California has no minimum marriage age.
Let me say that again because it deserves to be said twice.
California, the state that likes to call itself the most progressive place in America, has no minimum marriage age.
A ten-year-old could be married here. An eight-year-old. A child who still believes in the tooth fairy could be walked down an aisle by her father and handed over to a man three times her age with the full blessing of the state. That’s not a loophole. That’s an open door to child abuse with a judge’s signature on it.
We’ve known about this for years. Previous bills tried to fix it. They got watered down or killed. The legislature had chances to set a hard floor at eighteen and chose not to. Every year without a minimum age is a year California sanctions the marriage of children. The state’s inaction isn’t neutral. It’s complicity.
Assembly Bill 1267 is supposed to change this. Authored by Assemblymember Pellerin, it would prohibit marriage for anyone under eighteen. No exceptions. No judicial bypass. No parental consent workaround. Eighteen means eighteen. The bill passed the Assembly 66-8. It’s cleared Senate committees. But as of right now, it’s being amended and re-referred to committee in the Senate, which means the fight isn’t over. The version that passed the Assembly sets eighteen as the minimum with no exceptions. That’s the version that needs to become law. Any amendment that creates loopholes or judicial bypasses undermines the entire purpose.
Let me explain what the current law actually does. Right now, an unmarried person under eighteen can marry if they get a court order and written consent from at least one parent or guardian. The court can require premarital counseling. That sounds like oversight. It isn’t. Judges rubber-stamp these petitions. Parents use consent to force marriages. The protections are theater. The result is children, mostly girls, married to adult men, often much older men, with the full backing of the state.
Between 2000 and 2018, over 300,000 minors were married in the United States. In California alone, thousands of marriage licenses were issued to minors during that period. The vast majority were girls. The vast majority married adult men. Some were as young as fourteen. Some younger. And California didn’t even systematically track the ages of minors being married until recently. The state was literally not counting the children it was allowing to be wed. Without data, the scope of the problem stays hidden. Without visibility, accountability is impossible.
Now let’s talk about why this is so disgusting, because the grossness goes deeper than most people realize.
It legalizes statutory rape. An adult man who has sex with a fourteen-year-old commits a felony. That same man can marry that fourteen-year-old with a judge’s signature and suddenly the sex is legal.
The marriage license becomes a get-out-of-jail-free card for child rape.
Prosecutors drop charges. Judges dismiss cases. The marriage license functions as a retroactive consent form that the law doesn’t allow minors to give. This creates a perverse incentive. An adult who impregnates a minor can avoid prosecution by marrying her. The crime is erased. The victim is silenced. The state provides the eraser.
And that brings us to the pregnancy factor, which is the most insidious argument for child marriage.
A minor gets pregnant.
The solution is marriage.
But think about what actually happened. A pregnant fifteen-year-old was impregnated by an adult. That’s statutory rape. That’s a felony. But instead of prosecuting the rapist, the state sanctions the relationship with a marriage license. The pregnancy isn’t a reason to allow marriage. The pregnancy is evidence of a crime that marriage erases. The shotgun wedding mentality treats pregnancy as a problem that marriage solves. It doesn’t. It creates a new problem: a child bound to her abuser with the state’s blessing.
California law already allows minors to consent to medical care related to pregnancy without parental involvement. A pregnant minor can access prenatal care, abortion, and reproductive healthcare on their own. They don’t need a husband to get healthcare. They need protection from the man who impregnated them.
Parental consent is often parental coercion. When a parent forces a child to marry, that’s not consent. That’s trafficking. But the law treats it as legitimate because a parent signed a form. Child marriage can function as legalized trafficking. Parents who force their children to marry are trafficking those children. The marriage license provides cover. The state sanctions the transfer.
Children cannot meaningfully consent to marriage. A fifteen-year-old can’t sign a lease. Can’t open a credit card. Can’t vote. Can’t drink. Can’t get a tattoo. But can enter a legal contract that fundamentally alters their life, limits their freedom, and creates economic dependency? That inconsistency exists to serve adults who want access to children.
And here’s what nobody talks about. A minor who enters marriage faces massive barriers to leaving it. In many states, minors can’t file for divorce on their own. They need a parent or guardian to file on their behalf. But if the parent forced the marriage in the first place, they’re not going to help dissolve it. If the minor is estranged from family, they have no one to file for them. Domestic violence shelters often won’t accept unaccompanied minors. Legal aid services may not represent minors without a guardian. The court system treats minors as incompetent to manage their own legal affairs, except apparently when it comes to entering a marriage that makes them incompetent to leave it. The marriage becomes a cage with no exit.
Married minors frequently drop out of school. They become economically dependent on their spouse. They lack the education, skills, and resources to support themselves. The age gap ensures the power gap. This isn’t partnership. It’s dependency designed to prevent escape. Child brides face dramatically higher rates of domestic violence than women who marry as adults. The power imbalance inherent in the age gap creates vulnerability. The minor lacks the legal, economic, and social resources to leave. The abuser knows this.
The emancipation loophole makes it worse. Current law allows emancipated minors to marry. But emancipation can be sought for the purpose of marriage, creating circular logic. The minor seeks emancipation to marry. The marriage is then allowed because the minor is emancipated. The emancipation exists to enable the marriage. The marriage exists because the emancipation enabled it. Neither protects the child.
