RELATING TO MARRIAGE OF MINORS.

HB647

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

647

THIRTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2025

STATE OF HAWAII

A BILL FOR AN ACT

Relating
to Marriage of Minors
.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

����
SECTION
1
.
�
The legislature finds that nationally and
internationally there is growing recognition that child marriage is a human
rights violation and a severe impediment to social and economic development,
resulting in states and countries considering legislation to end the practice
of allowing children to marry.
�
The
United Nations Children's Fund describes child marriage as any formal marriage
or informal union between a child under the age of eighteen and an adult or
another child.
�
United Nations (UN)
Sustainable Development Goal 5, relating to gender equality, sets the year 2030
as the target for ending child marriage.
�

The Sustainable Development goals were unanimously adopted in 2015 by
all one hundred ninety-three UN member states including the United States.

����
The
concerns about allowing children to marry is that they have not reached the
threshold of adulthood that grants certain rights and responsibilities and that
a child entering into marriage may have been pressured or coerced into
marrying, especially if the child is pregnant, or the marriage may be the
result of sex trafficking.
�
According to
an analysis conducted by the Public Broadcasting Service's Frontline program, between
2000 and 2014 more than two hundred seven thousand individuals under the age of
eighteen married in the United States.
�

While most children were sixteen or seventeen years of age at the time
of marriage, some were as young as twelve years old.
�
Girls are disproportionately affected by the
practice of child marriage, and the vast majority of these marriages were
between a minor female and an adult male.

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Hawai
�
i's
laws regularly define "children" as persons who are less than
eighteen years of age; they are often also termed "minors".
�
Nonetheless, the law allows children as young
as sixteen years of age to marry.
�
State
law further authorizes the family court to approve a marriage of a child who is
fifteen years of age.
�
Comparatively,
sexual assault laws criminalize sexual conduct with a fifteen-year-old, though
an exception is made if the fifteen-year-old is legally married to the sexual
partner or the sexual partner is not more than five years older than the minor
victim.
�
Based on department of health
data, at least eight hundred children were married in Hawai
�
i
since 2000, with eighty per cent of these marriages being girls marrying adult
men.

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The
legislature further finds that in 2018, Delaware and New Jersey became the
first and second states, respectively, to require that both parties to the
marriage be at least eighteen years of age at time of marriage.
�
Since then, eleven other states - Pennsylvania,
Minnesota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Vermont, Connecticut,
Michigan, Washington, Virginia, and New Hampshire, - along with American Samoa
and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have enacted laws to end child marriage in their
jurisdictions.
�
Similar legislation has also
been introduced in Congress including the Child Marriage Prevention Act of 2024.

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Accordingly,
the purpose of this Act is to end child marriage in Hawai
�
i.

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SECTION

2
.
�
Section 571-2,
Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended as follows:

����
1.
�
By amending the definition of
"guardianship of a minor" to read:

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""Guardianship
of a minor" means the duty and authority to make important decisions in
matters having a permanent effect on the life and development of the minor and
to be concerned about the minor's general welfare.
�
[
It
]
"Guardianship of a
minor"
includes[
,
] but shall not [
necessarily
] be
limited[
, in either number or kind
] to:

����
(1)
�
The authority to consent [
to
marriage,
] to enlistment in the armed forces of the United States[
,
]
or to major medical, psychiatric, and surgical treatment; to represent the
minor in legal actions;
or
to make other decisions concerning the minor
of substantial legal significance;

����
(2)
�
The authority and duty of reasonable
visitation, except to the extent that the right of visitation has been limited
by court order;

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(3)
�
The rights and responsibilities of
legal custody when guardianship is exercised by the natural or adoptive parent,
except where legal custody has been vested in another individual, agency, or
institution; and

����
(4)
�
The authority to consent to the
adoption of the minor and to make any other decision concerning the minor that
the minor's parents could make, when the rights of the minor's parents, or only
living parent, have been judicially terminated as provided for in the statutes
governing termination of parental rights to facilitate legal adoption, or when
both of the minor's legal parents are deceased."

����
2.
�
By amending the definition of "residual
parental rights and responsibilities" to read:

����
""Residual
parental rights and responsibilities" means those rights and
responsibilities remaining with the parent after the transfer of legal custody
or guardianship of the person, including[
,
] but not [
necessarily
]
limited to[
,
] the right to reasonable visitation, consent to adoption [
or

marriage
], and the responsibility for support."

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SECTION

3
.
�
Section 571-11,
Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

����
"
�571-11
�

Jurisdiction; children.
�

Except as otherwise provided in this chapter,
the
court shall have exclusive original jurisdiction in proceedings
:

����
(1)
�
Concerning any person who is alleged to
have committed an act before achieving eighteen years of age that would
constitute a violation or attempted violation of any federal, state, or local
law or county ordinance.
�
Regardless of
where the violation occurred, jurisdiction may be taken by the court of the
circuit where the person resides, is living, or is found, or in which the
offense is alleged to have occurred;

����
(2)
�
Concerning any child living or found
within the circuit who is:

���������
(A)
�
Neglected as to or deprived of
educational services because of the failure of any person or agency to exercise
that degree of care for which it is legally responsible;

���������
(B)
�
Beyond the control of the child's
parent or other custodian or whose behavior is injurious to the child's own or
others' welfare;

���������
(C)
�
Neither attending school nor receiving
educational services required by law whether through the child's own
misbehavior or nonattendance or otherwise; or

���������
(D)
�
In violation of curfew;

����
(3)
�
To determine the custody of any child
or appoint a guardian of any child;

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(4)
�
For the adoption of a person under
chapter 578;

