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Shine a light on child marriage in America

Kincaid for Congress


"In the absence of light darkness prevails." -- Hellboy (2004)

That line has stayed with me for twenty years. Because it describes exactly how the worst kinds of harm survive.  Not in plain view. But in the places most people never think to look. Few injustices in this country prove it better than child marriage.

Most Americans believe child marriage is something that happens somewhere else in other countries, in other centuries. It is happening here. It is happening now. And in most of the country  it is perfectly legal.

The rest of the democratic world is moving. Colombia banned marriage under 18 outright in 2024.  No exceptions for pregnancy and no exceptions for parental consent. In 2023  the United Nations Human Rights Committee formally urged the United States to set 18 as the minimum marriage age in every state with no exceptions. We have not kept pace with our own allies  or with our own stated values.

The numbers are not ambiguous. According to Unchained At Last. Roughly 300,000 children were legally married in the United States between 2000 and 2021.  The overwhelming majority of them girls married to adult men. Some as young as ten. Nearly 8,700 spousal and fiance visa petitions involving a minor . Were processed by U.S. immigration authorities between 2007 and 2017.  Some involving brides as young as 13 married to adult U.S. citizens.

Here is where it stands today. As of 2026 only about 17 states have eliminated child marriage entirely by setting 18 as the floor with no exceptions. That means it remains legal in roughly 33 states  and a handful.  Including California set no minimum age at all . Permitting a child of any age to be married with the right signatures. Washington my own state. Did the right thing in 2024 and banned it without exception. I am proud of that. But a Washington child is only as protected as the weakest law in the country. Because a marriage that is legal where it is performed is generally recognized everywhere else. And through our immigration system.  Recognized when it is performed abroad. That is why this cannot be left to the states alone.

I know some women reading this married before 18. Or have a mother or grandmother who did and built a good life. That history is real and it deserves respect. This is not a judgment of anyone's past. It is a decision about every child's future . And looking forward. No child should be married before 18. Eighteen gives a young person the fullest possible claim to her own education and her own autonomy. And a future she actually chooses. We have the power to guarantee that. We should use it.

It is time to stop looking away. It is time to shine a light.

Why Child Marriage Is Not Just Wrong -- It Is a Trap

Child marriage is not a wedding. In the states that still permit it. It is a legal instrument that hands an adult near total control over a child's life. Before the law is willing to recognize that child as a person with rights. And it does so with the full blessing of the state.

Consider what the paperwork actually does. In many states sexual conduct within marriage is treated differently under the law than the identical conduct outside it. And a number of states still retain marital exemptions in their sexual offense statutes. In practice that can mean a marriage license functions as a shield. Converting conduct that would otherwise be charged as statutory rape into something the state declines to prosecute.

Then the trap closes. In much of the country a married minor:

  • cannot file for divorce on her own until she turns 18. Because she is still a minor for the purpose of bringing a lawsuit.
  • may be turned away from a domestic violence shelter.  Because shelters often cannot house an unaccompanied minor .
  • may be unable to obtain a protective order in her own name  and .
  • is treated as a runaway if she flees  not as a victim. But as a child to be located and returned to the very household she escaped.

So the law marries her as if she were an adult. Then denies her every adult tool she would need to get free. An abuser does not have to be subtle about exploiting that gap. He can spend the years before her eighteenth birthday isolating her. Controlling her and wearing down her sense of herself.  Knowing the courthouse door is closed to her until she ages into it.

This is not marriage. It is captivity with legal paperwork.

The principle ought to be simple enough to write into law in a single sentence. If a girl is too young to file for divorce, she is too young to be married.

Policy Statement: End Child Marriage, Restore Equal Protection

Equal protection under the law has to mean what it says  for everyone  without exception.

In much of the United States today it does not. Child marriage operates as a loophole that strips minors . The vast majority of them girls . Of protections the rest of us take for granted. The same minor who cannot sign a lease, open a bank account  or leave home without being classified as a runaway can. In many states can be placed into a marriage. And once she is. She is denied rights every other married person in America holds. The ability to divorce,  ability to enter a shelter and the ability to stand in court on her own behalf.

