Child marriage, defined by the United Nations as a marriage in which at least one party is under 18 years of age occurs legally in the United States. The United States is the only UN member state that has not yet ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Its Committee on the Rights of the Child "reaffirms that the minimum age limit should be 18 years for marriage". Within the United States, each state and territory as well as Washington, D.C. set the marriage age in its jurisdiction. , Mississippi and New Mexico are the only two states that have no statutory minimum age when all exemptions are taken into account.
, child marriage is legal in thirty-two states. Eighteen states have banned underage marriages, with no exception. The first to do so was Delaware in 2018. This was followed by New Jersey (2018), Pennsylvania (2020), Minnesota (2020), Rhode Island (2021), New York (2021), Massachusetts (2022), Vermont (2023), Connecticut (2023), Michigan (2023), Washington (2024), Virginia (2024), New Hampshire (2024), Maine (2025), Oregon (2025), Missouri (2025), Oklahoma (2026), and California (2026). American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C. have also ended child marriage in that time. Several other U.S. states have similar legislation pending.
Between 2000 and 2021, some 315,000 minors were legally married in the United States. The vast majority of child marriages (some 86%) were between a minor girl and an adult man. In many cases, minors in the U.S. may be married when they are under the age of sexual consent, which varies from 16 to 18 depending on the state. In some states, minors cannot legally divorce or leave their spouse, and domestic violence shelters typically do not accept minors.
Historically, child marriage has been a culturally acceptable practice, but it is increasingly viewed as a form of child sexual abuse. It is an internationally recognized health and human rights violation disproportionately affecting girls, globally. Some international agencies, including the U.S. State Department, have declared it a human rights violation. Some researchers have concluded that there are consequences to child marriages; along with the threat of sexual abuse, children may be subject to loss of educational progress, early pregnancies, and psychological trauma.
Background
History
In ancient and medieval civilizations, it was a regular practice to give girls away in marriage as soon as they reached puberty, if not earlier. This practice continued throughout the Middle Ages, and most girls were married by age fifteen. In Antebellum America, marriages between older men and younger women were socially acceptable, while not extremely common. Marriage was viewed more as a contract, and the minors to be wedded, typically girls, were thought of as going from the responsibility of one man, the father, to another man, the husband.
Causes
There is no singular justification for child marriage. Some marry in accordance with religious or cultural traditions. Others do so to avoid legal ramifications of sexual activities with minors. Others may marry a child to obtain an immigration visa. Traditionally, specifically in developing nations, one of the most common reasons for child marriage was avoiding negative stigmas associated with premarital sex and teen pregnancy. By arranging the marriage of minors, typically girls and boys or men who have been involved in sex before marriage, the families seek to save face and maintain respect within the community.
Demographics A 2018 study by researchers Alissa Koski and Jody Heymann detailing the prevalence of child marriage in the U.S. and common characteristics of those unions found that about 6 out of every 1,000 children surveyed were married. Prevalence varied by location, race/ethnicity, gender and age. Unchained At Last, an organization dedicated to ending forced and child marriage in the United States, found marriage certificates had been issued to an estimated 314,154 children between 2000 and 2021.
Gender Young females are more likely to be married than young males. According to statistics released by the Pew Research Center (based upon the American Community Survey), 55% of the surveyed married 15–17 year olds were girls. According to a Frontline report, 87% of the total minors who got married in 2000-2015 were girls. Koski and Heymann found child marriage was higher among girls than among boys (6.8 vs. 5.7 per 1,000, or a ~19% difference). According to Unchained At Last's study, 86% of the children who married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2021 were girls – and most were wed to adult men an average of four years older.
Location According to information compiled by the Pew Research Center, child marriage is generally more common in some of the Southern United States.
The highest rates of child marriages are in West Virginia, Florida, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma, Arkansas, California, Tennessee, and North Carolina. According to a Frontline report, the states with the highest rates of child marriage in 2010 were: Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia and Missouri. The states with the lowest rates were Delaware, New Jersey, Montana, Indiana, North Dakota, Ohio, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Unchained At Last found that the ten states with the highest rate of child marriage per capita between 2000 and 2021 were:
Nevada Idaho Utah Kentucky Wyoming West Virginia Alabama Mississippi Tennessee Texas
The Koski/Heymann study found prevalence of child marriage varied from more than 10 per 1,000 in West Virginia, Hawaii and North Dakota to less than four per 1,000 in Maine, Rhode Island and Wyoming. In Texas from 2000 to 2014, almost 40,000 children were married. In Florida, 16,400 children, some as young as 13, were married from 2000 to 2017, which is the second highest incidence of child marriage after Texas. In Alabama there were over 8,600 child marriages from 2000 to 2015, the fourth highest amount of any state. However, child marriage in Alabama showed a large decline in that time. In 2000, almost 1,200 children married, but by 2014 it dropped to 190. In Virginia between 2004 and 2013, nearly 4,500 children were married according to the Tahirih Justice Center. In Ohio from 2000 to 2015 there were 4,443 girls married aged 17 and younger, including 43 aged 15 and under. In New York, more than 3,800 children were married between 2000 and 2010.
