this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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But isn't the age of consent 18 in the US? How does that work?
In the UK you used to be able to get married at 16, but the age of consent is 16, so it kind of made sense.
Common misconception, but nope! The U.S. decided to leave that one up to the states, since apparently whether or not it's okay to screw children depends on... what geographical coordinates within the U.S. you're located in. It's also separate from whether or not you can marry btw.
It also depends on a number of different factors in some jurisdictions. For example, the age of consent might be 18, but with exemptions for someone who's 16 or older with someone who is within 2 years of their age. (e.g. a 16yo & 18yo, 17yo & 19yo)
It can also vary based on larger age gaps. For example, Washington has the age of consent at 16, but it can go up to 18 if the other person is more than 5 years older and other conditions are met.
Or, you could be like Iowa, who sets it at 16... but allows people 14-15yo to do it with someone up to 18 or 19yo respectively.
For marriage, sometimes it lines up with age of consent and sometimes it doesn't.
For example, California sets the age of consent at 18, and any sexual activity with someone 18 regardless of your age (even if you are also under 18, or even the same age) is a crime... unless you're married, which can be done at any age in the state, so long as there is parental consent and a judge says yes.
To be very transparent... I'm basically just paraphrasing from these two Wikipedia pages 😅
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_consent_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States
I will say that the 2 year age gap actually makes sense though. Dating in high school would be a lot weirder with restricted ages based on if your birthday was in May vs January of the same year.
Wow, that's a lot more complicated than I would have expected!
Our system, although it's basically the way it is because things change slowly here, kind of works for us. Between 16-18 here, you're no longer in school, you go to college (different meaning than in the US!) or vocational training. It's an in-between child and adult stage, where most people start doing grown-up things for the first time.
This happens a lot in the USA, because of how much autonomy the states have. A lot of decisions are left up to individual states, and some states end up doing strange things and add all sorts of exceptions to their laws. Even basic things like sick leave aren't federally mandated (and only 19 or so out of the 50 states have mandated paid sick leave).
Sometimes it can be a good thing though... For example, California has the strictest privacy laws in the country (CCPA and CPRA, similar to GDPR in Europe), and Illinois has very strict laws on usage of biometrics (like fingerprints and facial recognition). Those would have been extremely hard to approve nationwide. Things that go well in one state often end up rolling out to other states too.