That is not freedom and it is not equality.

The United States should join the growing list of nations that recognize child marriage for what the rest of the world already calls it. A human rights violation. The minimum age of marriage should be 18 with no exceptions. To get there Congress and the state legislatures should:

  • Set 18 as the minimum marriage age, with no exceptions  no parental consent override, no judicial waiver, no pregnancy exception.
  • Guarantee that no minor already in a marriage is denied legal protection  including the right to seek a divorce and the right to access domestic violence services.
  • Treat the marriage of a child as a child protection matter not as a private cultural or parental prerogative.

The law should never be used to bind a child to adult obligations. While withholding from her the adult rights she would need to escape them.

Legal Argument: Child Marriage Presents a Serious Fourteenth Amendment Problem

To be clear about what follows. No court has yet struck down state child marriage laws on these grounds. This is the argument for why they should and why the better reading of the Fourteenth Amendment cannot be reconciled with the status quo.

I. The Right to Marry and to Exit a Marriage . Is Fundamental

The Supreme Court has held for more than half a century that marriage is among the most basic of civil rights. In Loving v. Virginia (1967). The Court treated the freedom to marry as fundamental. In Zablocki v. Redhail (1978) it held that a law significantly interfering with the decision to marry must withstand heightened scrutiny. And in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) still controlling law . The Court located the freedom of intimate and family choice at the core of the liberty the Fourteenth Amendment protects.

If the right to marry is fundamental. The right not to remain married against one's will cannot be a nullity. A child who is legally married but legally barred from seeking a divorce is held in a relationship she has no lawful means to leave. That is not a regulation of marriage. It is state enforced restraint and it deserves the most serious constitutional scrutiny.

II. Equal Protection: The Dual Classification Cannot Survive

This is the heart of the matter. States that permit child marriage treat a minor as an adult for the single purpose of entering the marriage. And as a child for every purpose that would let her protect herself within it.  Filing for divorce, obtaining a protective order, accessing a shelter, signing a lease or retaining a lawyer.

That contradiction produces a real measurable inequality. A married minor.  Unlike every other married person in the country. Is denied the legal tools to escape abuse, abandonment or coercion. The state has created a distinct and legally subordinate class of spouse defined by age.  And then withheld from that class the remedies it grants everyone else.

A classification has to be at least rational. It is difficult to articulate any legitimate state interest served by declaring a person adult enough to marry . But too much of a child to divorce. The arrangement is not merely unwise it is internally incoherent. And incoherence of that kind is the textbook failure of rational basis review. Before one even reaches the heightened scrutiny this situation warrants.

III. Sex Discrimination in Practice

Child marriage statutes are written in gender neutral language. But their real world burden falls almost entirely on girls. Where a facially neutral law operates in a sharply sex disparate way. The Equal Protection Clause's heightened standard for sex based classifications is implicated. Under United States v. Virginia (1996), the state must offer an "exceedingly persuasive justification" for a law that burdens women and girls in this way.

There is none on offer. Cultural tradition, parental preference, religious custom and teen pregnancy the usual rationales. Are not governmental interests sufficient to justify denying a class of girls access to the courts, shelter  and to equal legal standing. A justification that amounts to "this is how it has always been done" is precisely the kind the Court has rejected.

IV. Conclusion

Child marriage  as currently practiced under American law. Manufactures a subordinate class of married minors who are denied the rights afforded every other spouse. That is a simultaneous strain on the Equal Protection Clause. The liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause. And the Constitution's promise of equal treatment without regard to sex. The status quo is not neutral ground. It is an affirmative choice to leave children exposed.  And it is a choice the Fourteenth Amendment gives us every reason to reject.

Draft Legislation: Child Marriage Elimination Act of 2027

120th Congress -- 1st Session -- H.R. ___

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr. Kincaid of Washington introduced the following bill. Which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. And in addition the Committees on Education and the Workforce.  And on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity.  For a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker.  In each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

A BILL to protect minors from coerced and early marriage. To secure the constitutional rights of married minors and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Section 1. Short Title

This Act may be cited as the "Child Marriage Elimination Act of 2027" or the "No Exceptions Act."

