LANSING — On Thursday, the Michigan Senate voted to pass multiple bills that would establish 18 as the minimum age of consent for marriage in the state.

State senators passed Senate Bills 209-217 and Senate Bill 246 almost unanimously.

On Wednesday, House legislators passed a bill that would ban all child marriages in the state, eliminating an exemption that allows children under the age of 18 to get married with parental consent.

The Senate bills were led by Sen. Sarah Anthony (D- Lansing) with bipartisan support to protect minors from being forced into traumatic or dangerous marriages with adults.

“Child marriage has led to the abuse of thousands of children in our state,” Anthony said. “When I first introduced a bill to end child marriage in 2018, it was quickly shelved by legislative leaders. Since then, we have continued to hear stories of abuse from survivors. Today, the Senate took action to bring our state one step closer to ending this archaic practice.”

Ending child marriages in Michigan

In Michigan, children who are 16- and 17-years-old can currently marry with permission from a parent or guardian. Children can also marry at any age if given judicial and parental approval.

The current law allows for an all-too-common union of young children and adults in marriage. Over the past two decades, 5,400 minors were married in the state of Michigan, according to data compiled by the nonprofit Unchained at Last. More than 90 percent were girls, some as young as 14- and 15-years-old. Frequently, there are significant age gaps, including a 16-year-old girl married to a 45-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy married to a 68-year-old woman.

Roughly 83 percent of those marriages involved girls who were married to adult men.

“States across the nation are starting to wake up and realize how detrimental child marriage is,” Anthony said in May. “Last month [April], Vermont became the eighth state in the country to end child marriage and it’s high time for Michigan to take this step towards better protecting our youth and stopping this archaic practice.”

House Bills 4293-4302 and Senate Bills 209-217 and 246 ban marriage for those under 18 and cement 18 as the minimum legal age to marry, according to the Michigan legislature.

Both packages of legislation from the House and Senate head to their respective opposite chambers for consideration before sending the final version of the bills to Governor Whitmer for her signature.

The bills also look to accomplish the following:

• Eliminate the exception allowing minors between ages 16 and 18 to enter into a marriage contract with parental consent.
• Stop probate judges from marrying minors.
• Ban a parent from authorizing the marriage of an underage child.
• Remove a clause in the state’s divorce statute that prevents an annulment for couples married underage who cohabitated as a married couple after turning age 18.
• Remove marriage-related exceptions from criminal sexual conduct violations that are available to teachers, school employees and administrators, and more, according to documents.