Recently there has been a lot of focus on child weddings in the U.S., except that it is not about children getting married at all. It is mostly about teens, and contrary to popular belief teens are not children. Most states have no minimum age for marriage, but they do require minors to have consent from a parent or judge to get married. As religious diversity has increased in the U.S. there has been the occasional wedding of a 12 or 14 year old girl to a much older man, and courts allow this because there is no law against this in most states. This has resulted in some activists suggesting that all states should have an minimum age for marriage of 18 years. There are two states that currently have a minimum marriage age of 18, one of which is Texas. Both allow court emancipated minors to marry, regardless of age. Those advocating for this age limit in all states, however, want it to be an absolute minimum. This is a terrible idea.
The justification for having an 18 year absolute minimum marriage age is that some parents will pressure their children into agreeing to a fairly young wedding. This is a legitimate problem. Muslim refugees have been known to do this, as typical marriage age in Muslim countries ranges from 16 to 18 years old (with a customary minimum of 15 years old). Combating this with an absolute minimum marriage age, however, is rather heavy handed, infringing on teens rights just as much as the current situation. There should certainly be something preventing this kind of abuse, but in trying to protect these teens in this way, we would also be robbing them of their own choice.
Perhaps some historical background will help make some of the issues here more clear. Historically, typical marriage ages have ranged from the year of a girl's first period (there are still some primitive tribes that do this) to around 16 years old. For males, 12 is generally the youngest. There have been occasional cultures that would wed actual children (ie, under 12 years old), but these were fairly rare. Most cultures never went further than child betrothals, where the actual marriage happened between 12 and 16 years old. In the 1800s, and for some time before that, the typical marriage age was 16 years old. In fact, sweet sixteen and cotillion balls originated as coming of age celebrations, where 16 year old girls would "come out" as ready to begin courting and ready for marriage. Most of these 16 year old marriages were fairly good. It is hard to compare objectively, as pressure against divorce back then had a significant impact on divorce rates, however, historical records, including journals and such, seem to indicate at least as high of a rate of happiness in marriage as we have now, and often higher. Typical marriage age in the U.S. started increasing as public secondary education (high school) gained traction. Before that, a woman over 20 years old was seen as at risk of becoming an old maid, and single men much older than 20 were often viewed as a menace to society. (While it is not clearly documented, LDS prophet Brigham Young is quoted to have said that the exact age that a single man became such a menace is anywhere between 21 and 27 (most commonly quoted as 25), and he used the exact phrase "a menace to society".) Public high school raised the typical minimum age for marriage to 18 in the U.S. This resulted in the term "teen pregnancy" becoming a derogatory term (before that, pregnancies between 16 and 18 were quite common, and pregnant teens were typically married). Now, even married teens that get pregnant are looked down on, when around 100 years ago, a girl who was not married and pregnant in her late teens was seen as damaged. Throughout most of human history, it seems that between 14 and 16 years old was the most common marriage age. The only reason most Americans see marriage before 18 is bad now is that 18 is the typical high school graduation age. Note that many now preach that marriage should be delayed until after college, but with people starting college later and taking 6 years on average, instead of the prescribed 4, and while it is impossible to find actual statistics it looks like typical college starting age is between 20 and 22, by that reasoning, we should set the minimum legal marrying age to 26 or 28 years old.
There is some psychological research that shows the age of 21 to be unique (not 18). Around 21 years old is when human brain development tends to stabilize. During the teen years, the brain is quite malleable, and it is in a state of development that makes it a bit more prone to irrational behavior. Now, to be clear, environmental influences have not been entirely ruled out. There is some evidence that children brought up in primitive tribes develop the same rationality as U.S. 21 year olds as young as 6 years old, and there is no reason to believe that this accelerated brain maturity is the result of genetics. In the U.S., however, teens are known to have difficulties with rational thought, up until around 21 years old. This has commonly been used to justify denying teens "grown up" rights and responsibilities, despite the fact that some of these were common only 100 years ago, and teens back then fared perfectly fine if not better than teens today.
On the other side, having more malleable brains leaves teen brains open to greater developmental capacity. Adults in college do not learn easier than teens because their brains are more developed. In fact, it is quite the opposite: Adults in college learn better than teens despite less malleable brains (a combination of the rationality issue and just poor parental discipline are the most likely causes). Historical records suggesting that people who married between 16 years old and 18 years old were generally happier than people who marry later suggest that this malleability allows couples who marry in their teens to form more meaningful and stronger relationships. When couples in the mid 20s or later get married, their brains have already reached a point of reduced malleability. They are literally "more set in their ways", and they are generally less likely to consider challenges to their opinions. This is a prime situation for stubborn arguments that result in unhappiness in marriage. When teens get married, they have the opportunity to grow and develop together, allowing for much stronger relationships. There may be other factors of teen development that work against this, but this is not known at this time, because no one has bothered to do the research. It would be tragic, however, if we made laws forbidding teen marriage, when it may actually be the best age to get married.
