Warning: This article discusses topics involving child marriage, which may be unsettling for some readers.
Alarmingly, many states across the United States still permit child marriage, placing minors in complex legal challenges.
Though many might consider child marriage to be a relic of the past, it remains a current issue. Until 2018, child marriage was legal nationwide, with some states only recently implementing prohibitions.
From 2000 to 2018, around 300,000 children, with 86 percent being girls, entered into marriages legally sanctioned by U.S. law.
Children who marry face significant hurdles if they wish to dissolve the marriage, as they often depend on their parents or spouse to initiate legal proceedings on their behalf, particularly if the parents initially consented to the marriage.
Since minors cannot legally make decisions for themselves, they are often caught in the confines of child marriage by legal constraints.
Currently, of the 50 U.S. states, only 17 have set a minimum marriage age of at least 18 years, meaning child marriage remains legal in 33 states. Some of these states have laws permitting parental consent for marriage.
States are categorized differently regarding minimum age, with some setting it at 17, others at 16 or 15, and shockingly, four states have no minimum age limit. These states include California, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Mississippi.
Fraidy Reiss, a prominent advocate against child marriage in the U.S., campaigns for a nationwide minimum marriage age of 18. Her reasoning is not based on emotional maturity but on the legal rights that come with adulthood at 18.
She explained to 19thnews: “We’re not arguing that you wake up on your 18th birthday with a newfound wisdom and maturity and the ability to choose a life partner. It’s about legal capacity: you wake up on your 18th birthday with legal rights of adulthood.”
Reiss described the plight of those in child marriages as akin to a ‘nightmarish legal trap’.
Reiss has also sought to clarify some misunderstandings associated with child marriage in the U.S.
She stated: “Most Americans agree that forced marriage and child marriage are terrible and heartbreaking. They imagine this happening on the other side of the world, and I wish there was something we could do to show them it’s happening here, too, largely because we have outdated, archaic and dangerous laws that need to be updated.”
A historical case from 1937 illustrates the issue, where a 22-year-old man married a nine-year-old girl in Tennessee by falsifying the girl’s age, as the state lacked a legal minimum marriage age at the time.
The marriage of Charlie Johns and Eunice Winstead lasted decades, with their first child being born when she was only 14 years old. Following this marriage, Tennessee enacted a legal minimum marriage age, initially set at 16 and later raised to 17.
Alabama – 16
Alaska – 16
Arizona – 16
Arkansas – 16
California – No age limit
Colorado – 16
Florida – 17
Georgia – 17
Hawaii – 15
Idaho – 16
Illinois – 16
Indiana – 16
Iowa – 16
Kansas – 15
Kentucky – 17
Louisiana – 16
Maryland – 17
Mississippi – No age limit
Montana – 16
Nebraska – 17
Nevada – 17
New Mexico – No age limit
North Carolina – 16
North Dakota – 16
Ohio – 17
Oklahoma – No age limit
South Carolina – 16