To restrict child marriage, North Carolina lawmakers unanimously voted to raise the legal age of marriage in the state from 14 to 16.
The legislation, passed by the state Senate on Tuesday afternoon, August 17, and by the House last week, bars children under the age of 16 from getting married and requires an age gap of four years or smaller between a 16- or 17-year-old and the person they marry.
The bill will now be sent to North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper for assent.
Current law has no minimum age gap between the spouses, and children as young as 14 can get married if they become pregnant and if a judge allows it. Parental permission has otherwise been required beginning at 16.
House and Senate legislators joined women’s rights advocates and child protection groups this year to raise the marriage age.
They had tried to raise it to 18 with no exceptions, but some lawmakers remained comfortable keeping certain marriages involving a child or two youths as an option.
“While the legislation falls short of raising the age of marriage to 18, the governor supports this step toward ending child marriage in North Carolina and more protections for children,” Cooper spokesperson Mary Scott Winstead wrote in an email.
With adjoining states raising the minimum to 16 or 17 in recent years, North Carolina has become a destination locale for out-of-state couples in which one marriage applicant is a minor, officials and bill advocates said.
Child marriage is currently legal in 44 states.
Meanwhile, Wikipedia states different marriage ages in the 50 states. One state has a minimum age of 12 years old for females and 14 years old for males: Massachusetts; two states have a minimum age of 14: Alaska, and Vermont; 4 states have a minimum age of 15: Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, and Utah; 1 state has a minimum age of 15 for females and 17 for males: Mississippi.
In fact, 22 states have a minimum age of 16; 10 states have a minimum age of 17; 4 states have no official minimum age, but still require either parental consent, court approval or both: California, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Wyoming and 6 states have a minimum age of 18.
However, Delaware, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island have set the minimum age at 18 and eliminated all exceptions, and 20 U.S. states do not require any minimum age for marriage, with a parental or judicial waiver.
