California has officially banned child marriage, becoming the 18th US state to prohibit marriages involving anyone under the age of 18 with no exception. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1267 on September 30, ending a decade-long struggle to amend California’s marriage laws.
The new law sets 18 as the minimum age for marriage and domestic partnerships in California. It replaces previous laws in which minors could marry when their parents or guardians were present and a judge was OK. The law goes into effect on January 1, 2027.
Before the legislation was signed, California was one of only three U.S. states with no statutory minimum marriage age. In the past system a minor could marry only if one parent or guardian agreed to and a court approved the marriage.
Supporters of the new law argued that such protections did not protect children from pressure, coercion or abusive relationships.
Newsom described the legislation as a “long overdue” measure aimed at protecting young Californians. Courtney Stodden, a survivor of child marriage and now an advocate for stronger protections for minors, signed on the bill in support of stronger protections for minors.
Stodden was married to actor Doug Hutchison at 16, who was 50 at the time.
California’s move comes as a broader effort across the United States to amend laws governing marriage between minors. Unchained At Last says child marriage is still legal in 32 U.S. states, as long as the child has parental consent, the judge decides or other statutory provisions are in place.
In the United States, the organization says nearly 315,000 children were legally married between 2000 and 2021, with most of them girls married to adult men.
And the issue has also generated debate on how marriage laws intersect with other legal protections available to minors. In California, prior legislation was judicial-based to detect coercion, abuse and trafficking.
The California legislation followed several unsuccessful attempts to enact a complete ban. Similar proposals had also been proposed in earlier years but failed to become law. The new bill was passed in the state Legislature before Newsom’s signature.
With California among the states that prohibit marriage under 18 without exceptions, attention is now on the remaining states where minors can still legally marry under certain circumstances.
The state laws and standards for marriage vary widely in the US and the legal age of the marriage is a different one for each state.
