2. Some Good Advice, That He Just Didn’t Take
It was not commonplace in 1950s Louisiana to marry one’s cousin, or a thirteen-year-old girl. However, while unusual, it was not considered extreme back then. Given his background and upbringing, Jerry Lee Lewis did not think that Myra’s age, or her blood relation to him, was a big deal. To the extent he was worried about scandal, it had more to with the timing of the wedding: his third marriage had been performed before finalizing the divorce from his second wife.
Lewis was warned not to take his child bride with him on his first European tour. Besotted with love and unwilling to part from Myra, he ignored the warning. He should have listened. Arriving in Britain in May, 1958, he introduced Myra to reporters as his wife, but claimed she was fifteen – still shockingly young. Myra made it worse by remarking that fifteen was not too young to marry, because where she came from: “You can marry at ten, if you can find a husband“.