A 15-year-old girl applies for permission to marry her 18-year-old boyfriend with whom she has an 8-month-old baby. The girl included a handwritten letter in her petition, explaining to the judge that she got “butterflys all day” when she first met her boyfriend around three years earlier.
She filed the petition in 2022, more than four years after a statewide law took effect in Kentucky blocking anyone under 17 years old from getting married — and even then, 17-year-olds can only do so in very specific circumstances with a judge's permission.
But Mason District Court Judge Kim Razor signed her “permission to marry” form the day of her 16th birthday, despite the words at the top of the form certifying it is for a “minor child 17 years of age.”
Razor revoked the order only after the Mason County clerk, who issues marriage licenses, denied the request, citing the 2018 law that stops children from getting married. The judge noted she was not “passing judgement on the suitability of the marriage” in the vacating order.
The couple then crossed over the county line and filed a new marriage application in Fleming County. They shared Judge Razor’s original order to grant the petition, and a week later their marriage was certified.
Fleming County Clerk Jarrod Fritz told Kentucky Public Radio that his staff follow court orders — and they didn’t know it had been revoked.
“If it's a court order, you don't follow a court order, you're in contempt of court,” Fritz said. “I don't know anything about that other part, the rescinding of an order. I wasn't made aware of that.”
“What we found is that caveat that we put in back in 2018 has really been exploited. It hasn't been adhered to. The law hasn't been followed."GOP Sen. Julie Raque Adams
It’s not an isolated incident. Since the law blocking most child marriages took effect in 2018, at least 16 illegal child marriages have taken place, according to data from the Kentucky Office of Vital Statistics. They violated the law because either one of the individuals getting married was too young or the age gap was too large; 17-year-olds are barred under law from marrying anyone more than 4 years older than themselves.
Kentucky Public Radio spoke with a half dozen of the county clerks who issued those unlawful licenses. Some said they did so because of a court order. A couple provided specific information about the marriages themselves, though others didn’t. The information provides new insights into how underage Kentuckians are still getting married and how laws designed to protect them went ignored.
The raw data has already sparked new Kentucky legislation that would raise the age limit to a strict 18-years-old, with no option for judicial intervention. GOP Sen. Julie Raque Adams from Louisville, who sponsored the first change in 2018, said she sees no other option to appropriately protect children.
“What we found is that caveat that we put in back in 2018 has really been exploited. It hasn't been adhered to. The law hasn't been followed,” Raque Adams said as she presented her bill in a Senate committee Thursday.
Under the existing law, 17-year-olds have to meet a lengthy list of requirements to get married — proof the minor graduated high school or has a GED, permission from legal guardians, confirmation it’s not a coercive relationship, the full emancipation of the minor, verification the age difference is less than four years, and more.
Raque Adams said she worries that even in cases where ages aren’t an outright problem, officials aren’t following the appropriate judicial process to protect minors.
Donna Simmons, who founded the Reclaim Innocence, Stop Exploitation, or R.I.S.E., coalition to end child marriage, is fighting hard for Senate Bill 156. She said she suffered for years in an abusive relationship after marrying a 31-year-old man when she was just 16 years old. When she tried to escape the relationship, she was unable to sign a lease, enter a domestic-violence shelter or consent to her own medical care because she was still underage.
Simmons said she had hoped the requirements in the 2018 law would protect children, but fears the “loophole” in the original bill has left too much up to local officials. She said judges and clerks have not followed that law in all cases and therefore SB 156 is necessary.
“Yes, the clerk should know the law and absolutely judges should know the law as well, [but] it does leave gaps for cases falling through the cracks,” Simmons said.
Raque Adams said the “law is only as good as those who enforce it.” She said her goal now is to leave no gray area and make the law as clean and precise as possible.
Illegal child marriages in Kentucky
Simmons shared with KPR the records she received from the Office of Vital Statistics listing 17 cases since the law went into effect where an illegal child marriage was licensed — either for a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old marrying someone more than four years older.
The data does not include the name of either person getting married, but does list their ages, the county where it was granted and the year.
KPR contacted county clerks who granted the marriage licenses and are still in office. Several offered explanations on how they may have happened. Some clerks said they are obligated to follow a judge’s order granting a marriage petition — even if it is counter to state law — but one clerk who denied a couple’s illegal request said her obligation is to follow state law first and foremost.
