New Hampshire is poised to become the next state to ban marriage to anyone under the age of 18.
A bill that would ban what is commonly referred to as “child marriage” passed Thursday in the New England state with a Democratic-led bipartisan 192 to 174 House vote.
The New Hampshire House of Representatives, the largest House chamber in the U.S., is currently made of 200 Republicans and 194 Democrats.
The New Hampshire Senate, made up of 14 Republicans and 10 Democrats, unanimously approved the bipartisan-supported bill in March.
Currently, only 12 states prohibit adults from marrying someone under the age of 18.
While most states have restricted the age a minor can be married to 16 and 17 years of age, seven states have no restrictions at all. In Kansas and Hawaii, the minimum age a minor can be married is 15. The restrictions also apply to minors marrying minors.
The age a minor can marry or be married in New Hampshire is currently 16.
During a floor debate ahead of the bill’s passage in New Hampshire, advocates for ending marriage to a minor argued that allowing it contradicts statutory rape laws and is a form of sex trafficking.
“Why would we want to put them in a position to be taken advantage of by manipulative, unsavory adults,” argued Rep. Peter Petrigno (D-Hillsboro). “The bottom line is children should not be getting married, period. There should be no exception.”
Lawmakers opposed to ending marriage to a minor argued that it should be allowed in cases of an unintended pregnancy, for emancipated minors or when parental consent is given.
In urging other lawmakers to vote against raising the age of consent to marry to 18 in New Hampshire, Rep. Margaret Drye (R-Sullivan) said during the hearing that “sometimes people who are not yet legal adults are drawn into adult situations” and that “exceptions can be life-changing in a good way.”
She cited two of her own family members who married when they were under 18 due to unintended pregnancies and that, in both cases, she said, the marriages worked out.
There are similar pending bills in other states to end marrying minors, including in California.
In Missouri, considered one of the more conservative states in the U.S., a Republican and Democrat put party line differences aside to sponsor a ban on all underage marriage with no exceptions.
“Clear and simple, child marriage is the legalization of child rape,” said Sen. Lauren Arthur (D-Kansas City) at a hearing last month on the proposal.
She co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder (R-Scott City), better known for her staunch pro-Second Amendment positions.
At the same hearing, the 54-year-old said she introduced the bill based on her own experiences of getting married at 15 to her then 21-year-old boyfriend.
“We did not understand that our long term prosperity absolutely was going to be hindered, roadblocked, because of these decisions,” said Ms. Rehder.
The Missouri bill was approved by the Senate and is now heading to the House.
Last month, Virginia became the first state in the South to ban underage marriage.
Last year, the heavily Republican state of West Virginia, which had the highest rate of underage marriages in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center, also adopted legislation banning marriage under the age of 18.
Before the law, seven out of every 1,000 children between the ages of 15 and 17 in West Virginia were married annually since 2014, the Pew Research Center reported.
Washington also recently passed legislation outlawing underage marriages altogether.
Some states that still allow child marriages have placed an age gap restriction on underage marriages. In Indiana, for example, the maximum gap is four years.
According to the National Coalition To End Child Marriage In the United States, about 300,000 children, some as young as 10, were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018. Most were girls wed to adult men, the group reported.
Globally, 12 million girls under the age of 18 are married each year, according to the United Nations. Of them, 12 percent were under the age of 15.
In a recent documentary on underage marriage in the U.S., one of many that have been produced on the subject, several American women described being forced by their parents into marrying adult men, some as young as 12. One of them was forced to marry a 43-year-old man when she was just 15.
In the New Hampshire debate, Rep. Jess Edwards (R-Rockingham) argued that allowing marriages between minors when a pregnancy existed was a better alternative to abortion.
“Do you agree with the point of view that if we continually restrict the freedom of marriage as a legitimate social option, we will do this to people who are of ripe fertile age and may have a pregnancy and a baby, and are we not in fact, making abortion much more desirable alternative when marriage might be the right solution for some freedom-loving couples,” he asked.
In response to Mr. Edwards’ statement, Mr. Petrigno said, “that marriage is an emotional lifetime commitment based on love, not a solution to an unintended pregnancy.”
In opposition to raising the age of marriage to 18, Rep. Tony Lekas (R-Hillsboro) testified that he and his wife were married when he was “just 16” and she was “barely 17” and that there still together 53 years later.
