuser convinced me daily that I was old enough to be in a sexual relationship, and that other adults would not understand,” she said.

She kept the secret until she became pregnant. At that point, her parents were upset — presumably at the rapist, but also at the prospect of scandal. “My dad is conservative, so abortion was not an option,” she recalled, and she said everyone told her that her only path was marriage.

“We went to the county courthouse, and a judge asked if I wanted to be married,” Tyree remembered. “My answer was ‘yes.’ For a couple of weeks, I’d been told that marriage was best for me and that I needed to tell the judge that.”