It seems like you would come to the same conclusion on the question of "how old you have to be before you can make your own decisions" on both issues.
as far as i am aware, an under-18 can not get sex change surgery in california.
96% of children getting married were 16 or 17, and 85% of the adults marrying those children were 18-23. Not quite the horror show that campaigners push.
I agree that no one under 18 should be getting married, I just question their tactics.
No one is saying it's common. They're saying it shouldn't happen at all.
I have news for you: you are going to be a shitty father.
It's clear that you don't respect women (or girls).
Grow the fuck up.
Weird.
> There was also no mechanism for people under 18 to get divorced and many girls say they were trapped in abusive and predatory relationships.
Call me misguided, but I don't necessarily see 16 year old and 20 year getting married as equally problematic as the provided examples of 30+ year age gaps.
I think the real issue people are dancing around right now culturally is that these extreme age gap relationships are beginning to make everyone feel very uncomfortable. The difference between a 17 year old and and 18 year old doesn't make them feel less gross and exploitative.
In England and Wales, since 2022, the minimum age is 18. Previously it was 16 with parental consent, which is the situation in (the rather more religious) Northern Ireland.
In Scotland the age is 16 and parental consent is not required.
So, well into the 20th century young English couples would flee across the border and get married there; most famously at Gretna Green, a town just inside the border.
Scottish marriages involving English/Welsh people under 18 are now not legal.
The Findings section has a long, detailed list of child marriage harm. In short, preventing marriage before 18 provides for immense harm reduction in the aggregate and improved odds of life success. I’d push the age to 21 if I could. Rental car companies always had it right to restrict rentals to <25 age cohort due to front lobe development timeline.
(The US allows student debt and military obligations at an age when this cohort is vulnerable to systemically exploit young people, these should not be used as examples imho)
1. When a minor marries someone of age, their spouse becomes their legal guardian until they become of age (or become emancipated, which is a difficult process generally). Why is that an issue? Well, in abuse situations, it can be incredibly hard for the minor to leave their spouse who is their legal guardian. It's not much different to runaway children being returned to their parents, even when their parents are the source of the abuse. Certain states are worse for this than others, so called "reunification states" where they will absolutely try and return you to your legal guardian unless there's clear and convincing evidence why they shouldn't;
2. A lot of child marriages happen so an adult can escape a statutory rape or rape charge as prosecutors don't tend to prosecute when it's a spouse. It should be noted that spousal rape only became a crime in all 50 states of the US around 2005 (IIRC) and this only really picked up steam around 1990 or so;
3. Because of this lack of power, it creates a whole host of other problems, such as exploitation to the point of trafficking.
Politically, preserving child marriage is a uniquely Republican issue [1].
[1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/repu...
6 more are blue-leaning "purple": Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico and Wisconsin.
Only four are "blue": California (ban coming into effect 2027 as per article), Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland.
I don't understand why the ban cannot come into effect immediately. Like, wouldn't want to spoil someone's child marriage plans in the next year or so because it would be rude?
This is the default in Californias constitution:
> Except as provided in paragraphs (2) and (3) of this subdivision [Article 4, section 8], a statute enacted at a regular session shall go into effect on January 1 next following a 90-day period from the date of enactment of the statute.
There are additional legislative hurdles to enact legislation faster than that.
Europe is now more or less consistently 18 for parental consent, but marriages at a younger age are still permitted across the EU with judicial consent.
https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/09/child-marriage-ban-n...
Roll tide...... I guess....
The limit is 16 in Colorado and Illinois, 15 in Hawaii, and no limit in New Mexico.
Might want to update your notes.
Bizarrely, the map for cousin marriage is roughly the inverse of the age map, with it being permitted on most of the East coast, CA, CO, NM, AK, & HI.
I say this having discussed the phenomenon with friends who immigrated from Pakistan and all of whom have met first-cousin married couples that had one or more children with birth defects or mental disabilities that could very well have been the result of it.
It would be more accurate (but of course garner less headlines) to say California has made it unlawful for a minor to get married.
Also see the technical definition of child here: https://archive.org/details/mosbysdictionary09edunse/page/34...
Admittedly this pits the developmental/medical definition against legal status and perhaps isn't as straightforward as it seems. Nevertheless, under the technical definition a child is necessarily a minor but not every minor is a child.
Thus, saying that California banned minors from being married would cover both cases accurately and be less clickbait-worthy, while saying 'California bans child marriage' is not fully accurate because it doesn't conve7 the full extent of the ban (viz., minors).
> In the state, there had been no legal age to wed, allowing children to get married as long as their parents consent and a judge signs off on the nuptials.
I don't even think the headline was sensationalist.
Did you read the article? There was no minimum age before this bill, so yes, they banned child marriage (by all definitions of it).
> In the state, there had been no legal age to wed, allowing children to get married as long as their parents consent and a judge signs off on the nuptials.
This is incorrect. According to UNICEF, "a child is any person under the age of 18." [1]
> California has made it unlawful for a minor to get married.
There was no minimum age limit in California before this bill.
[1] https://www.unicef.org/child-rights-convention/convention-te...
im not in support of under-18s getting married, but, what?
and, as far as i am aware, it requires judicial approval right now. presumably, if it were a case constituting statutory rape, the marriage wouldn't be signed off.
this isn't about 9 year olds getting married to 30 year olds.
That being said, the law makes an exception for married couples.
okay, so we're back to marriage != rape.