Talk:Marriage age in the United States

Alabama age of consent with parental consent
The table says 16 years, but the map shows other. LightningScout (talk) 06:38, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Misleading map
The map is totally misleading. It should reflect the actual minimum marriageable age.

Revision of introductory statement
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age, "Marriageable age (or marriage age) is the minimum age at which a person is allowed by law to marry, either as a right or subject to parental or other forms of consent." By that definition, the introductory statement "The age of marriage in the United States is 18" is absolutely wrong and was revised.

See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/opinion/sunday/it-was-forced-on-me-child-marriage-in-the-us.html. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.5.216.100 (talk) 09:46, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Massachusetts age of consent with parental consent
I cannot find any law specifying a minimum age of marriage with parental consent in Massachusets. Minors can marry only with the approval of a court. The court must ask parengts or guardians for thier consent. https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartII/TitleIII/Chapter207 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danwoodard (talk • contribs) 17:04, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

texas ages wrong
was checking things after reading http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/06/texas-gay-marriage-pedophilia-_n_5655389.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay%20Voices and there seems to be an inconsistency for marriageable age stated for Texas it has change from 14 to 16 so please change this article to reflect this http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/texas_changed_law_to_restrict_rights_of_polygamy_ranch_residents/ http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/FA/htm/FA.2.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.141.55.168 (talk) 03:59, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

SineBot is correct. I have changed the value for Texas to 18/16. If someone knows how to add the reference please add http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/FA/htm/FA.2.htm to the list. Linktex (talk) 02:52, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

This article needs help!
I don't have time to update this, but this page is poorly organized (compared to other pages), poorly sourced (the Cornell page has few sources), and seems to be wrong on a number of things when compared with other sources (such as the Huffington Post articles above). 70.169.143.116 (talk) 21:12, 26 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree that the article is confusing and poorly written, also, the citations sometimes do not clearly reference the text cited. Skepticalgiraffe (talk) 22:29, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Age 20
Why it never have age of marriage without parental consent for age 20? Why "20" is an not important age whatsoever? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.7.6 (talk) 08:17, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Taken into accent, taken into assent, taken into account
I'm just going to be bold here and assume that "taken into assent" is a mistake. I've changed it into "taken into account." There don't seem to be any edit comments or other explanation for the history.

The first appearance of the language "taken into X" is here, "taken into accent."

In January, it was changed with the edit comment that "accent is entirely wrong, changing to assent," but that doesn't make sense, either.

Dpbsmith (talk) 16:21, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Governor Cuomo just passed new law June 21, 2017
From Human Rights Watch (and can be verified through other sources, I just happened to pick this) https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/20/us-new-york-governor-signs-anti-child-marriage-law

I've updated the minimum agesTorfrid (talk) 04:16, 21 June 2017 (UTC) for New York State. Thanks. Torfrid (talk) 04:02, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Needs second map?
Would a second state-by-state map showing age with parental and/or judicial consent by feasible? David notMD (talk) 12:28, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Mississippi state flag
Where is the flag in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:C0:DF1E:4C00:41A6:5A6D:3AF8:DBC7 (talk) 12:55, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

"age of consent" column
Was there any discussion about this Special:Diff/Marriage age in the United States/1028163229:change adding the "age of consent" column?

Here are some objections to this change:


 * 1) The meaning of "age of consent" is subject to different interpretations depending on the context.
 * 2) There's another WP article that provides for "age of sexual consent in the United States", meaning that when there is a change to the law, the information will likely become get out of sync.
 * 3) Did I mention that including it here means that it's redundant?
 * 4) And then there's the potential for misinterpretation, like the "age of consent" listed here could plausibly be interpreted as a bar to sexual activity even after marriage?

And why is the age of consent listed as 18 in every state (except for Nebraska, which has age of majority of 19, and Mississippi, for whatever reason) when there are supposedly 37 states where the age of consent is less than 18? Fabrickator (talk) 21:15, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

major do-over needed
What a mess Marriage age in the United States has become!

It's supposed to be about "marriage age" in the U.S. The primary thing this ought to answer is what is the marriage age in each subdivision of the U.S. (e.g. state or territory). It's even got a table or two to specifically answer this.

Then it's got some history, e.g. in colonial America. I could see that, but then it starts going back to England. Worse, it conflates "marriage law" and "rape law", "marriage age" and "age of consent", makes an isolated point about the spousal exception for rape, including a statement that there was an exception to the age of consent with an exception to statutory rape with a wife who is over the age of consent. What would it even mean to have an exception for statutory rape when the wife has already reached the age of consent?

A couple of seemingly incoherent paragraphs were deleted in edit of 03:31, 16 August 2021, but this is not making any real progress at getting this back to sanity.

I suggest reverting to. There will be some updates that need to be incorporated, but that should get rid of most of the insanity that's in the.

I await your feedback. Fabrickator (talk) 04:48, 16 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I had the same reaction the last time I was here, but the task to clean it up was too onerous for an iPad. Sorry. Good luck, I agree with your observations. Enthusiast01 (talk) 10:29, 16 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Okay, let's consider this piece-by-piece.
 * Specifically, can somebody explain why age of consent (presumably age of sexual consent) is included on this page (I question both the presence of historical information and the state-by-state information).  Having details of the age of consent in this article only serves to add confusion. Fabrickator (talk) 00:37, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Lots of uncited data
In particular, I'm seeing Michigan having no age limit with judicial approval, but no source for that. Anyone? Hobit (talk) 01:07, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

pending changes of 16 January 2024
Regarding the 14 January 2024 edit by 151.46.94.195... the source provided is in fact sourced to the statutes of each jurisdiction, by which I'm suggesting that this source meets WP:RS.

OTOH, the same source makes a statement that suggests that a marriage license is required for a common-law marriage. This is not sourced and it does not appear to be accurate. Fabrickator (talk) 01:42, 16 January 2024 (UTC)