BOISE — The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Friday on a bill that would set a minimum marriage age of 16.

Sponsored by Reps. Barbara Ehardt and Bryan Zollinger, R-Idaho Falls, the bill would also limit 16- and 17-year-olds to marrying someone within three years of them in age. Currently, Idaho has no minimum age, although children under 16 need a judge to sign off before they can marry. Idaho is one of about a dozen states that has no minimum marriage age.

Rep. Melissa Wintrow, D-Boise, sponsored a similar bill in 2019 that failed in the House with a majority of Republicans, including Ehardt and Zollinger, against it. The main difference between Wintrow's bill and theirs is that Wintrow's bill would have required a judge to sign off for 16- and 17-year-olds to marry, which Ehardt and Zollinger viewed as government overreach into the family arena.

"What if the parent is the one that is coercing it, unfortunately, and the child is still married?" asked Wintrow, who is on the committee.

"Really, I just believe the family rights are so important in this country," Zollinger said. "Hopefully parents have the best interests. We know occasionally that doesn’t happen, but I have more faith in the family than I do in government."

Lori Burrelle, legislative director of the Southwest Idaho chapter of the National Organization for Women, was the only member of the public to testify on the bill. She said she was cautiously supportive of the bill although not thrilled with it. Burrelle said she thinks the minimum age should be 18 and she wished Ehardt and Zollinger had written it so the language was gender-neutral. Same-sex couples have been able to marry in Idaho since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, although Idaho code still does not recognize same-sex marriage.

"This is an incremental step forward, and it is better than there being no bottom age for marriage as is currently the law," Burrelle said.

The committee will likely vote on the bill sometime next week, after which it will go to the full House if the panel approves it.