Newsom signs California law banning marriage under 18, effective January 2027

California becomes 18th state to ban child marriage; 32 others still allow it

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation ending the practice of child marriage in the state, with the new law scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027. The bill sets a minimum marriage age of 18, closing a system in which California had no legal minimum age to wed as long as a parent consented and a judge approved the marriage.

Newsom called the bill a “long overdue measure to protect young Californians and minors.” He signed it alongside Courtney Stodden, whose parents allowed her to marry a 50-year-old Hollywood actor when she was just 16.

California is the 18th U.S. state to ban child marriage since 2018, according to reporting by the BBC. Thirty-two states still permit the practice. Roughly a decade ago, child marriage was still allowed in every U.S. state.

Under California’s prior system, there was no legal age to wed, allowing children to marry with parental consent and a judge’s sign-off. The state also offered no mechanism for people under 18 to obtain a divorce, a gap that survivors say left many girls trapped in what they describe as abusive and predatory relationships.

According to the BBC, Brittany Bee was married at 17 to escape an abusive home and was subsequently allegedly abused by her adult husband. “I was just going from one prison to another,” she said. “People have the audacity to tell me that I made a choice — kids, they can’t consent.”

Bee said California had “sent a clear message to the world today” by ending child marriage. “A message of hope for all children that they may be free from systemic violence. That they may choose their own path,” she said.

Sara Tasneen told the BBC she was forced to marry a man nearly twice her age at 15, and that she was introduced to her husband the morning of their arranged marriage. “I was forced to be his wife and that day, my entire life changed,” she said. She became a mother the following year, at 16, and dropped out of school. She said she began lobbying for a ban in 2017, and that it felt “surreal” to finally have the state recognize that child marriage should be banned.

“To have seen the arc of this bill come to fruition has been a marathon,” Tasneen said. “I’m just grateful that kids cannot get married after January 1, 2027 in California.”

Courtney Stodden, whose parents allowed her to marry the actor Doug Hutchison in 2011 when she was 16, has become a prominent advocate for ending child marriage. Hutchison, known for roles in “The Green Mile,” “A Time to Kill,” and “I Am Sam,” was 50 at the time of the marriage.

Stodden called the new law a “victory” and said survivors of child marriage should “never have been expected to carry this burden.” She said she would “keep fighting until children are protected from marriage in all 50 states.”

The advocacy group Unchained At Last, which has campaigned against child marriage across the United States, estimated that approximately 9,000 girls were married each year in California under the prior system and that nearly all child marriages in the state involved girls married to adult men.

The bill signed this week closes a chapter of California law that child-welfare advocates had criticized as leaving minors without legal recourse in marriages they could not enter or exit on their own. Stodden, Bee, and Tasneen are among the survivors who have spent years pressing the state to act.