How Young Is Too Young?

• Author: McCann, Meghan
• Position: TRENDS - Legal age of marriage - Brief article

From driving to drinking, it's been up to state legislatures to set legal age minimums. Currently, the focus is on raising the legal age of marriage. Since 2016, legislators in nearly half the states have been asking, "How old should you be before saying 'I do'?"

Delaware became the first state to bar anyone younger than 18 from getting married. Before lawmakers passed the bill, all that was needed for minors to wed was a judge's approval. A few other legislatures have considered absolute bans like Delaware's. New Jersey passed one, but the governor vetoed it, and Pennsylvania and Vermont have bans pending.

Proponents of raising the minimum age believe more needs to be done to protect some children who, they say, are being pushed into abusive marriages at young ages. Unchained at Last, an advocacy group working to end child marriages, estimates that about 200,000 minors in the United States were married between 2000 and 2015.

Opponents to changing current laws argue that absolute bans are too constricting. Their concerns include blocking young soldiers from marrying and providing military benefits to their families and possibly violating the cultures and...