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(5)
�
For the termination of parental rights
under sections 571-61 through 571-63;

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(6)
�
For judicial consent to the [
marriage,
]
employment[
,
] or enlistment of a child[
,
] when consent is
required by law;

����
(7)
�
For the treatment or commitment of a
mentally defective or mentally ill child, or a child with an intellectual
disability;

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(8)
�
Under the Interstate Compact on
Juveniles under chapter 582 or the Interstate Compact for Juveniles under
chapter 582D;

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(9)
�
For the protection of any child under
chapter 587A;

���
(10)
�
For a change of name as provided in
section 574‑5(a)(2)(C);

���
(11)
�
Concerning
custody or guardianship of an immigrant child pursuant to a motion for special
immigrant juvenile factual findings requesting a determination that the child
was abused, neglected, or abandoned before the age of eighteen years for
purposes of section 101(a)(27)(J) of the federal Immigration and Nationality
Act.
�
For the purposes of this
paragraph, "child" means an unmarried individual under the age of
twenty-one years; and

���
(12)
�
Concerning emancipation of a minor
pursuant to section 577-25."

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SECTION

4
.
�
Section 572-1,
Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

����
"
�572-1
�

Requisites of valid marriage contract.
�
In order to make valid the marriage contract,
which shall be permitted between two individuals without regard to gender, it
shall be necessary that:

����
(1)
�
The respective parties do not stand in
relation to each other of ancestor and descendant of any degree whatsoever, two
siblings of the half as well as to the whole blood, [
uncle and niece, uncle
and nephew, aunt and nephew, or aunt and niece,
]
or a person and the
sibling of the person's parent,
whether the relationship is the result of
the issue of parents married or not married to each other or parents who are
partners in a civil union or not partners in a civil union;

����
(2)
�
Each of the parties at the time of
contracting the marriage is at least [
sixteen
]
eighteen
years of
age; [
provided that with the written approval of the family court of the
circuit within which the minor resides, it shall be lawful for a person under
the age of sixteen years, but in no event under the age of fifteen years, to
marry, subject to section 572-2;
]

����
(3)
�
Neither party has at the time any
lawful [
wife, husband,
]
spouse
or civil union partner living, except
as provided in section 572-1.7;

����
(4)
�
Consent
of neither party to the marriage has been obtained by force, duress, or fraud;

����
(5)
�
Neither
of the parties is a person afflicted with any loathsome disease concealed from,
and unknown to, the other party;

����
(6)
�
The
parties to be married in the State shall have duly obtained a license for that
purpose from the agent appointed to grant marriage licenses; and

����
(7)
�
The
marriage ceremony be performed in the State by a person or society with a valid
license to solemnize marriages and the parties to be married and the person
performing the marriage ceremony be all physically present at the same place
and time for the marriage ceremony.
"

����
SECTION

5
.
�
Section 572-10,
Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

����
"
�572-10
�

[
Applicant apparently under age.
]

Age of applicant.
�
[
If
]

For
any applicant for a license to marry [
appears to any agent to be
under the age of eighteen years
], the agent shall, before granting a
license to marry, require the production of a certificate of birth or other
satisfactory proof showing the age of the applicant."

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SECTION

6
.
�
Section 577-25,
Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (a) to read as
follows:

����
"
(a)
�

Any law to the contrary notwithstanding, a minor shall be deemed to be
emancipated if the minor has[
:

����
(1)
�
Entered
into a valid marriage pursuant to chapter 572; or

����
(2)
�
Received
]

received
a declaration of emancipation issued by
the family court

pursuant to this
section.
"

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SECTION

7
.
�
Section 580-22,
Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

����
"
�580-22
�

Nonage.
�
An action to annul a
marriage on the ground that one of the parties was under legal age, may be
brought by the parent or guardian entitled to the custody of the minor, or by
any person admitted by the court to prosecute as the friend of the minor.
�
In no case shall the marriage be annulled on
the application of a party who was of legal age at the time it was contracted[
;
nor when it appears that the parties, after they attained the legal age, had
for any time freely cohabited as a married couple
]."

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SECTION

8
.
�
Section 572-2,
Hawaii Revised Statutes, is repealed.

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["
�572-2
�

Consent of parent or guardian.
�
Whenever any person who is under the age of
eighteen is to be married, the written consent of his or her parents, or
guardian or other person in whose care and custody he or she may be, shall
accompany the application for a license to marry.
�
No license shall be issued to any minor who
is under the jurisdiction of the family court without the written consent of a
judge of such court.
"]

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SECTION

9
.
�
Section 572-9,
Hawaii Revised Statutes, is repealed.

����
["
�572-9
�

Persons under age.
�

Whenever any person who is under the age of eighteen, whose parents are
dead, or who is a ward of a family court, applies for a license to marry, he or
she shall set forth in the statement accompanying the application, the name of
his or her guardian or of any other person in whose care and custody he or she
may be.
"]

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SECTION
10.
�
Statutory material to be repealed is
bracketed and stricken.
�
New statutory
material is underscored.

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SECTION
11.
�
This Act shall take effect upon its
approval.

INTRODUCED BY:

_____________________________

Report Title:

Marriage;
Legal Age

Description:

Raises the minimum age requirement
to enter into marriage from sixteen to eighteen years of age.
�
Removes the parental consent and written
approval by the family court requirements for a minor to marry.
�
Removes spousal cohabitation after the parties
attain legal age as an exception for an annulment based on nonage.
�
Makes conforming amendments.

The summary description
of legislation appearing on this page is for informational purposes only and is
not legislation or evidence of legislative intent.