Back in May 2001, a bill was introduced into the Alabama Senate that sought to raise the age a person can marry from 14 years-old to 16. But during a late night filibuster, the bill failed to pass. Lawmakers did not want to raise the age, according to an Associated Press report from the time.

“I couldn’t believe there was so much opposition to it,” said former Alabama representative John Hilliard (D-Birmingham), who introduced the bill after discovering that children from neighboring states were coming into Alabama to get married. “How can it be that a child as young as that was being promised out by their parents? And almost nobody at the time was able to tell me why it was okay for it to continue.”

Child marriage is still legal in Alabama, but on the decline – AL.Com