## Facts

- New York Domestic Relations Law § 15 required parental consent for marriage licenses for males ages 16–18 and females ages 14–18; it also required judicial approval for females ages 14–16.
- Maria Moe (age 15) and Raoul Roe (age 18) lived together with their infant son and sought to marry to formalize their family and address their child’s illegitimacy status.
- Maria sought consent from her widowed mother, who refused.
- Additional minor couples intervened, including a 17-year-old male and a 15-year-old pregnant female whose mother refused consent.
- Because the required parental consents (and, where applicable, judicial approval) were not obtained, local clerks would not issue marriage licenses.
- Plaintiffs filed a federal class action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, claiming § 15 violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
- After an initial abstention order was reversed on appeal, the district court on remand upheld § 15 on summary judgment, and plaintiffs appealed again.

## Issues

1. Whether minors possess a fundamental constitutional right to marry on the same terms as adults for substantive due process purposes.
2. What level of scrutiny applies to a parental-consent requirement that conditions minors’ access to marriage.
3. Whether New York’s parental-consent (and limited judicial-approval) scheme for minor marriages violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed judgment for the defendants and upheld New York Domestic Relations Law § 15.
- The court held that minors’ interest in marriage is not a fundamental right triggering strict scrutiny.
- The court applied rational basis review because of the state’s broader authority to regulate minors and the special concerns associated with minors marrying.
- The court found § 15 rationally related to legitimate state interests, including protecting minors from immature decision-making and reinforcing parental authority in child-rearing.
- The court accepted the legislative choice to rely primarily on parental consent rather than individualized judicial determinations of maturity in most cases.
- The court treated the statute as delaying marriage until adulthood in the absence of parental consent, rather than permanently foreclosing marriage.

## Legal Principles

- Fundamental-right analysis may differ for minors; constitutional protections for children are not coextensive with those of adults.
- When regulation concerns minors and marriage, a parental-consent requirement may be reviewed under rational basis rather than strict scrutiny.
- A law survives rational basis review if it is rationally related to legitimate governmental interests, including the state’s interest in minors’ welfare and support for parental decision-making.
- The state may structure minor-marriage rules to ensure participation by a mature adult decision-maker without providing individualized, case-by-case maturity hearings as the default mechanism.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit sustained New York’s parental-consent regime for minor marriages, holding that minors do not have a fundamental right to marry on adult terms and that the statutory conditions on minors’ marriage licenses satisfy rational basis review under the Due Process Clause.


Moe v. Dinkins, 669 F.2d 67 (2d Cir. 1982)