Fraidy Reiss is a United States–based activist against forced marriage, child marriage, and teenage marriage.
According to Reiss, in the first week of her marriage, her then-husband began to abuse her, repeatedly threatening to kill her and engaging in other forms of violence. Reiss says she only realized that she was experiencing domestic violence when she spoke with a therapist outside of her community. Nonetheless, her family encouraged her to stay with her husband. After one violent episode, Reiss applied for a temporary restraining order, the first woman in her community to do so. However, she says her rabbi sent an attorney, also a member of the Haredi community, to take Reiss to family court, to tell the judge that she wished to drop the order. Reiss developed a five-year escape plan, and was eventually able to go to college, get a job, support her family, and divorce her husband.
Reiss graduated at 32 from Rutgers University, and was commencement speaker. She began work as a journalist. Reiss left her husband after twelve years of marriage, and was shunned by her family after doing so. She finally was able to obtain a divorce three years after leaving him. Reiss subsequently left Judaism, and became an atheist. Reiss has not spoken to her family since then, save for her sister on occasion.
In 2016, it was announced that Reiss would become the subject of a documentary by production company Women Rising. Sara Hirsh Bordo will direct the documentary, and production on it was scheduled to begin in fall of 2016.
Upon learning about the phenomenon of marriage under the age of 18 in the United States, Reiss took on ending marriage under the age of 18 in all 50 U.S. states. In 2018, the first two U.S. states – Delaware and New Jersey – signed laws ending all marriage before 18."Delaware becomes first US state to fully ban child marriage". CNN. May 12, 2018. Retrieved September 17, 2018."New Jersey governor signs law banning under-age marriage". June 22, 2018. Also in 2018, American Samoa, a U.S. territory, ended child marriage."Governor Moliga signs into law bill to increase marriage age for girls". Radio New Zealand. September 12, 2018. Retrieved September 19, 2018. Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and the U.S. Virgin Islands followed in 2020, then Rhode Island and New York in 2021, and Massachusetts in 2022. In 2023, Vermont, Connecticut, and Michigan ended child marriage. Washington, Virginia and New Hampshire followed in 2024, bringing to 13 the total number of states that have ended child marriage. In 2025, Washington, D.C., a U.S. district and the nation's capital, also passed legislation to set the marriage age at 18. As of 2025, several other states have introduced similar legislation to end marriage under the age of 18.
Reiss lent her expertise to the A&E documentary, I Was a Child Bride: The Untold Story, with Elizabeth Vargas, in 2019.
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