Another important factor in teen marriage is risk involved in pregnancy. There are studies suggesting that teen pregnancy has significantly higher risk than pregnancy in early 20s. It is hard to find age specific information though, and it is not clear what the role of typical demands on teens may play in this. Specifically, pregnant teens do not tend to get prenatal care until significantly later in pregnancy than mothers in their 20s. This, on its own, is a significant indicator for increased risk at any age. Pregnant teens are also often under significantly more stress than older mothers, and this on its own is also a significant indicator of risk for mothers of any age. Some have suggested that at 16 years old, a woman's body is generally at its most healthy and is thus most prepared for pregnancy, but it is difficult to confirm or reject these claims when 16 to 18 year old girls have so many demands and expectations on them that pregnancy can result in depression, anxiety, and other issues that are known to make pregnancies significantly higher risk. It is clear, however, that between 16 and 18 years old is practically perfect when it comes to physical fitness for caring for children. A child conceived at 16 years old and born when the mother is 17 years old will be a teen when the mother is 30 years old. A child born when the mother is 21 years old, will be a teen when the mother is 34 years old, and a child born when the mother is 28 will still be a child when the mother is 40. (In 2014, the average age of a first time mother was 26.3 years, putting her at over 38 years old, before her first child is a teen.) In the mid to late 30s is when people tend to start suffering from physical wellness issues, and the later parents wait to have a child, the more physically difficult caring for children will be. Starting at 16 to 18 years old generally guarantees that all children will be physically independent enough that this is not a problem by the time the age of the parents would start playing a role (exceptions are when a couple has more than 5 or 6 children, leaves large gaps between children, or has a severely disabled child). In short, while the evidence seems to suggest the best time for child bearing is the early 20s, our culture may be hiding a younger ideal age in a pile of culturally induced stress and anxiety for those who get pregnant at a younger age.
The evidence seems to suggest that the best time for marriage is between 16 years old and 18 years old. There are clearly some issues with this though. If parents have the sole responsibility of determining if a minor is ready for marriage, there are sadly some that will abuse this responsibility for less than ethical reasons. An absolute minimum marriage age of 16 years old does not seem unreasonable, but teens 16 to 18 years old do need some protection. We should certainly not protect them by taking away their own choice of when to marry though.
Instead of an absolute minimum of 18 years old, an absolute minimum of 16, with additional protections against parental abuse of authority would probably be a better solution. There are a few other things that probably need attention here though. Instead of discouraging older teens from getting married before they are out of high school, we would be encouraging them to be responsible. The fact is many teens are already having sex at that age. (According to polls, numbers have been decreasing, but even a small percentage is still a lot.) It is much less embarrassing for a married couple to be buying birth control than a single teen. In fact, some families that are opposed to providing birth control to unmarried children might be willing to provide it for married teen children. This may also require and cause a shift in high school cultures. Marriage may reduce occurrences of things like nude sharing, because husbands tend to be more protective than boyfriends. At the same time, current high school cultures that seem to hinge on the false idea that what you do in high school does not matter in the long run could result in ill conceived marriages.
The solution to parental abuse of authority and high school culture issues could easily be the same. We need some kind of requirement beyond just parental consent before teens marry. This should not just be a judge signing off on it either, because in states that allow teens to get married with the consent of a judge, judges have been known to allow some pretty clearly terrible marriages (including 14 or 16 year old girls to much older men, without so much as asking the girl if she really even wants to get married or why). Perhaps a marriage counselor could be assigned to the couple, to assess their relationship and either give or refuse consent. An absolute maximum age difference for minors getting married could also be wise. For example a 3 year age difference would prevent a family from trying to marry off a 16 year old daughter to a 20 year old or older man, and he would ultimately have to wait until she was legally an adult to marry her. This might not prevent the parental abuse entirely, but it would at least delay it, and it would give the victim some control of the situation. At the same time, a 3 year maximum difference would still give teens the ability to choose to marry someone in their peer group, if they can show they fully understand the decision they are making.
Right now, we are allowing our live-in culture to control one of the most important institutions in our culture. At the rate we are going, within the next century, we won't be letting anyone under 30 get married (years spent in college to graduate is only going to increase, as more and more advanced specialization is required to even be useful). If this is really about protecting teens, the last thing it should be doing is taking away their right to choose when they get married. We have already successfully marginalized teens to the point that depression and anxiety are incredibly common. The fact is teens are not children, and when we treat them like they are, it harms them. Historically, adulthood was reached at 16 years old. When our founders set the voting age to 21 years old, they chose that age because they expected people to be ready to vote only after several years of experience as adults. (This was changed to 18, when it was noted that we could conscript 18 year old young men to fight in wars before they were old enough to to be represented in government.) Now, we don't even treat 21 year olds as adults. In fact, in many places, people are "young adults" until after 30 years old, and the emphasis is placed on "young", not "adults".
Average marriage age should not dictate minimum marriage age. Societal education expectations should also not dictate minimum marriage age. If we are to have a minimum marriage age, it should be based on empirical studies that show marrying younger to be either harmful or unethical. Ethical violations by others should be mitigated directly, instead of being mitigated by taking away the rights of those who are supposedly being protected. And above all teens are not children, and by treating them like children we are harming them.
Texas has one thing right: By allowing emancipated teens to get married regardless of age, they are at least trying to preserve the rights of those the law is trying to protect in limiting marriage age. An emancipated teen should always have the right to get married. We should not be punishing teens that are not emancipated just because some other teen's parents might try to influence that teen to make a poor marriage choice though. We need to do our best to protect their rights in addition to protecting them from abuse by others. Setting the absolute minimum marriage age to 18 years old is not the way to do that.
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