Child marriage in the United States
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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 U.S. 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. As of June 2025, four states have no statutory minimum age when all exemptions are taken into account. These states are California, Mississippi, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
As of June 2025, child marriage is legal in 36 states. 14 states have banned underage marriages, with no exception. The first one was Delaware in 2018. Then came 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), and Oregon (2025). 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 2018, some 300,000 minors were legally married in the United States. The vast majority of child marriages (reliable sources vary between 78% and 95%) 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.