The Koski/Heymann study also found that only 20% of married children were living with their spouses; the majority of the rest were living with their parents.
Race/ethnicity Cases of child marriage exist in every racial or ethnic demographic but are more prevalent in some as compared to others. Instances of marriage were lower among white non-Hispanic children (5.0 per 1,000) than among almost every other racial or ethnic group studied; it was especially high among children of Native American or Chinese descent (10.3 and 14.2, respectively). Girls of Hispanic/Latina origin are more likely than those of black or white heritage to be married as a minor.
It was more common for immigrating children to be married than those born within the United States. Between the budget years 2007 and 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received 3.5 million immigration petitions, resulting in 8,686 approvals for people in marriages or engagements where one or both members of the couple was still a minor at the time of the petition. The Koski/Heymann study found that prevalence among children from Mexico, Central America, and the Middle East was 2–4 times that of children born in the United States.
Marriage age
The marriageable age is determined by each state and territory. In 1950, most US states set the marriage age without parental consent at 18 for women (14 in South Carolina, 20 in Hawaii, and 21 in Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia), and 21 for men (18 in Idaho, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and 20 in Hawaii and New Hampshire), but in most of the states there were exemptions allowing marriage below the general age of marriage with parental consent. In 1950, the age of marriage with parental consent for women varied between 12 and 18, with 16 being the most common age, while the age of marriage with parental consent for men varied between 12 and 20, with 18 being the most common age. With the setting of the age of majority at 18 in most states in the 1970s, the general marriage age without parental consent for both men and women was set at 18 in most states, but exemptions allowing marriage under this age with parental and/or judicial consent continued to exist.
Extent Unchained At Last, a non-profit advocacy group dedicated to ending child marriage in the United States, found that only 14% of the child marriages conducted from 2000 to 2010 were between two children. In the other 86% of cases, child marriages are between a minor and an adult. The majority of spouses in the survey, about 60%, reported being 18–20 years old. Less than 3% reported being over 29 years of age. In over 400 cases, the adult was aged over 40, and in 31 cases, they were over 60.
According to data compiled by Anjali Tsui, Dan Nolan, and Chris Amico, who looked at almost 200,000 cases of child marriage from 2000 to 2015: 67% of the children were aged 17. 29% of the children were aged 16. 4% of the children were aged 15. Less than 1% of the children were aged 14 and under. There were 51 cases of 13-year-olds getting married, and 6 cases of 12-year-olds getting married.
U.S. states , child marriage is legal in 32 states. Eighteen states have banned underage marriages without exception. The first one was Delaware in 2018. Then came New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Michigan, Washington, Virginia, New Hampshire, Oregon, Maine Missouri, Oklahoma, and California. The remaining 32 states allow underage marriage if one or more of the following circumstances apply: consent of a court clerk or judge (sometimes the consent of a superior court judge, rather than a local judge, is required) consent of the parents or legal guardians of the minor if one of the parties is pregnant, or if the minor has given birth to a child if the minor is emancipated.
, the lower minimum marriage age when all exceptions are taken into account, are: 2 states have no minimum age (possibly 0, but minimum ages of 12 for girls and 14 for boys under common law may apply). 2 states have a minimum age of 15. 20 states have a minimum age of 16. 8 states have a minimum age of 17. 18 states have a minimum age of 18.
From 2017 to 2026, several states changed their law to set a minimum age, to raise their minimum age, or to make more stringent the conditions under which an underage marriage may occur.
U.S. territories In the District of Columbia, minors can't marry as of 2025. The general age of marriage in Puerto Rico is 21; however, 18-year-olds can marry, with exceptions (the age of majority in Puerto Rico is 21). In Guam, the general age is 18, but 16-year-olds can get married with the consent of at least one parent or guardian. In American Samoa, the marriage age has been changed to 18 for both sexes. This reflects a change in policy by Governor Lolo Moliga, who signed into law a bill that changed the marriage age for girls from 14 to 18 in September 2018. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, the age of marriage is 18 for both sexes. Prior to 2019, the age of marriage was 14 for females and 16 for males. In the Northern Mariana Islands males must be 18 to marry, while females can marry at 16 with parental consent.
Comparison with other countries