 "Child brides in US: How America has legal loopholes permitting child marriages in 34 states")
Over the years, several American news outlets have reported on the evil practice of child marriage in the Global South. However, they rarely talk about how this practice is still alive in their own soil. Out of the 50, there are still 34 US states that have legal loopholes that permit child marriage in the country.
A latest report by an international women’s rights organisation called Equality Now, in collaboration with a child marriage survivor-led NGO Unchained at Last, revealed that between 2000 and 2021, over 314,000 children were legally married in the United States, some of them being as young as 10 years of age.
The report titled “Legal Gaps and Enduring Harm: Analysing the Persistence of Child Marriage in the United States” exposes how legal loopholes allow this harmful practice to still exist in the country, even though it violates international practices.
In a thought-provoking conversation with Firstpost’s Bhagyasree Sengupta, Anastasia Law, an American lawyer who handles the US chapter of Equality Now, explained how, at the heart of the issues lies the fact that currently, the United States has no federal minimum age of marriage; each state sets its own age. This creates an inconsistent patchwork of laws that leaves many
How the US Constitution fails to protect child brides: Need for Amendment
While 34 states in the United States still permit child marriage through legal exceptions, states like California, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma set no absolute minimum age, allowing a minor of any age to marry with parental or judicial approval. This is happening in 2025, when the concept of child marriage is internationally recognised as a serious human rights violation with devastating, life-long consequences.
When asked why it is so hard to impose a nationwide ban on child marriage, just like in India, Law highlighted how the country’s constitution needs to be amended to ensure such measures. “The US is interesting because of the way the legal system is set up. It currently doesn’t allow for a federal minimum age of marriage to be imposed. So we have both state and federal laws. Generally, Congress is allowed to legislate over areas which they constitutionally govern, and then states are allowed to legislate on general health and welfare, and currently, marriage falls under that state legislation,” Law told Firstpost.
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More Shorts“So there isn’t a federal hook under which the federal government could set a minimum age of marriage, which is why it’s all happening at the state level. What’s interesting, though, is that another area of work I work on is constitutional equality. 95 per cent of UN member states have guaranteed sex equality under the law. The US is not one of them, and so without this constitutional guarantee of equality, we can’t impose a federal minimum age of marriage.”
“That’s another thing that we’re concurrently advocating for, which would allow us to actually, if we were to have constitutional equality, then we would be able to implement a federal minimum age of marriage,” she added.
Law emphasised that to have a nation-wide ban on child marriage, there is a need for a constitutional amendment, which, interestingly, has been in work for over 100 years. “It’s called the Equal Rights Amendment, which basically guarantees equality based on sex, and it’s met all constitutional requirements to be a part of the Constitution. However, there’s been significant political pushback against it. So we’re basically advocating for its universal recognition and implementation right now,” she explained.
Child marriage has been a female-led issue because between 2000 and 2021, 86 per cent of all children married in the US were girls, with most wed to adult men. This reflects how the social evil ended up “legitimising child sexual abuse and statutory rape. “Nineteen states in the US have an explicit legal exception or defence to statutory rape laws in instances of marriage, effectively shielding adults from prosecution for engaging in sexual activity with children,” the Equality Now report stated.
Lack of data and the loopholes
- Lack of data remains a major hindrance
Law also emphasised that the lack of data on these marriages is also part of the reason why this issue is not garnering attention in the United States. “We don’t have disaggregated government data on child marriages in the US, so advocates have been working to really do their own research and find that data themselves and publish it. But for a long time, we haven’t had that data,” she said.
States currently will track marriage certificate data, but they don’t have to publish it, and they don’t have to. It’s aggregated. It’s not disaggregated. There is no research currently available in the US on the extent of religious-only marriages or marriages which do not have a civil ceremony component. So we have absolutely no data on that metric. We know that around the world, this is a very prevalent issue.”
