‘Shameful.’ Missouri lawmakers fail to ban all child marriages after resistance

Missouri lawmakers this year failed to pass legislation that would have raised the state’s minimum marriage age from 16 to 18 after top Republican lawmakers said there isn’t enough time to take up the bill.

The bill, filed by Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder, a Scott City Republican, and Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Kansas City Democrat, would have banned anyone under 18 from obtaining a marriage license. Current law allows 16 and 17-year-olds to get married with parental consent.

After passing the GOP-controlled state Senate last month on a nearly unanimous vote, the legislation stalled for weeks in a House committee. Half of the committee members opposed raising the marriage age, Rep. Jim Murphy, the committee chair, previously told The Star.

The committee eventually passed the legislation this week after some members who opposed it did not show up for the vote. But House leaders said during a news conference that there wasn’t enough time to get the legislation across the finish line on the final day of the session on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, it got on the calendar last night. House rules say it has to stay on the calendar 24 hours before we vote on it,” said Murphy, a St. Louis-area Republican who supports the bill. “We’re gonna sine die and we’ll come back next year.”

Rehder in an interview on Thursday pushed back on the argument that the House did not have enough time to bring the bill up for a vote. She called it a “cop out.”

“It’s incredibly disappointing,” she said. “They have had this bill in the House and have not made an attempt to push it and even have told some people that it was a bad vote for some of the members.”

Supporters of the bill have argued the opposition to banning all child marriages illustrates some lawmakers’ extreme and archaic views on marriage. Missouri previously had some of the loosest laws surrounding child marriage and the state’s current law has been criticized as a loophole that leaves thousands of teenagers open to abuse and exploitation.

The legislation has been personal for Rehder, who was married at age 15 to her 21-year-old boyfriend in 1984. A year earlier, her sister, at age 16, married her 39-year-old drug dealer, she has said.

“Why would we allow parents to sign their child up for a lifetime commitment?” she said. “It’s mind boggling. But I do think that it’s generational when it comes to the number of folks who are against banning child marriage.”

At least two Republican lawmakers previously told The Star that they opposed raising the state’s minimum marriage age. Rehder said that number could be around 20.

One of those lawmakers is Rep. Dean Van Schoiack, a Savannah Republican. He previously told The Star that he knows people who got married as minors, including a woman at roughly age 17.

“Why is the government getting involved in people’s lives like this?” Van Schoiak said. “What purpose do we have in deciding that a couple who are 16 or 17 years old, their parents say, you know, ‘you guys love each other, go ahead and get married, you have my permission.’ Why would we stop that?”

In 2018, Missouri set the state’s minimum marriage age at 16 with the approval of one parent or guardian.

The law came after The Star revealed that Missouri had among the nation’s most lenient marriage laws for 15-year-olds. It previously allowed children even younger to marry with a judge’s approval.

Missouri does, however, ban marriage between a minor and anyone 21 or older. The state’s statutory rape law also prohibits those 21 or older from sexual intercourse with anyone under 17.

Arthur, the Kansas City Democrat, told reporters on Thursday that the bill’s failure makes Missouri look bad.

“We are not doing enough to protect young girls who are forced into marriages and whose lives are worse in every way as a result,” she said. “It’s shameful.”

Although the bill died this year, Rehder that she wants survivors of child marriage in Missouri to know that there’s still going to be a push to raise the age limit.

“This isn’t the end of it — this is a push nationally,” she said. “And Missouri will become one of the states that bans child marriage.”