In Poland, in the 17th century, in the parish of St. John in Warsaw, the average age of married women was 20.1 years and that of men was 23.7 years. In the second half of the eighteenth century, women in the parish of Holy Cross married at 21.8, while men at 29. [34] Ancient Roman law required wives to be at least 12 years old. In ancient Roman law, early marriages to wives between the ages of 12 and 25 required the consent of the bride and her father, but in late antiquity, Roman law allowed women over the age of 25 to marry without parental consent. [9]: 29-37 Some fathers arranged marriages for a son or daughter before he reached the age of maturity, which is similar to what some fathers did in ancient Rome. Completion would only take place at the age of maturity. Roman Catholic canon law defines marriage as consummated when the “spouses have performed among themselves in a human manner a matrimonial act which is in itself proper to the procreation of offspring, to which marriage is essentially ordained and by which the spouses become one flesh.” [23] There are marriage records of two- and three-year-olds: in 1564, a three-year-old child named John was married to a two-year-old child named Jane at the court of the Bishop of Chester, England. In recent years, many EU countries have tightened their marriage laws, banning marriage before the age of 18 altogether or requiring judicial approval for such marriages. Countries that have reformed their marriage laws in recent years include Sweden (2014), Denmark (2017), Germany (2017), Luxembourg (2014), Spain (2015), the Netherlands (2015), Finland (2019) and Ireland (2019). Many developing countries have also enacted similar laws in recent years: Honduras (2017), Ecuador (2015), Costa Rica (2017), Panama (2015), Trinidad and Tobago (2017), Malawi (2017).
In England and Wales, the Marriage Act 1753 required that a marriage be covered by a licence (which required parental consent for persons under 21) or the publication of banns (which parents of persons under 21 could prohibit). In addition, the Church of England stipulated that the bride and groom had to be at least 21 years of age to marry without the consent of their family; In certificates, the most common age for brides is 22. For the bride and groom, 24 was the most common age, with an average age of 24 for the bride and groom and 27 for the bride and groom. [27] While European nobles often married early, they constituted a small minority of the population,[28] and Canterbury marriage certificates show that even among nobles it was very rare to marry women very early. [27] Also, do NOT make unrealistic claims that Islam forbids forced marriage. Should marriage be prohibited for persons under the age of 18, or should exceptions relating to parental consent, pregnancy or court authorization be maintained? There has been pressure for laws banning child marriage in states like New York and Virginia. No such legislation has yet been passed in California. The age of marriage is 18 in all European countries except Andorra and Scotland, where it is 16 (for both sexes). Existing exceptions to this general rule (which generally require special judicial or parental consent) are discussed below. In both the European Union and the Council of Europe, the age of marriage is the responsibility of each member State.
The Istanbul Convention, Europe`s first legally binding instrument in the field of violence against women and domestic violence[201], obliges countries that ratify it only to prohibit forced marriages (Article 37) and to ensure that forced marriages can be easily lifted without further victimisation (Article 32), but does not mention a minimum age for marriage. In California, the applicable law is found in California Family Code Sections 302 and 304 (2019): “An unmarried person under the age of 18 may obtain a marriage certificate upon receipt of a court order authorizing the person or persons to marry in accordance with the requirements described in Section 304.” [11] Historically, Section 56 of the California Civil Code (1872) established 15 as the age at which a woman could marry without her parents` consent. In 1921, the age was raised to 18. [12] Much attention and consideration is given to marriages in India; Nevertheless, society and its rigid rules have prevented people, especially women, from making their own decisions about their lives and the age at which they want to marry. In Victorian times, the legal age of marriage was 21 to 1823. After 1823, however, it was reduced to 14 for boys and 12 for girls. There were many social ills in colonial India and one of them was child marriage. Meanwhile, girls between the ages of 10 and 12 were married on average. After independence, India underwent a major change in 1978 when the legal age of marriage was raised to 18 for girls and 21 for boys. Recently, a bill was introduced by the Indian government to raise the legal age for women from 18 to 21.
Asked about the rationale behind the new law, the Indian government said it would empower women and minimize gender inequalities. The purpose of this article is to analyse the economic and social aspects of this provision in the context of the current debate on the proposed amendment. The 55 Parties to the 1962 Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage and Registration of Marriages have agreed to legislate on a minimum age for marriage in order to override customary, religious and tribal laws and traditions. If the age of marriage according to the law of a religious community is lower than that provided for by the law of the country, the law of the State prevails. However, some religious communities do not accept the primacy of state law in this regard, which can lead to child or forced marriage.
