Child Marriage – Shocking Statistics

Nearly 315,000 minors were legally entered into marriage in the United States between 2000 and 2021. Eighty-six percent (86%) were girls, and most were wed to adult men an average of 4.02 years their senior.

Ninety-six percent (96%) of minors wed were aged 16 or 17, but some were as young as 10.

At least 66,415 marriages occurred at an age or with a spousal age difference that should have been considered a sex crime. Nearly all of those marriages, about 90% of them, represented a “get out of jail free” card for a would-be child rapist, due to state laws that allow within marriage what would otherwise be considered statutory rape. The other 10% involved a minor who was sent home to be raped: The marriages were legal, but sex within those marriages was considered a sex crime under the relevant states’ laws.

Nationally, the number of minors wed decreased every year after 2001 until 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it increased by 3.8%.

The only states where numbers reached and stayed at zero were those that passed legislation to make the marriage age 18, no exceptions.

The average rate of child marriage among states with available data was 2.03 per 1,000 girls and .31 per 1,000 boys. The overall average rate of child marriage among those states was 1.13 per 1,000 minors.

The 10 states with the highest rates of child marriage were: