Requiring all persons to be 18 years of age to be eligible to give consent for marriage and eliminating exceptions to such requirement.

HB 2026 raises the minimum age for giving consent to marriage from 16 to 18 years for all individuals, eliminating all prior exceptions that allowed minors aged 16-17 to marry with parental or court consent. This bill directly affects minors under 18 who would previously have been able to obtain marriage licenses with parental or judicial approval. The key mechanism is amending Kansas law to remove sections permitting marriage consent for those under 18, requiring all applicants to be 18 or older to provide consent without exception. The bill repeals existing provisions (K.S.A. 23-2505(c)) that allowed for parental or judicial consent for minors.