Marriage age

Gretna green used to be the romantic option, blacksmiths and all. i know a few people,some foreigners, who married there back in the day. Think its still popular today.
I didn't want to ask pernission, so we married 2 weeks after my 21st birthday, in 1969. Had suggested living in sin but dh refused. Those were the days my friends...swinging 60s eh? Ha ha. Passed us by.

for those two posters who say it is a bad thing, can you say more ?
i agree that years ago it was a disgrace to be pregnant/give birth without being married.
but that has not been the case for nearly 40 years.
so what would be the harm of having to wait until age 18 to marry, even if pregnant ?

I was quite surprised by this announcement as I thought it was eighteen already. Anything younger is too young. And, yes, if it helps to stamp out arranged marriages then this is good.
21 was the legal age without permission when I married in 1958.

by the way, can i remind everyone about the teaspoon safety alert re forced marriage abroad.
if a person, usually a girl, fears they are being taken abroad maybe under excuse of a holiday/family funeral, to be pressured into marrying there, they are told to secret a metal teaspoon about their person.
this will sound the metal detector at airport and they will be taken aside to check.
the aim is to get into a side room alone with some security person where they can ask for help.
i wonder if this could be extended re domestic abuse, and x-rays in A&E etc.
the staff need to be trained to be alert to this.
like the emergency call handlers who know why they are being asked for a pizza.
sorry to go off at a tangent.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/09/metal-spoon-alert-authorities-honour-based-abuse-leeds

My DIL used to teach in a secondary school in London where most pupils were from ethnic minority backgrounds. All too often her 13-15year old female pupils would either disappear, or would say that they were going to homeland of their families. Some knew what was happening and told the teachers they wouldn’t be back. Others would say they were going on holiday. Some of these girls were educationally gifted. It is heartbreaking. As much as I think it’s a very positive thing for society to be multicultural, I do think that it’s so wrong to put young girls born and bred in this country into forced marriages. This law is well overdue. They do however need to clamp down on parents that do this to their daughters. I think a severe custodial sentence plus heavy fines would help. It should be the girls choice as to what they want to do.

welbeck that’s really interesting- I never knew that!

Well said Gilly. We can sometimes bend over backwards too far trying not to offend cultural sensibilities. When in Rome ...

62Granny

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 .

Great idea if it stops arranged marriages. After teaching in a closed community in two cities I was party to all sorts of tricks.
One girl who picked her brother regularly came quite tipsy one day, the head tried to sober her up. The next her brother reported she had gone to another community to marry her cousin. She was still at the local Comp and a very bright girl with an academic future ahead of her.

I think it should be 25 personally. I was married at 21 and it was still far too young. I never did anything like travelling or living in a flat with other girls and I wish I had waited. My daughter did loads of stuff such as living and working in different countries and didn't settle down until she was 35. I must admit to being a tad envious

Is it to remain at 16yrs old in Scotland? to legally get married or will it be changed. Years ago in the 60s and 70s it was totally frowned upon to even live together outside of marriage.

welbeck

for those two posters who say it is a bad thing, can you say more ?
i agree that years ago it was a disgrace to be pregnant/give birth without being married.
but that has not been the case for nearly 40 years.
so what would be the harm of having to wait until age 18 to marry, even if pregnant ?

Well, a girl who gets pregnant at 16 cannot marry for two years even if she wants to which is rather unfair. There are still families who would feel disgraced by their unmarried daughter having a baby at 16, and maybe they will pressurise her into having an abortion? I would want any pregnant teenager to have a choice about what she wants to do and not being able to marry limits her choices. The age of consent should be the same as the legal age to marry, so maybe the age of consent should be changed to 18 years.

Changing the age of consent won’t stop young girls having sex and getting pregnant. Better to have to wait to marry perhaps than enter what turns out to be a disastrous marriage.

Welbeck that's so clever, thank you. Every day's a school day on GN!

1968 I had to have my parents permission to marry at 18, I wasn’t old enough although I had been working from the age of 15 1/2 . They shouldn’t have. Then both sets kept on asking when they were going to have GC
We had a mortgage at 20.

I married at 16 in Australia with my fathers permission, I was pregnant, and I dont consider that I was too young. 50 years later we are still together and still happy.

When I think back to how stupid I was at 16….definitely not able to make a decision about marrying.

like you henetha, I thought 18 was the age now...

can`t keep up with all these changes.

I had to have my fathers permission to marry at 20 years old..
marriage still failed, as husband insisted on going off with other women!

I am not Victorian!

I think that raising the age to 18 for marriage is better for ALL young people, and not only for those who are at risk of a "forced marriage ". These days many couples cohabit prior to marriage and many babies are born outside marriage, so there's not the stigma that there used to be. If a couple (at age 16) really care for each other, then waiting until 18 to marry shouldn't be an issue?

My daughter married at the grand old age of 16! Her husband is MUCH older. They've been married 11 years now, and are happy.

Why did we allow it? That's complicated, our daughter was ill. Very ill. At the time there was no guarantee that she would survive until she was 18 and able to marry without our permission. We also talked to the vicar (family church), social services, police and a lawyer friend all of whom were clear that though very unusual, their relationship was healthy and if they requested the permission from a judge reports would support their wish.

In the end we agreed, mainly because we wanted our daughter to feel supported. She is severely disabled, and her husband is often away (army), but she has a live in carer and other help. She lives a busy, and full life, she worked through her A levels at home, then her degree, she works very part time (not much time), she's been skiing (in her chair), and has tried most of the things that other girls could only dream of.

I hate to admit it, but as a wife, our daughter has achieved far more than she would have done as a standard schoolgirl.

Therefore I do believe that there is a place for teenage marriage whilst obviously this needs to protect youngsters being forced into marriage.

Perhaps though, energies should be centred on stopping forced marriage regardless of age, afterall, are we saying that it's ok toa

I was going to say, are we saying it's ok for forced marriage at 18?

Sledgehammer to crack a nut. There must be other ways of preventing forced marriages in minority groups than preventing people over 16 in general from getting married, especially when they are mature individuals. The underlying problem is attitudes in some communities that will take many decades to get rid of through education and religious leaders need to take a strong line on this.

Thought the very same Daftbag1.
I don`t think anyone could stop arranged marriages,it`s a cultural idiotic thing and will go on behind closed doors,rules or no rules.

The age of consent was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1970, not in Victorian days!

At least at 18 a person is legally an adult and capable of making their own decisions, though I appreciate that to go against family expectations can in some cultures result in estrangement or death.