“It’s something that hasn’t really been addressed in the US to this point. And that’s why a lot of the recommendations in the report urge that we go beyond simply setting the minimum age of marriage at 18 with no exceptions. We need to actually put in place prevention and response mechanisms such that we can stop these marriages from occurring in the first instance, because if they’re not being legally recorded, just changing the law isn’t going to change that,” she averred.
- The loopholes
There are several loopholes throught which Child marriage exists in the US. While the country has become cagey on migration issues, the US federal law sets no minimum age for foreign spousal or fiancé visas. Hence, an adult US citizen can use the immigration system to bring a foreign child, spouse or fiancé into the country, effectively enabling the trafficking and exploitation of children. In addition, non-US citizen adults can gain legal status by marrying a minor with US citizenship.
Apart from this, marriage can serve as a defence against charges of sexual assault of minors, while federal benefits create financial incentives for child marriage through student financial aid and homebuyer credits that are unavailable to unmarried peers.
States like Arkansas, Maryland, New Mexico, and Oklahoma allow legal exceptions to the minimum age of marriage when a girl is pregnant or has given birth to the child of a prospective spouse. Instead, these states treat pregnancy or parenthood as justifications for marriage, rather than as potential signs of coercion, statutory rape, or child abuse.
Marriage through religious ceremonies without being registered with the state leaves children completely outside of the law’s protection. Minors in unregistered marriages may have no legal standing to seek spousal support or protection from abuse. “I think that a part of the issue in the U.S. is a lack of knowledge and a lack of awareness that these issues exist and that they’re going on. So, I think, this is a large reason as to why we still have these federal loopholes,” Law told Firstpost.
Catch-22 situation when it comes to legal recourse
Children who are stuck in abusive marriages also struggle to find legal recourse, which can help them get out of the situation. “This is really one of the main issues with the legality of child marriage in the US. The legal system, in allowing child marriage, treats children as adults in some circumstances. It allows them to be married to obtain a marriage certificate, but it still treats them as children in other situations. They don’t have full adult legal rights because of their capacity as minors,” Law told Firstpost.
“So we’re kind of putting children in a trapped situation where we let them marry. However, as a minor in the US, you generally cannot initiate legal proceedings. You can’t obtain a lawyer because of voidable contracts. You might be turned away from CPS because you’re married, so you’re out of their mandate, but you also will likely be turned away from a domestic violence shelter because you’re a child. So you’re basically baked into a trap.”
“You don’t have anywhere to go once you’re married and you’re in an abusive situation. Additionally, if an advocate tries to help you leave the situation, they could be charged with kidnapping because you’re a minor. So really, minors are trapped, and that’s why we need to change the laws because they’re treated differently in different respects currently,” she furthered.
Law noted that minors in the US tend to have little to no access to reproductive healthcare. She mentioned that while there is no conclusive data to prove it, their assessment indicated that child marriages tend to happen more in states with limited reproductive and abortion rights.
“We don’t have enough data to conclusively say there is a correlation between states that allow child marriage and states that restrict reproductive rights. But what we do know is that minors who cannot access reproductive health care are more likely to have to keep a pregnancy if they do get pregnant. If they don’t have comprehensive sexual education, it is more likely that a teen pregnancy will occur,” Law said.
“We also see a large overlap in states with restricted abortion access or restricted reproductive health access and states where child marriage is legal. And I think part of the issue there is if you restrict access to reproductive health care for teenagers, you’re potentially forcing them into a situation where they might feel their only option is to get married because they’re pregnant.”
“In this situation, we’re hypothesising that this interplay comes into account, but we really need more data to make conclusive findings on that. It’s too early to say conclusively, but we think this is the case,” she added.
Why are lawmakers hesitant to bring change?
Law emphasised that lawmakers from both Democratic and Republican parties tend to give similar arguments, in terms of why they are blocking a bill that would ban child marriage. Law elucidated the following four factors that come into play:
1) The issue of pregnancy and spousal support
“If you have a pregnant teenager, we get the argument that, well, she should be allowed to be married because then she’ll be entitled to spousal support. The husband will have to help look after her. Also, there’s a slightly traditional component to that, that children shouldn’t be born out of marriage. But we know that that’s not the case,” Law said.
