Ohio lawmakers have returned for lame duck, but bill banning child marriage continues to stall

Advocates are calling on lawmakers to pass a bill that would ban child marriage in Ohio. 

The bill was not on Tuesday’s Senate agenda, even though the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed Ohio Senate Bill 341 in June just before the lawmakers went on break.

“I have no idea why it wasn’t on,” said State Sen. Bill DeMora, D-Columbus. “Starting next week — everything that comes to the floor — I’m going to have an amendment for, and this bill is going to be the amendment. And if they table it, then obviously we know where they stand on it.”

Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, said he is in favor of the bill.

“I would vote yes, but I also have to make sure that we have the support and we are going to talk about it in caucus and see where it lands,” he said. 

Ohio Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, is confident the bill would pass. 

“I believe if we brought it forward, it would,” she said. 

Under current law in Ohio, 17-year-olds are able to marry someone up to four years older than them, as long as a juvenile court signs off on it. The new legislation would require Ohioans to be 18 to get married. 

“Eighteen should be the minimum age for marriage, and no person’s future should be decided before they’ve actually had a chance to live it,” said state Rep. Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington.

DeMora and fellow state Sen. Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Twp., introduced the bipartisan bill earlier this year. There has been no public opposition to the bill. 

Blessing said he doesn’t know who could be blocking it. 

“My argument would simply be to just call this before a vote and let people vote your conscience on this,” he said. “It’s a simple bill. We’ve spent way too much time on this, and it should be done in lame duck.”

During a press conference about the bill on Tuesday, women shared their stories of marrying young, and struggling to get out of the situations that followed.

Stephanie Lowry was 14 when her dad died of brain cancer, 15 when she became pregnant by a 19-year-old man, and 16 when she got married.

“My mother thought it was the best option at the time, but since then she has publicly spoken about her deep regret and wish to change the past,” she said. 

While marriage “technically emancipated” Lowry, she said it didn’t give her the rights she would have as a legal adult.

“It simply meant my mother was legally free from providing housing or support, leaving me completely dependent on my adult husband for survival,” Lowry said.

Her marriage became abusive when she was 17. She said she then found herself homeless while caring for a nine-month old child. She couldn’t obtain housing, or a divorce for that matter, until she was 18.

“Allowing a child to take on adult liabilities without adult rights isn’t freedom. It’s a trap,” Lowry said. 

Stephanie Lane was 16 when she married a 31-year-old.

“I couldn’t vote,” she said. “I could not legally make any adult decisions. He became my legal guardian. …. What followed was more than two decades of force of control and abuse — emotional, financial, sexual, spiritual.” 

She has now been out of that marriage for seven years. She graduated from high school 24 years after she was supposed to, didn’t have a drivers license until she was 26, and didn’t have a job outside of the home until 2019.

Eighteen states have a law banning child marriage — most recently California and Oklahoma, according to Unchained At Last, an organization dedicated to ending underage marriage.

More than 5,000 Ohio children have been married as minors since 2000 and nearly 300,000 minors nationally were married between 2000 and 2018, according to Unchained At Last.

Sixty minors were married in Ohio between 2020 and 2025 — most of them girls being married to adult men, according to Fraidy Reiss, the organization’s founder and executive director.

“All marriages before age 18, regardless of the maturity of the minor involved, is recognized as forced marriage, which is a form of modern slavery, and it’s legal here in Ohio,” she said. “That is unacceptable.”

DeMora said the fact that passage hasn’t happened “is just another black mark on the state of Ohio that people use against us when they want to come here for businesses or to live and raise a family.

“When a bill like this can pass in states that are so different both politically, geographically, and culture-wise, then we think that Ohio needs to pass this bill,” DeMora said. 

Russo said early marriage can expose young people to lifelong consequences, interrupting their education, limiting their opportunities to seek education, achieve financial independence, and build a future.

“When a 17-year-old is expected to take the responsibility of a spouse or parent, their opportunity to focus on their own development is taken away,” Russo said. “Young people who marry before adulthood often face the risk of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and exploitation.” 

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said his caucus has not yet talked about the bill. 

“I guess I can’t speculate,” he told reporters Tuesday. 

Any bill that does not pass before the end of the year must be reintroduced in the new General Assembly to be considered. 

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