California Bans Child Marriage, But It’s Still Legal in 32 States

California is now the 18th state to set 18 as the minimum marriage age, but most of the country still lets minors marry with no age regulation.

California has officially ended child marriage. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1267 on Wednesday, September 30, banning marriage for anyone under 18. The law takes effect January 1, 2027, and makes California the 18th state to ban the practice outright. Thirty-two states still allow marriage before 18 under at least some circumstances.

What the New Law Changes

Until now, California had no absolute minimum marriage age. A minor could get a license with written consent from at least one parent or guardian and approval from a judge. AB 1267 removes that pathway entirely.

Newsom also signed a companion bill, AB 2534, which lets children and adults facing forced marriage seek court protection. He called the ban a long-overdue measure to protect young Californians and minors.

Who Is the Youngest Person Ever to Marry in California?

Nobody knows, and that’s part of the problem.

For decades, California had no minimum age at all. In theory, a child of any age could marry as long as a parent signed off and a judge approved it. In practice, the state didn’t even track how many minors were getting married until 2019, so there is no public record of the youngest legal bride or groom.

What the records do show is more modest. The state’s official count for 2022 found that all nine minors who married that year were 16 or 17, and the biggest age gap was between a 17-year-old and a 23-year-old.

For a sense of how young it can get elsewhere in the U.S., a Frontline and Unchained At Last review of marriage records found three 10-year-old girls who married adult men in Tennessee in 2001. Researchers also found 12-year-old brides in Alaska, Louisiana and South Carolina. Those cases happened in other states, but they show what a law with no age floor, or a weak one, can allow.

How California Got Here: A Decade-Long Fight

Before 2019: A Form and a Signature

For years, getting a court’s permission to marry as a minor was surprisingly casual. The main step was a one-page court form with the couple’s names, birth dates and proof of a parent’s permission. Some counties added their own screening, such as Sacramento’s, but statewide there was no tracking. Counties that did keep numbers reported anywhere from one or two petitions a year to Los Angeles County’s roughly 44 over five years.

2017 to 2018: The Bill That Got Watered Down

A 2017 attempt to change California’s child marriage laws was killed by Democrats. In 2018, lawmakers passed SB 273, which started out as an effort to ban the practice but was scaled back after pushback from civil rights groups. The final version added private interviews with each person and a parent, a report on possible coercion, a private conversation with a judge, and a 30-day wait. Advocates called it far too weak. It did not set a minimum age.

2021 to 2024: Bills That Died Quietly

A 2021 bill to improve tracking died in committee. A 2023 bill to make it a misdemeanor to perform a marriage for a minor without a court order was held up in the Assembly. In 2024, Sen. Wahab’s SB 575 was gutted just before a hearing, going from a full ban to a data-collection bill. A separate 2024 ban, AB 2924, died without even getting a hearing. Opponents argued, among other things, that a ban could threaten minors’ reproductive rights and that the data on child marriage in California wasn’t reliable.

2025 to 2026: The Push That Worked

AB 1267, authored by Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, was introduced in February 2025. It passed the Assembly 66 to 8 in June 2025, with the eight no votes coming from Republicans. It then passed the Senate 38 to 0 on August 19, 2026. A coalition of roughly 30 groups, survivors and advocates, including Chelsea Clinton, backed the effort, and 38 lawmakers from both parties and both chambers signed on as coauthors. Courtney Stodden lobbied lawmakers in Sacramento this year, then stood beside Newsom at the signing.

The Survivor at the Signing

Stodden married an actor more than three decades older than her when she was 16, with her parents’ consent. She has described the relationship as abusive and predatory, and she later became an advocate against child marriage. She says she will keep fighting until children are protected from marriage in all 50 states.

Brittany Bee, a former child bride who also campaigned for the law, told the BBC that California has sent a clear message to the world.

Child Marriage in California, by the Numbers: Why the Data Is So Messy

How many minors actually marry in California depends entirely on who you ask, and the gap is enormous.

• The official count is tiny. The State Registrar recorded 17 minors married in 2019, 11 in 2020, 11 in 2021 and 9 in 2022. Those figures cover only court-approved marriages that were recorded, and they may be undercounts.
• The advocates’ estimates are far higher. Unchained At Last estimates roughly 35,000 marriages involving a minor in California between 2000 and 2021. Its analysis of Census Bureau survey data put the number of 15-to-17-year-olds reporting a marriage in the previous year at about 8,000 to 8,800 annually from 2017 to 2021. That is the source of the figure often cited as roughly 9,000 a year.
• Why the gap? A Senate Judiciary Committee analysis noted that survey numbers can include couples married in other states or countries, minors who married each other and were counted twice, and extralegal “marriages” held through religious or cultural ceremonies with no state paperwork. Opponents of the ban say this is exactly why a legal ban might not reach the hardest cases. Supporters say it shows how much goes unseen.
• Nationally: Frontline and Unchained At Last counted 207,459 minors married across the country from 2000 to 2015. Almost 90% were girls and only 14% married other minors. Marriages involving minors were most common in rural states like Idaho, Kentucky and West Virginia.

The takeaway: The official numbers are small and the advocacy estimates are large, and neither tells the whole story. That is one reason this fight took so long.

The Legal Loophole Advocates Point To

California’s statutory rape law exempts sexual intercourse between spouses. Advocates argue that this means marriage can turn conduct that would otherwise be a crime into something legal, which is one reason they want child marriage ended everywhere.

Not Everyone Agreed

The ban wasn’t universally supported. ACLU California Action and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California opposed earlier versions, arguing that an outright ban could push young people in abusive situations further underground and out of reach of social services. The National Center for Youth Law and the Children’s Law Center of California raised similar concerns, including the worry that a ban could remove emancipation as one of the few pathways out of foster care. Supporters counter that emancipation through marriage comes too late, changing a child’s legal status only after the marriage and still without full adult rights.

Where the Rest of the Country Stands

About a decade ago, child marriage was legal in every U.S. state, and California is the 18th to ban it since 2018. Advocates say many Americans don’t even know it’s still legal in so many places.

Equality Now says California’s size could matter. As the most populous state, its ban sends a strong message to the 32 states that still allow it, and the group noted that it took California nearly a decade to get here.

What Happens Next

Nothing changes until January 1, 2027. After that date, no one under 18 can legally marry in California, with no exceptions for parental or judicial consent.

Sources: BBC (via Yahoo), WION, Law Commentary, Equality Now, Washington Times, LA Magazine, California Senate Judiciary Committee analyses of SB 575 and AB 1267, PBS Frontline, Unchained At Last.

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