LANSING (WWJ) – Michigan lawmakers on Wednesday moved one step closer to banning child marriage in the state.
A 10-bill package of legislation that passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives would make the minimum age to get married in Michigan 18 years old without exceptions.
Under current state law, teens under the age of 18 are allowed to marry with the consent of a parent or legal guardian. While some may believe the practice isn’t common anymore, the organization Unchained At Last says more than 5,000 minors have married in Michigan over the past 20 years.
“It's hard to believe that this practice is still legal in Michigan in the year 2023,” said one of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Kara Hope (D-Lansing).
Hope says some have argued that a complete ban on child marriage is “too extreme.”
“They’ll say that it hurts families or interferes with religious freedom. And my response is, we need to protect kids from abuse, period,” Hope said.
Parents often force kids into marriage because they become pregnant or because they “want to be freed from their own obligations as parents,” according to Hope.
“And in some nightmare scenarios, children become pregnant with the child of their rapist and their own parents make them marry their victimizer. It’s hard to imagine anything crueler,” she said.
Last year legislation to ban child marriage was also considered in Michigan, but never passed. Similar legislation will now be considered in the Senate.
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