Nadia Lathan, CalMatters
It was March when a group of California lawmakers decided they’d broach a sticky topic: child marriage.
Over the next three months, Democrats would devise a plan to persuade reluctant colleagues to finally outlaw the practice and contend with special interest groups that might work against them.
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Just two other states — New Mexico and Mississippi — have no minimum age to wed. And while minors can marry at any age in California, advocates say it’s hard to hire a divorce attorney before 18.
About 9,000 children are married each year in California, the vast majority of them girls marrying adult men, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Unchained at Last. Because the age of consent for sexual activity is 18, advocates say marriages between children under 18 and adults implicitly legalize a sexual relationship that would otherwise be considered statutory rape under state law.
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This year, Democrats faced different circumstances with the organization, prompting Democratic lawmakers in June to introduce Assembly Bill 1267 to finally bar children from marrying.
Assemblymember Gail Pellerin authored the bill through what’s called a “gut-and-amend” when lawmakers strip the language of an unrelated bill to fast-track a new one after the deadline to introduce bills the typical way had passed. Democrats missed the deadline because they wanted to make sure Planned Parenthood wouldn’t get in the way, according to advocates.
While the ACLU again opposed the legislation this year, there were no lobbyists to be found advocating for minors’ right to marry in committee hearings this summer, and Planned Parenthood stayed “neutral” on the bill, declining to take a position.
And even as some Democrats expressed hesitation about not allowing two teenagers in love to tie the knot, the ban passed the Legislature with near-unanimous support in August.
“We need to make it clear that girls, despite their perceived maturity, are children,” Pellerin said in an interview. “Children don’t have unprotected freedom.”
