California Legal Age to Get Married

For Tyree, the damage of her child marriage has already been done. At the age of 15, she had two children and dropped out of school. She left her husband at the age of 16, but could not get a judge to sign the divorce or give her custody of her children until she was 18 because she was considered to be of legal age at the time, she said. She has struggled with homelessness and substance use for years. Now, decades later, she suffers from PTSD and an anxiety disorder, she said. Some survivors married in California, and others did so outside the state, especially in the U.S. Midwest, Acheson said. Some got married abroad. The study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, found that the vast majority of married minors across the country were girls married to older men (on average four years older). Most were 16 or 17 years old, but more than 9,000 marriages involved children under the age of 16. These included 1,233 children aged 14, 78 aged 13 and five children aged 10. In a statement opposing the proposed ban, the ACLU said California already has enough legal and policy safeguards in place to protect teens from abuse, and that the data did not indicate that forced underage marriage was a widespread problem. The adoption of the ban on marriages by minors could push young people who are already in abusive relationships further underground, and parents who want to force minor children to marry could simply resort to unofficial ceremonies – away from judicial review.

In addition, the removal of the option, before the 18th. To prevent young people who want to get married from doing so, the organization said. Still, shelters and domestic violence services often struggle to help married minors, especially if they have children, Acheson said. Animal shelters generally accept adults with children, but not children with their own children, she explained. Youth homes are usually for homeless minors and are not for those fleeing child marriage, she added. In addition, shelters are required to call a legal guardian or child protection services about unaccompanied minors, which can be frightening for young people trying to escape an abusive husband or forced parents. State laws that regulate age limits for marriage are generally similar, although California is one of the few states where there is no minimum age for marriage. However, minors (under the age of 18) must obtain both parental consent and a court order before they can legally marry.

Although couples rarely marry before reaching the age of majority, it is mainly intended to allow pregnant minors to marry. In addition to obtaining parental consent to marry, anyone under the age of 18 must also consult a prenuptial counselor, appear before a judge, provide copies of your birth certificate, and even have a parent to accompany you when you apply for your marriage certificate. Requirements for parental consent (and the presence of a parent when obtaining a licence) may be waived if the parent has left the family, is outside the country or is no longer alive. However, children can easily be forced to marry before they turn 18 and become legal adults because they face overwhelming legal and practical obstacles when trying to leave the home, enter a shelter for victims of domestic violence, hire a lawyer, or take legal action. Parental “consent” does not reduce this danger: when a child is forced to marry, the perpetrators are almost always the parents. Geneviève Meyer, 41, also spent years freeing herself at the age of 15 from a forced marriage with a man nearly three decades older than her. The man lived in the same trailer park as his family in Yucaipa, California, and befriended her, although Meyer now believes he groomed her for sex. When her mother and stepfather discovered the relationship, they pushed her to get married. She left the man at the age of 19, but she faced emotional and legal consequences over the next two decades, including a custody battle for her daughter, she said.

A spokesman for the Registrar`s Office said there were no underage marriages in Los Angeles County in 2019. But he didn`t provide figures after 2019, and he said they don`t track the age of those who are married as minors. Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, and its inhabitants are U.S. citizens. In Puerto Rico, the general age of marriage was 21, as it was the age of majority. The general age of marriage in Puerto Rico is 21 or 18 years with parental consent. [35] In Guam, the general age is 18, but 16-year-olds can marry with the consent of at least one parent or guardian. [36] In American Samoa, the age of marriage has been 18 for both sexes since September 2018. Previously, the age of marriage for women was 14. [37] American Samoa does not allow marriages to minors. In the District of Columbia, the general age is 18, but 16-year-olds can marry with exceptions. [35] In the U.S.

Virgin Islands, the age of marriage is 14 for women and 16 for men. [38] In the Northern Mariana Islands, men must be 18 years of age in order to marry, while women can marry at the age of 16 with the consent of their parents. [39] The man, a family friend, was supposed to keep Tyree at home in San Pablo, California, while she was finishing her sixth year, and her parents moved to Texas to start a business. Instead, the man repeatedly raped her and eventually fertilized her, Tyree said. When they found out, his parents and the family friend, who probably knew they could have legal consequences, convinced Tyree that marriage was the solution. “This is a form of exploitation of children,” she said. “Our assumption as a society is that this is not a U.S. problem, we don`t tolerate children getting married. But in reality, it happens all the time. In the last 15 years, about 200,000 minors have married.

Marriage of minors is not permitted in the United States unless there are exceptional circumstances, including the consent of a clerk or judge, the consent of the minor`s parents or guardians, if one of the parties is pregnant or has given birth to a child, or if the minor is emancipated. New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware do not allow the marriage of minors in exceptional circumstances. Tyree`s case was a clear example of a statistic that Nashashibi often cites – that half of child marriages are initiated to cover an underlying crime such as legal rape, since sex is only legal between a minor and an adult when they are married.