In 1880, the ages of consent were set at 10 or 12 in most states, with the exception of Delaware where it was 7. The ages of consent were raised across the U.S. during the late 19th century and the early 20th century. By 1920, 26 states had an age of consent at 16, 21 states had an age of consent at 18, and one state (Georgia) had an age of consent at 14. Small adjustments to these laws occurred after 1920. The last two states to raise their age of general consent from under 16 to 16 or higher were Georgia, which raised the age of consent from 14 to 16 in 1995, and Hawaii, which changed it from 14 to 16 in 2001.

No, it is rare for states to lower their age of consent; the trend has been for states to raise the age or ban underage marriage altogether, with Colorado being a notable exception where the age was lowered from 18 to 15 in 1970 after the state's age of majority was also lowered. Recent legislative efforts in states like West Virginia and Missouri have focused on setting a minimum age for marriage, rather than lowering the age of consent.

A rumor that circulated online in August 2025 claimed U.S. President Donald Trump, and the Republican Party, planned to federally act to reduce the age of consent for sexual activity, or the minimum age for marriage, to 14 — matters historically controlled at the state level. Snopes received reader searches asking if this rumor was true.
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In one of the most prominent examples of users sharing the claim, on Aug. 11, content creator Monte Mader (@montemader) posted a three-minute video (archived) to their more than 1.5 million Instagram followers. The clip received over 2.3 million views. Mader also posted the video on Facebook (archived), TikTok (archived) and YouTube (archived), collectively earning nearly 700,000 additional views. Mader, the only person speaking in the clip, made numerous claims, including mentioning Trump's Aug. 11 press conference announcing his takeover of Washington's police department. This partial transcript highlights Mader's primary assertions, which include alleging state governments in Missouri, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Wyoming drafted legislation to allow 14-year-olds to marry adults:
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However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo located no news media outlets credibly confirming any developments about Trump and Republicans seeking to lower the age of consent for sex or marriage to 14. A review of Trump's posts on his own Truth Social social media platform found no announcements about this matter, either.

Further, similar searches produced no documentation about governments in the four aforementioned states drafting legislation to allow children as young as 14 years old to marry adults. On the contrary, outlets reported that, in recent months or years, Missouri, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Wyoming either prohibited or tightened restrictions related to marriage for persons under age 18.

No proposal exists to lower the legal marriage age to 14. The rumor falsely claims that state legislatures in Missouri, New Hampshire, West Virginia, and Wyoming have drafted laws to allow 14-year-olds to marry. There’s no evidence or pending legislation that we have seen, in any of these states, to support that claim. In fact, Missouri and New Hampshire both banned child marriage effective 2025. Reforms passed in both West Virginia and Wyoming in 2023 set minimum marriage ages of 16 in those states, which previously had no minimum age.

No federal policy is being enacted to lower the age of consent for marriage. The federal government cannot raise or lower the marriage age. This is the legal purview of the states. Fact-checking sources have found no basis for this claim.

Missouri Age of Consent Laws
December 8, 2022 | Child Sexual Abuse or Serious Injury
An individual must be of a certain age to legally consent to sexual activity or intercourse in Missouri. Children who are younger than the age of consent are not viewed as having the capacity to give their consent or agree to sexual contact with another person. This means sexual activity with someone below the age of consent could result in prosecution for the crime of statutory rape.

The age of consent in Missouri is 17 years old. This is the minimum age at which an individual is legally able to consent to participate in sexual activity. Anyone who is under the age of 17 cannot consent to sexual intercourse, even if he or she gives permission to engage in the sex acts. There is no such thing as getting consent from someone under the age of 17 in Missouri. Engaging in sexual intercourse with an individual under 17 violates Missouri’s statutory rape law.

Marriage would be banned for anyone under 18 under a law that advanced out of the Missouri Senate Thursday.

Under current Missouri law, anyone under 16 is prohibited from getting married. But 16 and 17 year olds can get married with parental consent to anyone under 21.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Tracy McCreery, would ban child marriage outright. State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Republican from Harrisonville, filed similar legislation.

“The current marriage laws incentivize and legalize the trafficking of minors under the guise of marriage,” McCreery said Thursday.

The vote Thursday was 32 to 1. The only no vote was state Sen. Mike Moon, a Republican from Ash Grove.