Child marriage laws in the US are set state by state, and roughly two-thirds of states still permit some form of marriage before age eighteen. About a third have closed every loophole and set eighteen as an absolute floor. The rest allow minors to marry through parental consent, judicial approval, court-ordered emancipation, or, in a few states, pregnancy. There is no federal minimum marriage age.
States That Have Banned Marriage Under Eighteen
Delaware and New Jersey were first, both in 2018. New Jersey’s statute is blunt: no marriage or civil union license may be issued to anyone under eighteen.1Justia. New Jersey Code 37-1-6 – Prohibition of Issuance of Marriage, Civil Union License to Minor Pennsylvania and Minnesota followed in 2020. Rhode Island and New York in 2021. Massachusetts in 2022. Vermont, Connecticut, and Michigan in 2023. Washington, Virginia, and New Hampshire in 2024. Washington D.C., Maine, Oregon, and Missouri in 2025.
In these jurisdictions there are no parental-consent exceptions, no judicial waivers, and no pregnancy carve-outs. Eighteen means eighteen.
How Minors Can Still Marry Elsewhere
Marriage law is a state matter. The Tenth Amendment reserves to the states powers not granted to the federal government, and Congress has never set a national minimum marriage age.2Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Tenth Amendment The result is a patchwork.
Eighteen is the standard age for marrying without anyone else’s permission in every state except Nebraska, where it is nineteen, and Mississippi, where the general age without parental consent is twenty-one. The number that actually matters for child marriage, though, is the minimum age — how young a child can be married when someone else signs off. In some states there is no statutory floor at all. Mississippi sets defaults of seventeen for males and fifteen for females with parental consent, and allows a judge to waive even those minimums.3Justia. Mississippi Code 93-1-5 – Conditions Precedent to Issuance of License; Penalty for Noncompliance
Parental Consent
The most common pathway lets sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds marry if a parent or legal guardian signs a consent form. In most states this requires nothing more than a signature at the county clerk’s office, sometimes notarized. There is usually no independent inquiry into whether the minor actually wants to marry. Researchers have argued that what statutes call parental consent is often closer to parental coercion, because the child may have no meaningful say.
Judicial Approval
Some states require a judge to sign off, either instead of or in addition to a parent. The minor or a parent files a petition, and the judge holds a hearing on whether the marriage is voluntary and in the minor’s best interest. Maryland’s court rules require an in-camera interview of the minor outside the presence of the intended spouse and the parents, and the court must find that the minor seeks to marry voluntarily, free from coercion, and is mature and capable of self-sufficiency.4New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. Maryland Rules Rule 15-1501 – Petition for Authorization for Minor to Marry
Advocates report that in practice judicial review often functions as a rubber stamp. Judges are not always trained to screen for coercion, and a minor sitting next to a parent who arranged the marriage may not feel safe saying so. Private interviews are not universal.
Pregnancy Exceptions
A small group of states — Arkansas, Maryland, New Mexico, and Oklahoma among them — specifically allow pregnancy to lower the minimum marriage age. Historically these provisions have been used to marry girls to the men who impregnated them, converting what would otherwise be statutory rape into a lawful relationship. Some states have tightened these rules, but the exceptions remain on the books.
Emancipation-Only States
Texas, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia, and Indiana take a middle route. They set eighteen as the marriage age but allow an exception for minors who have first been legally emancipated by a court. The theory is that emancipation confirms maturity and self-sufficiency before marriage becomes an option. In Texas, the emancipation court evaluates the minor’s maturity but does not review the intended marriage or the intended spouse. Arizona also allows emancipated minors to marry, including those emancipated in another state.
Why It’s Hard for a Married Minor to Get Out
A child who is married faces stacked legal obstacles to leaving the marriage. Married minors generally cannot file for divorce on their own, because minors in most states cannot initiate legal proceedings except through a guardian or representative. The same limitation applies to seeking a protective order against an abusive spouse. The parent who would normally step in may be the person who authorized the marriage.
Minors who run from an abusive spouse are often classified as runaways, and police may return them to the household. Most domestic violence shelters do not accept unaccompanied minors. Youth shelters typically notify parents and push toward reunification, which is the wrong direction when the parent arranged the marriage in the first place.
Retaining a lawyer is also difficult. Contracts with minors, including attorney fee agreements, are voidable in most states, so few attorneys will take on a client who cannot legally commit to pay.
Some states automatically emancipate minors on marriage. That comes too late to prevent a coerced wedding, and it can strip a teenager of a parent’s continuing support obligation without providing any replacement resources.
Void, Voidable, and Annulment
In most states, an underage marriage is voidable rather than void. A voidable marriage is legally valid until a court declares otherwise through an annulment. Until then it carries the same obligations as any other marriage. A void marriage is treated as though it never existed and needs no court order to be undone.
Which category applies depends on the state and the facts. A marriage that violated an absolute statutory floor — a twelve-year-old married where the floor is sixteen — is void from the start in some states. A marriage that could have been authorized but wasn’t is usually voidable. In some jurisdictions a voidable marriage can be ratified if the minor keeps living with the spouse after reaching the age of consent, closing the window for annulment.
The practical problem is circular. Undoing the marriage requires affirmative legal action, and the person who needs to take that action may lack the legal capacity to do so.
What Happens When the Couple Moves
The Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution generally requires each state to recognize the public acts and records of every other state.5Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Article IV A marriage lawfully performed in one state is usually treated as valid in another, even if the second state would not have permitted it. A couple married at sixteen in a state that allows it will typically have their marriage recognized after moving to a state that has banned child marriage.
A narrow public-policy exception lets a state refuse recognition of marriages it finds deeply offensive to its own law. Courts have occasionally used it, but the threshold is high, and banning child marriage domestically does not automatically translate into refusing to recognize such marriages performed elsewhere. The Respect for Marriage Act of 2022 reinforced interstate marriage recognition but does not explicitly address age.6Government Publishing Office. H.R. 8404 – Respect for Marriage Act
The Federal Picture
There is no federal minimum marriage age. Federal immigration law does not set a minimum age for petitioning for a foreign spouse or fiancé, and between 2007 and 2017 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved nearly 9,000 visa petitions involving a minor. Ninety-five percent involved a girl as the younger party.
Federal criminal law contains a related gap. The federal statute prohibiting sex with a child between ages twelve and fifteen has an explicit exemption for people married to the child, so marriage can operate as a defense to conduct that would otherwise be a federal crime.
The Child Marriage Prevention Act, introduced in 2024 as Senate Bill 4990, would have barred the use of federal property for any marriage where either party is under eighteen, directed the Department of Justice to draft a model state statute, and imposed minimum age requirements for spousal and fiancé visa petitions.7Congress.gov. S.4990 – Child Marriage Prevention Act of 2024 It was not enacted during the 118th Congress.
Between 2016 and 2025, every state that took up the issue moved in the same direction, raising the minimum age or eliminating exceptions. No state has lowered its marriage age during that period.