More than a year after Kentucky’s child marriage law went into effect, a 17-year-old girl married a 26-year-old man in Union County — a case that highlights how some child marriages still slip through the cracks.
“I'd say in this instance, for us, no matter how uncomfortable we may feel, if there's a judge’s order and there's also parental consent, we're going to do it.”Union County Clerk Garrick Thompson
Union County Clerk Garrick Thompson told KPR the couple was from an Illinois county almost directly across the Ohio River. He initially said he granted the license because the girl’s mother signed a consent form and he had a judicial order from that same Illinois county.
Thompson said he can remember his office doing two or three marriage licenses for 17 year olds since the law went into effect, adding that he believes clerks are required to do so if a judge orders a petition granted.
“I wouldn't think a county clerk could trump a judge, right?” Thompson said. “Maybe morally they're thinking, ‘I don't care what this judge says. I just don't feel like it's right for me to marry this 17-year-old to this [26]-year-old,’ I don't know.”
“I'd say in this instance, for us, no matter how uncomfortable we may feel, if there's a judge’s order and there's also parental consent, we're going to do it.”
In a subsequent call, Thompson declined to share his copy of the judge’s order or the names of the individuals married. After reading the judicial order closer, Thompson realized it was actually not a judicial order granting their marriage, but one terminating the wardship of the girl’s parents.
In another case, state records show a 17-year-old girl marrying a 22-year-old man in Carlisle County in 2022. Carlisle County Clerk Becky Martin said they may have allowed such a marriage in the recent past with just the parents signing off, “but now we're not doing it. We're strictly by the book on that.”
In Knox County, state records show the same illegal five-year-age difference between a couple married in 2021. Knox County Clerk Mike Corey said he didn’t know the specifics of the case referenced, but such a license would only be issued with a court order. When asked if he has the discretion to deny orders that contradict state law, Corey said “If I have a judge’s order, I would not deny a license.”
In Pike County, state records show one 16-year-old girl marrying an 18-year-old in 2024, as well as a 17-year-old boy marrying a 29-year-old woman in 2023.
Pike County Clerk Darrell Pugh told KPR he believes the state’s data on the latter marriage is in error due to a clerical error, as the male individual was 27. He said he would provide a copy of the marriage license as proof, but has not yet done so. As for the 16-year-old girl, Pugh said he did not remember anything about that marriage.
Judges and clerks interpreting Kentucky law
Back in Maysville, Mason County Clerk Stephanie Schumacher said when a 16- and 18-year-old couple came into her office requesting a license — the aforementioned ones that instead went to Fleming County to get married — she told them no, regardless of their court order.
“They came in, had this order, and I was looking at it, and I knew that she did not meet the age requirement, and so I said, ‘I'm not doing it,’” Schumacher said. “Of course, they got very upset. The dad's screaming at me, ‘I have an order!’ It was ridiculous.”
Schumacher said she consulted with her husband, who just so happens to be the circuit court judge for Mason County, and he confirmed she had done the right thing in denying the license. But Schumacher said it’s frustrating that county clerks are expected to interpret the law when judges should be the ones getting this right.
She said clerks should exercise some discernment, but the general rule is to put your trust in a court order to properly follow the law.
“When you have a signed order from a judge you're pretty much going to do what the judge has ordered,” Schumacher said. “I think it's really disappointing that someone who's in a judicial capacity is unaware of the own laws that he or she is regulating.”
Judge Razor, who issued both the initial order and the order rescinding, did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Schumacher said she would welcome legislation that simplifies the process and gets rid of gray areas — no need for judges or clerks to interpret state law.
“It simplifies it. The parties are both 18. They're considered adults by laws, so they can sign for themselves, and we stay out of all of this territory,” Schumacher said of SB 156.
Getting married in Kentucky at 16
The couple who went over the county line to circumvent Schumacher spoke to KPR. Austin Emmons, now 21, and his wife Brenna, now 18, said they were happy they got married when they did and have no regrets. Austin said they did not know Judge Razor had revoked her order granting their marriage petition before they headed to Fleming County.