Section 2. Findings

Congress finds the following:

  • Marriage is a civil contract that requires informed consent and legal capacity. Which the law generally presumes individuals under 18 do not possess.
  • Despite that presumption. Most states still permit marriage before 18 . Through exceptions for parental consent, judicial approval, emancipation or pregnancy. And a small number set no minimum age at all.
  • Between 2000 and 2021. An estimated 300,000 minors were legally married in the United States. The vast majority of them girls married to adult men and some as young as ten.
  • Married minors are routinely denied access to divorce. To protective orders and to domestic violence shelter services. Remedies available to every adult spouse. Leaving them in practice unable to leave abusive or coercive marriages until they reach the age of majority.
  • This pattern of denying married minors the legal protections afforded other spouses implicates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. And the disproportionate burden it places on girls implicates the constitutional prohibition on sex based discrimination.
  • Because a marriage valid where it is celebrated is widely recognized in other jurisdictions and through the immigration system. The absence of a uniform standard allows the weakest state and foreign laws to determine the protection available to children nationwide.

Section 3. Sense of Congress and National Standard

It is the policy of the United States that no individual under the age of 18 should enter into marriage. In any state, territory, possession or tribal jurisdiction.  Under any circumstance and without exception. Congress recognizes that the regulation of marriage is traditionally a matter of state law and accordingly secures this standard through the enforcement, spending and immigration mechanisms set forth below.

Section 4. Securing the Constitutional Rights of Married Minors (Section 5 Enforcement)

Pursuant to its power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment under Section 5 thereof.  Congress provides that no state shall deny to any married individual on the basis of that individual's age access to:

  • (1) the courts for the purpose of seeking dissolution of a marriage, legal separation, or annulment.
  • (2) a protective or restraining order in the individual's own name  or
  • (3) emergency shelter and domestic violence victim services for which the individual would otherwise qualify.

This section is a remedial measure addressed to a documented pattern of conduct that leaves married minors without the legal means to escape abuse.  And is intended to be congruent and proportional to that harm.

Section 5. Compliance and Funding Conditions (Spending Clause)

(a) Requirement. As a condition of receiving funds under the programs listed in subsection (b), each state shall, within 24 months of enactment, set 18 as the minimum age of marriage with no exceptions.

(b) Affected programs. This condition applies to the following grant programs. Each of which is reasonably related to the protection of minors from coercion and abuse:

  • (1) grants under the Violence Against Women Act
  • (2) Legal Assistance for Victims grants  and
  • (3) grants under the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act.

(c) Limitation. The condition in subsection (a) applies only to the programs enumerated in subsection (b). Nothing in this Act shall be construed to condition any state's receipt of funds under any program not so enumerated. And the financial inducement created by this section is not intended to exceed the bounds of permissible encouragement under the Spending Clause.

Section 6. Recognition of Marriage for Federal Immigration Purposes

Not withstanding any other provision of law. For purposes of the immigration and nationality laws of the United States. A marriage shall not be recognized and no petition predicated on such a marriage shall be approved.  If either party to the marriage was under the age of 18 at the time the marriage was entered into. Regardless of where the marriage was celebrated.

Section 7. Civil Enforcement

Any individual who is denied a right secured by Section 4 of this Act shall have a cause of action under section 1979 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 1983) and a court may award appropriate relief, including reasonable attorney's fees.

Section 8. Department of Justice Oversight

The Attorney General shall monitor state compliance with this Act and shall submit an annual report to Congress on implementation, enforcement actions  and any identified violations.

Section 9. Severability

If any provision of this Act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid. The remainder of the Act and its application to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected.

Section 10. Effective Date

This Act shall take effect 180 days after the date of enactment.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Learn More

Unchained At Last -- the leading U.S. organization working to end child and forced marriage and the source of much of the data above.

Janette was only 14, a Southern California ninth grader, when she was introduced to the 21-year-old man who would become her husband. "I know the truth now," she said years later, now an activist working to end child marriage. "She sold me." -- UNICEF USA


















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Location: Bellevue, WA, USA

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