Is it legal to marry someone under the age of 18 in Illinois? Here’s what the law says
In the United States, there is no federal law banning child marriages – widely defined as those where at least one party is under the age of 18.
Each state sets its own minimum marriage age. Until 2018, child marriage was legal in all 50 states.
Since then 10 states have enacted laws setting the minimum marriage age to 18, while five states still have no minimum age at all.
According to Unchained at Last, a nonprofit organization working to end child marriages, more than 300,000 children under age 18 were legally married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2018.
Nearly 80% of those marriages were between girls under the age of 18 and adult men age 18 or older, according to the organization’s data published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2021.
One of the biggest criticisms of state laws that set legal minimum marriage ages to anything younger than 18 is that they can undermine statutory rape laws.
“At least 34,943–40,224 marriages since 2000 occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have constituted a sex crime under the relevant state’s law,” according to data collected and analyzed by Unchained at Last.
What’s the legal minimum marriage age in Illinois?
In Illinois the legal minimum marriage age is 16 with parental or guardian consent, and 18 without.
More than 7,500 minors were married in Illinois between 2000 and 2018, according to Unchained at Last.
Lawmakers introduced four bills to raise the minimum marriage age to 18 in 2022 alone, but none became law, the group said.
Other marriage restrictions may apply, such as laws pertaining to marriage between relatives or someone’s capacity to consent to marriage.
