I’d ask my wife what she thinks but I already tucked her in.

A minimum age requirement might deter some underage marriages, but with parental consent, the youngsters can go to another state for their marriage ceremony.

I don't know how much revenue Tennessee gets from being a destination wedding state, but in Hawaii, our state generates a lot of income from wedding parties spending lots of money for their celebration and honeymoon. Most are over 18 years old, because our minimum age is 18 without parental consent but it's 15 with parental consent. I rarely get couples under 18, but it's happened.

In 2015, there was man from Utah who brought several young couples to Hawaii, in hopes of (or under the guise of) getting a legal marriage of young couples with letters of consent from their parents. The ceremony I was involved with had to do with an underage bride (15) with a consent letter supposedly from her parents (who were not present, so no way to verify) but things just didn't add up to the marriage license agent, so she didn't issue the license. Nonetheless, I was called to perform a symbolic wedding (commitment ceremony) before I knew the circumstances. Even though it wasn't legal, I'm sure that didn't stop the couple from consummating their "marriage" that night, but I hear that sometimes they do wait with underage girls, until they are of age or married, to prevent lawsuits.

This was one of 12 young couples on their "honeymoon" making up the group and it looked to me like some kind of weird cult, with only one older guy (seemingly in his 30s) so I did some research using the names of the wedding couple, and it turns out they were both listed in the family tree of the Kingston Clan, a mormon religious order in Utah. The next in line leader of the clan was the guy I was dealing with, who made all the decisions, rarely letting the couple speak for themselves.

It turns out that this Kingston Family Clan apparently quite often fake marriages and leave the biological father's (non-legal husband) name off birth certificates so the mothers can collect welfare. By law, each man is only permitted one legal wife (usually the first) but then takes on many "spiritual" wives. This means marriages sometimes take place between half siblings, cousins, etc. The legally unwed mothers (married spiritually with other "sister wives" are responsible for financially supporting their kids, with welfare, it seems.

In Hawaii, it is legal to marry a first cousin, so we do attract some marriages because of that.

So, I said all that to say this: There might be an economic reason state leaders might want to remove the minimum age of marriage, not necessarily an immoral one. Preventing underage marriage, a loophole to get out of charges being legally liable for child support, might be costing the state money? Nah, it will still happen.

[worldpopulationreview.com]

[en.wikipedia.org]

Stewart is right. The Tennessee GOP has at least one seriously abnormal member.

Great news for fans of Jerry Lee Lewis and all those wishing to marry an underage cousin.

Well I guess, they want to bring Tennessee into line with all the backward, primitive, underdeveloped, immoral, intellectually bankrupt and undereducated theocracies in the world, with which they feel they have so much in common.

( I know that this is a USA based site, so as a foreigner I feel it is best to bite my tongue sometimes, and try not to sound too critical, especially as you seem to do quite a good job yourselves anyway. But really, are you retrograding back into the dark ages or something over there ?)

I don't see any reason NOT to have a minimum are requirement.