She emphasised how child brides had worse outcomes across the board than minors who do not marry until they turn 18. “Additionally, they can get married when they turn 18 if they have a baby with a spouse under the age of 18. So we know that that’s a rebuttable presumption,” she said.
2) Religious reasons
Law noted that lawmakers tend to be concerned about restricting faith-based practices. “For example, certain religious communities marry girls younger than others, and lawmakers might be scared to impose on religious values. But we also know that no religion mandates child marriage. No religion says that girls have to be married before the age of 18. It’s a cultural issue. It’s not a religious issue,” she said.
3) Parental rights
The co-author of the report told Firstpost that American lawmakers also belong to the school of thought that the government should stay out of the decisions parents are making for their children. “So, lawmakers imposing a minimum age of marriage at 18 would be considered an overreach into those parental rights. But again, we know that in many areas of child safety, the government is allowed to intervene. There’s a child welfare system for a reason. There are safeguards on child safety and autonomy for reasons when parents overstep their child’s rights. And we know it’s a human rights abuse,” she said.
4) Consensual teenage relationships
Law also told Firstpost that there are what are legally called the “Romeo and Juliet relationships”, which even allowed two 16-year-olds to marry if they are in love and if they want to. “We hear this from lawmakers who, when they were 16, met the love of their life. They got married as minors, and it worked out for them. Therefore, we should allow young kids who are in love to marry today,” Law noted.
“I think the answer to that is if they’re really in love, they can wait two years. They can wait one year until they’re 18. It’s not going to change anything. The downsides of allowing them to marry are far, far greater than asking them to wait, " she furthered.
What about international obligations?
It is pertinent to note that the United States has committed to protecting children from violence, exploitation, and abuse by signing international treaties. One of the prime examples of this is that the US has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a human rights treaty guaranteeing that marriage must be based on the free and full consent of both parties. Because children cannot give that level of consent, international law makes clear that marriage under 18 is a violation of a child’s rights to health, education, safety, and freedom from violence.
However, the country is not following through with its obligations. Other than this, in 2023, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which monitors how countries comply with the ICCPR, raised concern that child marriage is still legal in the majority of US states and urged the US to set 18 as the minimum age for marriage in every state, with no exceptions.
Yet again, America paid no heed to the recommendation. “2023 was the first time the US had received a recommendation on child marriage. It’s just raising that awareness and having that actually be brought to the US’s attention that this is an obligation under this treaty. There are also other forms of soft pressure,” Law averred.
“For example, the universal periodic review process, which states issue recommendations to each other. But we know that, you know, without having ratified CEDAW or the CRC, the US is missing out on opportunities to be held to account. And so the non-ratification is a real issue,” she added.
What are the recommendations of the report?
Until 2018, child marriage was practically legal throughout the United States. Through the report, Equality Now and Unchained At Last are calling on every state to close all legal loopholes that enable child marriage and create safe pathways to assist vulnerable minors who cannot remain at home.
The groups urge states to raise public awareness about child marriage’s harms, and invest in stronger prevention, protection, and response systems.
“At the federal level, lawmakers should ensure the US is meeting its commitments to uphold international human rights standards. This includes incentivising all states and territories to establish 18 as the universal minimum age of marriage, closing any federal loopholes, and increasing federal funding for support services,” the report states.
“This report is really one of the first to lay out all of the legal loopholes that we see in the US. We have been doing advocacy work for years with our partners Unchained At Last to combat this issue, but this is a solid piece of evidence pointing to every single legal loophole that exists in the US in terms of marriage,” Law told Firstpost.
“We know that we need the input of civil society, of state governments, of federal governments, and the international community to really end this problem. So our next steps are, you know, we’re continuing our state-level advocacy to raise the minimum age of marriage to 18 without exception in every state, but we also want to look more. We want to do further research into that issue, and we also want to do further advocacy around, like, a holistic approach to ending child marriage.”
“The law is not enough. We need all of these other measures and resources to be thrown alongside the law to actually make a difference,” she concluded.
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