California has officially banned child marriage, with Governor Gavin Newsom signing legislation to end the practice that is still legal in 32 US states.
The new law, which will come into effect on 1 January, states people must be 18 to get married in the Golden State.
Newsom called it a “long overdue measure to protect young Californians and minors”. He signed the bill into law with Courtney Stodden, whose parents allowed her to marry a 50-year-old Hollywood actor when she was just 16.
Weird how the USA has so much in common with countries like Saudi Arabia, yemen, Somalia
Map of places where a judge can OK a marriage. I’m not saying the USA is good, but Europe has plenty of spots wheee you can technically marry as a 16 year old (or less). Worldwide problem.
Yeah, marriage at 16 with parental consent is pretty commonly allowed throughout the world.
From Wikipedia:
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Oklahoma do not allow underage marriage. The other states allow an underage person to marry in the following circumstances:
If one or more of the following apply:
- consent of the parents or legal guardians of the >minor
- consent of a court clerk or judge
- if the minor is emancipated.
Or in exceptional circumstances if one or more of the following circumstances apply:
- consent of a superior court judge, rather than a local judge, is required
- if one of the parties is pregnant
- if the minor has given birth to a child
Basically, in these places, there’s a loophole where offenders can marry their rape victims after the fact to make it look proper for the church or something. That and also allow parents or guardians to sell minors into arranged marriages.
I wonder if anyone was dumb enough to oppose this ban and if so we should list them.
https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/09/california-child-marriage/
Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU are pro-child marriage and they spend big to keep it legal.
Children have a right to marry, the ACLU argues, and stripping them of that right would take away a pathway to their emancipation and independent healthcare decisions. For Planned Parenthood, the freedom for children to marry is about allowing people reproductive choice and bodily autonomy.
But their efforts have repeatedly failed in California, where Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have lobbied hard against restricting child marriage, although those groups have largely stayed silent on the issue in other Democratic-controlled states.
In a June opposition letter, the organization wrote, “Prohibiting minors from marrying in every case is a departure from California’s longstanding commitment to honoring minors’ ability to make important personal decisions for themselves, particularly in the realm of reproductive autonomy.”
These two organizations are entirely misled and spreading misleading information on this issue and are harming kids (vast majority are young girls) with that rhetoric above. Emancipation and reproductive autonomy should not be tied to marriage in the first place.
