California moves to outlaw child marriage with bill headed to Newsom's desk

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Set us as preferred A decade-long fight to outlaw child marriage in California is nearly at an end.A bi-partisan bill that makes it illegal to issue marriage licenses to anyone under 18 cleared the state Assembly on Wednesday, drawing cheers from supporters who said the measure was a long overdue fix to an “archaic” piece of California law.“The issue has evolved now because we have better stories, we have better data.

We have a growing national movement … marriage is really something that can be reserved for consenting adults,” said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin (D-Santa Cruz).The bill — whose chief authors include Republican Assemblywoman Diane Dixon and Democrats Caroline Menjivar and Cottie Petrie-Norris — glided through the state Senate and Assembly without major opposition.

It now heads to Gov.Gavin Newsom’s desk.

Until the bill is signed into law, California remains one of three states in the U.S.without a minimum age to get married or enter into a domestic partnership.

While the state has guardrails on the marriage process for minors, requiring them to gain judicial approval and the consent of at least one parent before receiving a license, advocates say children can still be easily pressured to wed by their parents or religious groups.“All we’re doing with any judicial review process ...

is putting the onus on a terrified child,” said Fraidy Reiss, the founder and executive director of Unchained At Last, an advocacy group working on legislation to end child marriage across the U.S.There were 88 marriage licenses issued in California where at least one party was a minor between 2019 and 2025, according to data collected by the state Department of Public Health.Some of those marriages involved weddings between girls as young as 15 and men in their 30s, according to a Senate analysis of the bill....