Marriage age

Scotland is age 16. Though still regarded as a child for any misdemeanour until 18 and that is proposed to be raised to 24 as apparently until then people are not able to understand consequences of their actions. How does that fit in with age of consent for sex; marriage; voting; joining forces and goodness knows what else. I can see the need for trying to tackle forced marriages in raising age but aren't the parents often involved in those actions. Will the young be brave enough not to conform to parents wishes?

GoldenAge
‘We all know that most teenagers are sexually active around 13/14’. Do we? I don’t.

When I was a girl in Mauritius, the age of consent was 15. But you needed both parents’ consent to marry, one patent after the age of 21. You could marry who you wanted only aged 25!

It's a great idea - this is not about sexual intercourse where the age of consent is 16 - we all know that most teenagers are sexually active around 13/14 irrespective of what the law says. This is about putting a stop to the backward and damaging practices social brought into the country by immigrants from cultural backgrounds that they don't want to surrender because guess what ... they favour patriarchy. I'm not against immigration at all but the idea of forced marriage and FGM is abhorrent to me in any context, let alone in the UK where it continues to happen. This is a definite step in the right direction but not much good if we don't see it through as a society and truly punish offenders. My mother had a carer once who I often thought was tipsy so I observed her carefully and one day found her drinking from a bottle of vodka in her handbag. Her story was that at 'home' her father had married her off aged 14 to one of his older friends, she had three children when she was 15, 16, and 17 and then ran away. Her drinking was a response to her trauma and the fact that she never saw her children. Unfortunately, that practice is happening here in certain communities but we're too frightened to challenge them. Multi-cultural communities are great but we have to have base-lines for behaviour and they are sadly lacking.

Well, the legal age for marriage is 18 in a lot of countries.

I too tend to doubt that everyone is more mature at 18 than at 16, and if we are talking "arranged" marriages in the sense of parents choosing a bride or bridegoom for a son or daughter without taking their child's wishes into consideration and then forcing the marriage through, it will not make one blind bit of difference.

After all, if you have been brought up to believe that you must obey your parents in all things, it will be just as hard to stand up to them when you are eighteen as it would have been two years earlier.

From the religious point of view, no marriage is valid if one or both parties have been forced to consent to it. This applies to Christians, Jews and Muslims equally. Unfortunately, not all families and clergy bother to make quite sure that the parties getting married are doing so entirely of their own free will.

I personally find it distasteful that the age of consent to sexual activity is lower than the age at which marriage is legal - after all from a religious point of view fornication is fornication at any age, and if you are old enough to have legal sex, you ought to be old enough to marry.

And now I shall consider ducking down behind the sofa, as I realise a lot of you will be offended by what I have said.

Excellent idea to protect 16-17 year olds from forced marriages.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 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?

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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