The opposition to ending child marriage comes from predictable corners. Religious fundamentalists who believe marriage is sacred and the state shouldn’t interfere with family decisions, which means the state shouldn’t interfere with men marrying girls. Cultural traditionalists who argue that arranged marriage is a cultural practice that must be respected, which means cultural relativism should override children’s rights. Parental rights advocates who believe parents should have ultimate authority over their children’s lives, which means parents should be able to sell their daughters into marriage. Libertarians who see any age restriction as government overreach, which means the government shouldn’t tell anyone what they can do, even if what they’re doing is marrying a child. These arguments all share one thing: they center adult desires over child protection.
And then there’s the false religious freedom argument. Religious freedom doesn’t include the right to marry children. The First Amendment protects belief. It does not protect practices that harm children. Polygamy is illegal despite religious justification. So is female genital mutilation. Child marriage belongs in the same category: religious practice that violates fundamental rights and can’t be tolerated.
The mature minor fallacy needs to die too. Some argue that certain minors are mature enough to make marriage decisions. But maturity isn’t legal capacity. The law sets bright lines for a reason. Minors can’t sign contracts, join the military, or vote because society recognizes they lack the judgment and experience for those decisions. Marriage is the most consequential contract of all.
The judicial bypass is supposed to be a safeguard. Picture this instead. A girl standing in a courtroom. Maybe she’s fifteen. Maybe she’s thirteen. She doesn’t want this marriage. She doesn’t know how to say no to her parents. She doesn’t know how to say no to a judge. The judge doesn’t ask if she wants this. The judge asks if her parents consent. The judge asks if premarital counseling was completed. The judge doesn’t ask the only question that matters: is anyone forcing you to do this? A rubber stamp on a life sentence. That’s the judicial bypass. That’s the safeguard that isn’t.
California is behind on this, and I don’t want to hear about progressive leadership until we catch up. Delaware became the first state to end child marriage with no exceptions in 2018. New Jersey followed. Pennsylvania. Minnesota. Connecticut. More than a dozen states have now set eighteen as the hard floor with no loopholes. The United Nations recognizes child marriage as a human rights violation. The UN Sustainable Development Goals include ending child marriage globally. California, which positions itself as a progressive leader, is failing to meet basic international human rights standards on the most fundamental protection imaginable: the right of a child not to be married.
And let’s talk about those eight Assembly members who voted against prohibiting child marriage. Eight people looked at a bill that says children can’t be married and thought, I oppose this. Who are they? What are their arguments? The public deserves to know. Because anyone who votes against ending child marriage is voting for child marriage. There is no neutral position here.
The what-about arguments are distractions. What about pregnant teenagers? A pregnant teenager needs healthcare, education, and support. Not a marriage license that ties her to the adult man who impregnated her. What about young couples in love? They can wait until they’re eighteen. If the love is real, it’ll survive two years. What about military exceptions? The military doesn’t require marriage for service. Every what-about is a defense of adults who want to marry children dressed up as concern for the children themselves.
This is about children. Real children. Girls who were told they had to marry men their father’s age. Girls who were pulled out of school. Girls who were forced into pregnancy before their bodies were ready. Girls who were told this was normal, this was expected, this was their duty. The trauma of forced marriage. The loss of childhood. The psychological manipulation. The isolation from peers. The long-term mental health consequences. These aren’t abstract concerns. They’re documented outcomes.
California sanctioned all of that. The state put its stamp on those marriages and called them legal.
AB 1267 is a chance to stop it. Not partially. Not with loopholes. Completely. No exceptions. That’s the key. Previous attempts to reform child marriage laws left loopholes. Judicial bypass. Parental consent. Emancipation workarounds. The loopholes became the avenues through which child marriage continued. AB 1267 closes them all. Eighteen means eighteen. No judge can override it. No parent can consent around it. No loophole can circumvent it. That’s the only approach that works. Anything less leaves the door open.
The bill is being amended right now in the Senate. That means the fight isn’t over. The version that passed the Assembly sets eighteen as the minimum with no exceptions. That’s the version that needs to become law. Any amendment that weakens it is a gift to the people who want to keep marrying children. Contact the Senate Judiciary Committee. Find your state senator. Tell them no exceptions. Tell them eighteen means eighteen. Tell them California’s children deserve better than a state that sanctions their abuse.
Because right now, that’s what we have. A state that sanctions the marriage of children. A state that provides legal cover for statutory rape. A state that traps minors in marriages they can’t escape. A state that calls itself progressive while trailing a dozen other states on the most basic human rights protection imaginable.
No more.
Eighteen means eighteen.
No exceptions. No loopholes. No excuses.
No children walked down aisles they never chose to walk. No girls handed over to men who should be in prison instead of wedding chapels. No more rubber stamps on life sentences.
The state of California has been in the child marriage business for too long.
It’s time to shut it down.
To comment please go to one of these social media platforms:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DavisVanguard
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peoples-vanguard-of-davis-inc/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davisvanguard/
X: https://x.com/davisvanguard
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/vanguardnewsgroup.bsky.social
Subscribe to the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
