Marriage age

Usually, social customs catch up later than law changes.

Good positive update

Excellent idea.

I dont think age is the issue ,its maturity and I know a lot of 16 year olds who are more mature than people twice their age.and some 40 year olds who act as if they're still 12 .If young people want to be together they'll just live together the marriage age wont stop that.
Its not the 1950's or even 70's when we couldn't get a flat without producing a marriage certificate ...lol

I believe this is an attempt to stop forced marriages Paddy. At least it’s a start.

Great idea.

Yes it is to more about stopping arranged marriage, as it also illegal to take someone under 18 abroad to get married and you can be prosecuted if you do .

As long as the forced marriage is registered in the system, which is not a guarantee

Here's a little bit of history. I believe back in Victorian times you needed parental consent to marry under the age of 21.

i remember when the age of majority was 21, and i'm not a victorian !
you must be v young !
it was until the late 1960s, so not that long ago.
i know of 3 sisters who all married at age 21.
their father had told them growing up that he would not sign anything to do with marriage, so he couldn't be blamed later if it went wrong. so they all had to wait until they were 21. it was more common then to marry young, esp for women.

i think it was until 1968 or 1969.
in england and wales anyway.

If it helps to stop forced marriages, it's a good thing.

I think it's a terrible idea. The age of consent to sexual intercourse is 16. If a 16 or 17 year old got pregnant, they were free to marry. Now they can't - that's not progress.

(And before anyone says marriage at 16 never lasts - one of my dearest friends was married at 22 to his 16 year old wife, and their marriage was a great one, filled with both natural children and many foster children until his death at age 64.)

I married in 1969 and still had to get parental permission under 21. So the law must have been changed sometime in the 70s,

The new law will help stop forced marriage, and I agree with it,

I married in 1970 aged 19. The law had been changed before then. I rather wish it hadn’t and that my parents had refused their consent.

It's good for those who have arranged marriages forced on them which is awful but not so good for everyone else. Personally I was not ready to marry till I was in my late 20's but I do know happily married people who tied the knot at 16. It is still 16 in Scotland - maybe be an upsurge in Gretna Green again!

Well I posted about Victorian times because I had seen it whilst doing family history. I couldn't remember what the situation was re. parental consent in the 1960s. I wasn't thinking about marrying so it went over my head.

I agree with poshpaws that we have a situation where the person can legally have intercourse at 16 but cannot marry for another 2 years. Has this been thought through?

I married aged 20 in 1966. Not only did I have to get my parents permission, but that of my Commanding Officer as I was serving in the Army at the time. I have no idea what I would have done if she had said “No”! Thrown a brick through her office window? My father was so gobsmacked that anyone wanted to marry me, he would have signed anything!

I think that it's good news, should have been done years ago. How can you be old enough to get married but too young to vote? Age of consent should also be raised.

We got married in 1960. I was almost 19 and dh was 20. We had to have the signed permission of both our parents.

Young people have to stay in education until 18 so it makes sense for minimum marriage age to line up with this. Teens are 16 in the year they do GCSEs and it seems absurd that they could be married then.
I believe the age of marriage without parental consent changed from 21 to 18 on 1st January 1970 when the age of majority was lowered from 21 to 18. I was one of the teens affected by this.

I should have said I came of age on that date, not getting married then!

That is good news.

In 1970, aged 18, I announced I was going to 'live in sin' and I remember my Mum cursing Harold Wilson (I think it was him) for changing the law so she couldn't do anything about it!

I signed my fathers name for my sister. She knew he didn’t want her to marry because she was pregnant.