California is currently one of only three states in the country — alongside Mississippi and New Mexico — that sets no minimum age at all for marriage, allowing a child of any age to be legally wed as long as a parent or guardian signs off. A bill designed to close that loophole for good just cleared a major hurdle in Sacramento, passing the state Senate on a unanimous 38-0 vote this past Wednesday.
Assembly Bill 1267, authored by Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, would eliminate every legal exception that currently allows minors to marry in California, according to California State Assembly records. The bill now heads back to the Assembly for final concurrence before it can reach Governor Gavin Newsom's desk. As CBS News reported, California currently allows children of any age to marry with a parent or guardian's approval, a policy that has drawn scrutiny for years as advocates pushed to finally establish a hard age floor of 18.
If AB 1267 becomes law, California would join a growing list of states that have already banned the practice outright. Seventeen states and Washington, D.C. now have complete bans on marriage under 18 with zero exceptions, while 33 states, including California currently, still allow some form of parental consent or judicial approval exception, per KFI AM 640.
A Decade-Long Fight Since a Watered-Down 2018 Compromise
This is not California's first attempt to address the issue. Senate Bill 273 in 2018 originally aimed for an outright ban but was scaled back after pushback from civil rights groups, according to the California Senate Health Committee. Instead of setting a minimum age, that law mandated premarital counseling and private interviews for minors seeking to marry, leaving the door open for marriages to continue without an age floor.
The scale of the issue is significant. An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the advocacy organization Unchained At Last estimated that roughly 35,000 minors were married in California between 2000 and 2021, with the vast majority of those cases involving underage girls wed to adult men, the same report notes. Nationally, the organization's research found more than 314,000 minor marriages occurred across the country during that same period.
Survivor and celebrity advocate Courtney Stodden, who married a 51-year-old actor at age 16 in 2011 with parental consent, personally lobbied lawmakers in Sacramento this year to push AB 1267 toward passage, as reported by SFist. Stodden's case has long served as a high-profile example of how the state's parental consent exception has functioned in practice. Hoodline previously covered survivors demonstrating in Sacramento to demand lawmakers act, in a story titled ex-child brides confront Sacramento earlier this year.
Why Advocates Say Marriage Traps Minors in Place
Beyond the marriage itself, current law creates a legal bind for minors once wed. Under California law, a valid marriage license serves as an exception to statutory rape statutes, protecting an adult spouse from prosecution for sexual conduct with a minor that would otherwise be a crime, since the age of sexual consent in the state is 18 without exception outside of legal marriage, per the California Senate Health Committee.
Married minors also face steep administrative barriers if they want out. Individuals under 18 lack legal standing to independently hire an attorney, file for divorce, or enter a domestic violence shelter without adult consent, according to Human Trafficking Search. That combination of legal protections for adult spouses and legal powerlessness for minor spouses has been central to advocates' argument that the current system can trap young people rather than protect them.
Opponents Warn of Unintended Consequences
Not everyone supports a zero-exception approach. ACLU California Action has emerged as the primary organization opposing AB 1267, arguing in committee filings that an absolute prohibition unduly infringes on fundamental marriage rights and risks driving minors in difficult domestic situations further underground, KFI AM 640 reported. The group has historically resisted total bans on the grounds that they could disempower mature minors or pregnant teenagers navigating already complicated circumstances.
Lawmakers accepted amendments addressing some of those concerns before the bill's Senate passage. Under the amended language, any minor marriage performed on or after January 1, 2027, would be legally prohibited but voidable at the option of the person who married as a minor, rather than automatically void, according to the California Senate Health Committee. The bill would also repeal a 2020 requirement directing the State Registrar to compile and publish annual statewide reports tracking minor marriage certificates issued across California counties, per Digital Democracy.
With the Senate's unanimous vote behind it, AB 1267 now awaits final concurrence in the Assembly before it can land on Governor Newsom's desk. If signed, California would shift from having no statutory minimum age for marriage to standing alongside the 17 other states that mandate a strict marriage age of 18 with no exceptions.
