Should There Be a Minimum Age for Marriage?

What’s the story?

• Louisiana has decided against setting a minimum age to marry after Conservative lawmakers in the state pushed to set the age at 15 with certain conditions. Democratic lawmakers, and some Republicans, had wanted to set the minimum age at 17.

“We want children to be born into wedlock if possible,” said Rep. Nancy Landry (R-Lafayette). “We’re discouraging that with this. If they’re both 16 or 15 and having a baby why wouldn’t we want them to get married?”

• Rep. Valarie Hodges (R-Denham Springs) concurred. “A lot of 16-year-olds get pregnant,” Hodges said. “Do you feel it’s better for them to not get married at all and for the child to be born illegitimately?”
• But Republican state Rep. Stephanie Hilferty of New Orleans supported the measure.

“This is to make sure we don’t have people covering up acts of rape as a marriage. This is a child protection issue.”

The laws for child marriage vary from state to state

• Many states allow children - usually defined as someone under the age of 18 - to get married, though they differ in minimum age and other requirements.
• Half of all states have no minimum age to marry, but do require anyone under 14 to obtain a judge’s approval. (In New Hampshire, for instance, girls must be at least 13, and boys at least 14. Anyone under 18 needs a parent’s consent and permission from a county judge.)
• In eight states, children under the age of 15 can only marry if the bride is pregnant or already a mother.
• Over the last two years, New York, Texas, and Virginia have passed legislation to ban or restrict child marriage; New York raised the minimum marriage age to 17, Texas to 16, and Virginia to 18. Last year, Delaware became the first state in the country to ban child marriage.
• Nonprofit Unchained at Last, which advocates against child marriage, found nearly 248,000 children – some as young as 10 years old – were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010.

What do you think?

Should there be federal legislation on the minimum age to marry? What should the minimum marriage age be? Is there an age that’s "too young" to get married? Should marriage remain a loophole for statutory rape? Take action above and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman

(Photo Credit: iStock / imtmphoto)