How old should a girl have to be to legally marry
with her parents' consent? Gallup posed this question to Americans in one
of its earliest polls, in 1937. At the time, 53% thought "girls"
should be 18 years old to legally marry with parental agreement. The rest
had opposing views: 25% said girls should have to be 19 or older, while
nearly as many, 22%, said they could be younger than 18.
Americans' Views in 1937 on Legal Age for Girls to Marry
If a girl has her parents' consent to marry, how old should she be
before the state permits the marriage?
U.S. adults
%
14 or younger
1
15
2
16
15
17
4
18
53
19
2
20
8
21
13
22 or older
2
Gallup, Feb. 10-15, 1937
About half of men and women polled 80 years ago -- 53% each -- thought
18 was the right threshold age for a girl to legally marry. While men
were divided over putting the number above or below 18, women were about
twice as likely to say girls should be older than 18 as they were to say
younger, 30% vs. 16%, respectively.
Views on this varied little by age, but adults 55 and older were more likely
than those under 55 to think a girl should have to be 19 or older to legally marry.
Regional differences were more interesting, with residents in New England,
as well as the East Central and Mid-Atlantic regions, tilted toward thinking
"girls" should be 19 or older to marry, while those in the West
Central and Pacific Coast states were closely split in thinking they should
be older vs. younger than 18. Those in the South, Southwest and Rocky
Mountain regions were the most likely to tilt toward allowing girls under
18 to marry.
Americans' Views in 1937 on Legal Age for Girls to Marry
If a girl has her parents' consent to marry, how old should she be
before the state permits the marriage?
19 or older
Age 18
Less than 18
%
%
%
Total
25
53
22
Gender of respondent
Men
22
53
25
Women
30
53
16
Age of respondent
17 to 24
22
56
22
25 to 34
23
53
24
35 to 54
24
53
23
55+
32
51
17
Region
New England
24
59
17
Mid-Atlantic
32
50
18
East Central
27
56
17
West Central
22
52
26
South
21
52
27
Southwest
20
51
28
Rocky Mountain
16
53
31
Pacific Coast
22
58
20
Gallup, Feb. 10-15, 1937
Referring to women of marital age as "girls" is, of course, passé
today, but there are two other things that reveal this question's
age: it carries an assumption that a female must have her parents'
consent to marry, and it was asked only about girls, not boys.
What hasn't changed is that children still get married in the U.S.
Although most states now set 18 as the minimum age a girl can freely marry
without her parents' blessing, every state allows exceptions in certain
cases, such as with parental consent or when she is pregnant. According to
one study of state marriage license data from 2000 through 2010, "in 38 states, more than 167,000 children
-- almost all of them girls, some as young [as] 12 -- were married during
that period, mostly to men 18 or older."
Read about Americans' current views on marriagehere.