Pot calling kettle

So are you arguing for the UK to increase the age of marriage, or for us to stop supporting calls for other countries to allow marriage at the age of 8?

Here, you need parental consent to marry at 16, which is not going to help in the case of a forced marriage, but these are illegal anyway. It is also possible for someone who marries too young and regrets it to get a divorce, which is unlikely to be the case in the areas where the charities operate - for women, anyway.

My point is that we can hardly condemn other cultures for doing something that we allow. A child is a child in law no matter how young or how close to 18 he or she is.

"No living together until you are married" and "no getting married until you have passed all your exams, got a proper job and saved up to get married"

We couldn't raise the marriageable age without also raising the age of consent, as doing so would be tantamount to approving sex before marriage, which would be against the CofE rules on which our laws are based.

I can't see the point of even trying to do that, as it would criminalise a lot of young people who are doing what comes naturally, in most cases responsibly.

It is not horrific. Not all sixteen year olds are the same.

We were unable to even contemplate marriage when I was sixteeen and my husband-to-be was twenty because of the social pressures and assumptions of the Glaswegian middle classes in the early sixties.

I went to university when I was sixteen. I don't think I was a silly girl. We had been going out "courting" as it might still have been called then, for two years and we were both sure about our relationship.

The next four years would, I think, have been much easier for us if it had been possible for jus to marry.

At that time the rule was "no living together until you mkat

I was 18 and 5 days when I married my ex husband as my Father would not give consent. He was so right!! My current OH was married at 17 the first time as his girlfriend was pregnant and both families insisted. He has now been married 3 times and lived long term with another woman before me! We have been together 17 1/2 years.
The idea of a girl marrying so young is horrific especially to much older men but I agree we should sort ourselves out before preaching to others. However it does need to be brought to peoples attention that this is happening.

A 16 year old isn’t the same as an 8 year old though.

The entire charity advert scam is outrageous.
My family has had lots of experience with RSPCA, none of it favourable.
And I'm not entirely sure what the NSPPC actually do.

I would have happily married my husband when I was 16 but, although that was allowed without parents' consent in Scotland at that time, we waited until we had both passed exams, got a proper job and saved up to get married.

Looking back over almost sixty years, I wish it had been possible for us to marry at sixteen and twenty, rather than at twenty and twenty-four. I do believe if it had not been for the issues of money and social pressure, these four years might have been easier for us.