Massachusetts used to make it pretty easy for adults to marry children. That's all over now.

It might have been the biggest piece of news with the least amount of fanfare in a long time: the troubling practice of child marriage was quietly outlawed in Massachusetts when Gov. Charlie Baker signed the fiscal 2023 state budget late last month.

The $60 billion spending plan included language within one of many budget amendments (originated as HB 1709 by Rep. Kay Khan) that allows no exceptions to a now-minimum legal age of 18 for any person applying for a marriage license or standing before an authorized officiant to be married. Previously, provided there was parental consent or approval from a judge, there was no minimum age at all for a person entering legal matrimony in Massachusetts.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts keeps permanent records on all marriages by collecting the signed marriage license after a legal marriage ceremony is performed. This is called "solemnization" - and it is performed every day in cities and towns across the state by clergy of all types, Justices of the Peace appointed by the Commonwealth, city and town clerks, statewide elected officials and others who are granted a one-time designation by the Secretary of State's office. In 2021 there were more than 32,000 marriages in Massachusetts.

Between the years 2000 and 2018, according to state records cited by several human rights advocacy groups, 1,246 children as young as 14 were married in Massachusetts. Nearly 90 percent of those marriages involved females under 18 becoming wed to adult men. As recently as 2020, according to Human Rights Watch and the Tahiri Justice Center, 14 petitions were filed for the marriage of minors to adults in the Commonwealth.

The reality of child marriage in the United States is mostly far off from any romanticized notion of forbidden love between two idealistic teenagers ready to take on the world. Rather, the practice is dominated by coerced unions of child and adult - almost always a young teen girl and an adult male. Even "parental consent" can be part of the illusion of acceptability. An arranged marriage, when one party has no legal course to end it, is essentially a forced marriage.

By banning child marriage under any circumstances, the Bay State actually joins a small number of outlier states (Massachusetts becomes just the 7th) to halt the practice with no exceptions. It's technically a cultural about-face: the Commonwealth's prior legal framework setting no minimum age for marriage was among the most lenient in the United States.

“With this law Massachusetts has gone from one of the least protective states in the country, setting no minimum marriage age by statute, to a true leader in the movement to end child marriage," said?Alex Goyette, Senior Public Policy Associate at the Tahirih Justice Center, in a statement. "This progress is a testament to the years of hard work done by advocates, legislators, and most importantly survivors, and sends a message to every other state that now is the time to end child marriage.”

Rep. Kahn, of Newton, and state Sen. Harriette Chandler, from Worcester, both began advocating for the ban on child marriage when each filed legislation to address it in 2017. Over the past six years the number of legislative co-sponsors grew as advocates for children and human rights groups elevated the issue's visibility. Minors who enter a legal marriage are almost immediately "trapped" in the relationship in most states. That's because the typical remedies for exiting a coerced, abusive or just plain unhappy marriage (divorce, legal separation, annulment) are often not legally available unless a person is 18. Even protective restraining orders (called a 209A in Massachusetts) may not be available in some cases if a minor is married to an adult.

The exact language that ends child marriage is this:

	SECTION?81.??Chapter 207 of the General Laws is hereby amended by striking out section 7, as so appearing, and inserting in place thereof the following section:

	Section?7.??A magistrate or minister shall not solemnize a marriage if a party to the intended marriage is under the age of 18.

	SECTION?82.??Said chapter 207 is hereby further amended by striking out section 24, as so appearing, and inserting in place thereof the following section:-

	Section?24.??The clerk or registrar shall not receive a notice of the intention of marriage of a person under the age of 18.-        

But the legislative remedy goes further still by reaching back to provide relief for any minors who had a marriage solemnized in Massachusetts:

SECTION?83.??Said chapter 207 is hereby further amended by striking out section 25, as so appearing, and inserting in place thereof the following section:

	Section?25.??Notwithstanding sections 7, 24 and 33A or any other general or special law to the contrary,?any minor who is married may avail themself of all legal remedies and relief that would otherwise be available if they were not a minor, in order to initiate proceedings for divorce under chapter 208, annulment under chapter 207 and protective orders under chapters 209A and 258E.-        

"You know, sometimes it takes a long time to get things done in the legislature," Rep. Khan told WBUR on the eve of the budget signing that ended child marriage. "There's so many hoops to jump through, but I'm so grateful."

Cosmo Macero Jr. is a media and communications consultant and an independent journalist. He is also a Justice of the Peace based in Belmont, MA.