State lawmakers are considering changing Ohio’s marriage laws to ban 17-year-olds from getting married.
A bipartisan bill introduced Jan. 20 would raise the legal marriage age to 18 for both parties. The legislation leaves intact language from 2004 that prohibits same sex marriages in Ohio, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalized gay marriage a more than decade ago.
The bill is sponsored by state Sens. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus, and Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Twp.
In 2019, following an investigation by the Dayton Daily News, Ohio changed its marriage laws to block young teens, who were often pregnant, from getting married. The newspaper found 4,443 girls age 17 or younger were married in Ohio between 2000 and 2015, including 59 who were 15 and younger. State records show three girls age 14 were married, including one pregnant bride who married a 48-year-old man, according to the report.
But that law change included a provision for 17-year-olds to marry if they convinced a judge that they had received satisfactory marriage counseling, they waited 14 days and their age differential was more more than four years.
State government reporter Laura Bischoff can be reached at lbischoff@usatodayco.com or @lbischoff on X.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Child marriage is still legal in Ohio, but that could change
Reporting by Laura A. Bischoff, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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