Despite the lack of Romeo and Juliet-type love stories, people might wonder what happens when someone under the age of eighteen gets married in Pennsylvania without their parents` permission. Obviously, this is settled by the fact that you must provide basic information, including dates of birth, to apply for a marriage license in Pennsylvania. However, if you manage to marry a fourteen-year-old child in Pennsylvania, your marriage is invalid from the start. This means that your marriage is void from the start and there is no need to initiate nullity or divorce proceedings. As far as the state is concerned, it is as if these marriages never took place. However, it becomes complicated when people believe they are married, acquire assets, and have children. In such cases, it may be necessary to discuss the effects of a void marriage on custody and equitable distribution with a lawyer. On May 8, 2020, Governor Wolf signed HB 360, which sets the minimum age of marriage in Pennsylvania at 18. Pennsylvania joins only two other states, Delaware and New Jersey, in introducing a strict 18-year limit; By hard border, I do not mean exceptions. As in many other states, Pennsylvania`s previous law allowed a child between the ages of 16 and 18 to marry with parental consent, and a child under the age of 16 could marry with court approval. Previously, Pennsylvania had no minimum age for marriage. Delaware, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island,[21] New York, and New Jersey do not allow underage marriage.
The other states allow a minor to marry under the following circumstances: In Massachusetts, the general age of marriage is 18, but minors can be married with judicial approval. Unlike many other states,[2] child marriage in Massachusetts does not automatically emancipate the minor or increase his or her legal rights beyond allowing the minor to consent to certain medical treatments. [3] The passage of the new law is seen as a victory for child protection in Pennsylvania. Without the new minimum age, children, usually girls, could be forced into arranged marriages with adult men, with virtually no legal recourse. Note: State laws are constantly changing: contact a Pennsylvania family law attorney or do your own legal research to review the state laws you`re looking for. Most states have a minimum age of marriage for minors with parental consent, which ranges from 12 to 17. However, California and Mississippi do not have a minimum age for minors to marry with parental consent. Massachusetts has the lowest minimum age of marriage with parental consent of 14 for boys and 12 for girls.
If at least one of the spouses has not yet reached the general age of marriage, the marriage is considered a minor and may require parental consent and/or judicial approval. Young people can also marry in “exceptional circumstances”. Unchained at Last had succeeded in passing laws setting 18 as the minimum age of marriage in Delaware and New Jersey. The group`s founder, Fraidy Reiss of Westfield, New Jersey, is on a mission to get the rest of the states to do the same. Most states allow children aged 16 and 17 to marry if their parents agree. Unchained at Last, a national organisation dedicated to ending child marriage, estimates that nearly a quarter of a million girls under the age of 18 were forced into marriage between 2000 and 2010. U.S. Census data shows that in 2014, about 2,323 children ages 15 to 17 living in Pennsylvania were already married. Often, it is adult men who marry these girls.
Some states have different minimum ages for men and women, with or without parental consent. For example, in Mississippi, the age of consent to marriage with parental consent is 17 for men and 15 for women. The way to remedy this, he said, is to eliminate the two exceptions that exist in state law that allow a minor to marry. Currently, persons under the age of 18 may marry with the consent of a custodial parent or guardian, and those under the age of 16 may marry if a judge determines that it is in the best interests of the applicants for the marriage certificate and with the consent of the parents. Then the class learned that laws had been introduced to address this issue in Pennsylvania, and then the teachers decided to make it a citizen engagement exercise. They asked students to write letters to distribute to lawmakers and collect signatures for petitions to make 18 the minimum age of marriage. In many states (but not Massachusetts),[2] the marriage of a minor automatically emancipates him or increases his or her legal rights beyond the minor`s permission to consent to certain medical treatments. [3] In the last 15 years, approximately 200,000 minors have married. Underage marriages in the United States are not permitted except in exceptional circumstances, including the consent of a clerk or judge, the consent of the minor`s parents or guardians, if one of the parties is pregnant or has given birth to a child, or if the minor is emancipated. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware do not allow underage marriage in exceptional circumstances. As the class began to address the issue, Humes said they learned that girls who married 18 years ago — often from extremist religious factions — had experienced a higher incidence of domestic violence and economic exploitation, and that their education was fundamentally at a standstill.