“The clerk in Maysville, she's probably the rudest woman ever,” Austin said. “But anyway, she denied it because she said that she wasn't for it. And then somehow, I guess the judge took back her word. But before we got the letter saying she took back her word, we went to Fleming County, and they went with it, because that's where I was from.”
The couple filed their application to marry in Fleming County on the same day that Razor revoked her order.
Austin and Brenna said child marriage may not be appropriate in every case, but that a judge should be able to look into specific cases to decide whether a marriage is appropriate or not.
"It's treated us good,” Austin said, referring to their marriage. “I don't know how many other people could say that."
Simmons, who has done national advocacy work to push other states to raise the minimum marriage age to 18, said she often hears lawmakers and others talking about the underage marriages that were happy, that did last. She said she’s happy for them and doesn’t want to denigrate those relationships, but it's not the majority.
According to a study relying on census data, nearly a quarter of children who marry are already separated or divorced by the time they turn 18 years of age. Advocates also argue married children are more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence.
Simmons said that when children do get into dangerous situations or seek a divorce, their options are limited because of their liminal status between child and adult.
“They don't have access to any protective services because a domestic violence shelter won't take them in, because they're not an adult, but [child protective services] also won't get involved because they're not technically considered a minor,” Simmons said, speaking from her own experiences. “There are so many intersections with these ongoing harms that keep this child locked in a traumatic state.”
Alex Goyette is the public policy manager for the Tahirih Justice Center, which campaigns to end child marriage in every state. Goyette said other states have followed the same path as Kentucky — passing legislation that allows for some rare instances of child marriage before coming back to the table. He pointed to Virginia and New York, which passed laws similar to Kentucky’s before raising the bar once again.
They follow “a similar pattern, passing a law that allowed emancipated minors to marry and then coming back and going the rest of the way and banning child marriage entirely,” Goyette said. “We hope to see the same in Kentucky.”
Goyette said he’s not surprised that complicated laws with specific exceptions are sometimes misused or misinterpreted.
“The more complex you make a law, the harder it is to implement. Clerks have a lot going on and judges have a lot going on. So the more sort of caveats and exceptions that are built in, the harder it is to implement.”
Banning child marriages in Kentucky
Kentucky was a nationwide leader when it banned most child marriages in 2018, Goyette said. Delaware became the first state to set the age floor at 18 with no exceptions later the same year.
According to the Tahirih Justice Center, 16 states have banned marriage until both individuals reach the age of majority, which is 18 in most states.
“I survived violence, exploitation and systemic failure not to hang my head in shame, but to protect other girls from being trapped the way I was.”Advocate Donna Simmons
On Thursday, SB 156, which would make Kentucky the 17th state, passed a Senate committee vote unanimously. Raque Adams sat beside Simmons, who shared her own experiences entering and leaving a child marriage. She explained why the bill is needed to ban child marriage in the state once and for all.
“Let me be clear, the institutions and legal systems in three different states, including Kentucky, failed both me and my child when my education, my credibility, my autonomy, my income and even my child were handed over to a predator who was able to legally hide his offenses behind a marriage license,” Simmons said.
While all Democrats and Republicans voted “yes,” one lawmaker expressed some concerns. GOP Sen. Gary Boswell of Owensboro said his best friend and his wife were 19- and 17-years-old respectively when they married and have remained that way. He said he understood the intent, but worried about those older teens.
“They've been married 60-some-odd years,” Boswell said of his friends. “I understand the issue when it comes to predators and all that.”
Sen. Brandon Smith, a Republican from Hazard, said multiple institutions failed Simmons when she married a 31-year-old man at 16 — a man she met when he was her therapist in a behavioral health facility at 14. Smith supported the bill and said the state needs to look into all the ways she and other women are failed by systems set up to help them.
“Kentucky is only as strong as the least among us,” Smith said. “I'm glad you didn't stop, and I apologize on behalf of all those agencies and institutions that turned you away and let you down, but you do deserve to hear that apology from somebody in government that says to you, I am truly sorry they let you down.”
Now that it’s passed a committee vote, the bill now heads to the full Senate, where its fate is now up to Republican leadership who can either decide to bring it to a floor vote or let it languish.
Simmons said she is hopeful Raque Adams will be able to close the loophole and see the bill through to the finish line.
“I survived violence, exploitation and systemic failure not to hang my head in shame, but to protect other girls from being trapped the way I was.”
