Too young to say 'I do'?

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: NATIONAL - Early marriage law

Underage teens can still get married in most states. But some lawmakers and advocacy groups are trying to change that.

Skyler was 16 years old when her mother and stepfather marched her into a courthouse in Maryland and forced her to marry a 34-year-old man she'd met only once.

She had tried to object--throwing a fit and locking herself in her room. But her abusive parents wanted her out of the house.

"I was praying to myself, Please let someone stop this. Let someone call the police. He's a grown adult, isn't this obvious?" Skyler* recalls of her courthouse wedding in 2009.

After her mother signed the papers in front of a court clerk, Skyler found herself married at age 16.

Forced marriages of underage girls like Skyler are possible only because of marriage laws that human rights groups have been pushing to change. Most states permit 16- and 17-year-olds to marry in some cases, and more than two dozen states set no minimum age at all (see map).

Now, several states are considering changes. New Jersey passed a bill in March that prohibits all marriages under age 18; at press time, it awaited Governor Chris Christie's signature. And California, Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas are considering similar bills. New Hampshire recently debated raising the marriage age from 13 but rejected the idea.

More Than 167,000 Marriages

From 2000 to 2010, more than 167,000 children--mostly girls and some as young as 12--were married in the U.S., according to Unchained at Last, a nonprofit group working to end child marriage. That's just in the 38 states that provided them with data; 12 states and the District of Columbia didn't supply data, so the group estimates the total could be close to 248,000. Most of these marriages were to men 18 or older.

Laws permitting underage marriage have remained on the books for a number of reasons. In some states, lawmakers are hesitant to interfere with cultural or religious traditions in which early marriage is common. Others worry that increasing the marriage age would prevent young soldiers from marrying their partners in order to provide military benefits like health insurance to them and their children. And some are concerned that prohibiting minors from marrying would lead to more single-parent households.

"If we pass this, we will ensure forever that every child born to a minor will be born out of wedlock," New Hampshire lawmaker David Bates told the Concord Monitor about the recent...