Poll: Minimum Age For Marriage

[Kailash Kumar]

Minimum Age For Marriage

According to the OECD, if current trends continue, it will take 100 years for child marriage (defined as marriage of persons under 18 years) in the whole world to be eradicated.

This affects 12 million girls every year worldwide.

The OECD said that this primarily has to do with social norms, where it is normal in many countries and cultures to be married at a young age.

http://news.trust.org/item/20181207135445-io47t/

What do you think should be the minimum legal age for a woman to marry?

Currently, the lowest minimum legal age (of all the countries in the world) to get married is 9 years for girls. The highest minimum legal age for women is 21 years.

The poll therefore runs from 9 to 21 years.

(Since there is a limited amount of possible responses, in the first three possible responses there are two years per response listed as a choice)

P.S. I know that in many countries with a legal age higher than 18 years, there are still many child marriages.
But when I asked in this poll for what the best minimum legal age should be for a woman to marry, I also meant that this should be enforced and applied in order to make sure that everyone adheres to this minimum legal age.

 

[Big Tank]

17 is alright, and there should be a max age limit set by the government, get these nibbas married instead of letting these 30yos to hunt School and College girls under false hope of marriage.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

According to the OECD, if current trends continue, it will take 100 years for child marriage (defined a marriage of persons under 18 years) to be eradicated.

To be honest all this is bollocks. In UK there is a depressing small town, not too far from me. The average age of marriage is probably 30. So no child marriage here.

But see that 30 year old slapper who just got married? Well, she also celebrated being a grandmother the day after her 'first' marriage. The fact is your average 12 year old girl there has had more sex experiance, more partners then a average 50 year old male in Pakistan. Now go figure?

No child marriage. But lots of teenage pregancies. Go figure !

17 is alright, and there should be a max age limit set by the government, get these nibbas married instead of letting these 30yos to hunt School and College girls under false hope of marriage.

I would go for 21.

 

[war&peace]

In Sweden, the age for consensual sex is 15 years but most of the people don't wait for 15.. ...average is 12-13 years when people have their first sexual encounter. This is stupid to fix the age at any number rather it should be based on biology so as soon as they reach puberty that should be the age for marriage.

 

[Kailash Kumar]

To be honest all this is bollocks. In UK there is a depressing small town, not too far from me. The average age of marriage is probably 30. So no child marriage here.

But see that 30 year old slapper who just got married? Well, she also celebrated being a grandmother the day after her 'first' marriage. The fact is your average 12 year old girl there has had more sex experiance, more partners then a average 50 year old male in Pakistan. Now go figure?

No child marriage. But lots of teenage pregancies. Go figure !

I edited my post to include the words 'worldwide' and 'the whole world', where I want to emphasize that it is not only UK or Pakistan, but that there are many countries, where, especially in rural areas girls do get married young.

And it is not about sexual experience, but more about not giving them the opportunities which they might have had if they were married later in life.
Opportunities like becoming more educated.
Educated women get less children.
Becoming more educated and having less children makes it able to escape poverty and break the cycle.

But I do know what you mean.
Teen pregnancies (before and without marriage) are also a problem, especially in the West in certain social classes (like in that depressing small town, not too far from you).
These pregnancies will keep the girls living on benefits.
And I have read the Daily Mail online edition once in a while, so I do know how these benefit scroungers operate.
Some have chosen to produce these children in order to 'milk' the system (and some are just stupid).

So to sum up:
Child marriage is a problem which is the result from outdated social norms.
Teen pregnancies and benefit scroungers are also a problem which are the result of outdated Western ideas of a welfare state.

Both need to be eliminated.
Then girls will have the freedom to marry at whatever age they want, but will also have to take responsibility if they get pregnant and not depend on the welfare state.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

And it is not about sexual experience

A marriage entails -

• a sexual relationship
• possible children born out of that relationship.

Please tell me what is the differance between a 12 year old girl married and a 12 year old girl having rampant sex everywhere? The only diffeance is the former has one partner [if she has child they will know the dad], the latter dozens [if she has child there will be dozen suspects].

Point being in it's impact there is precious little differance. A 12 year old having sex with lots of guys and getting preganant will degrade her life chances as much as 12 year old getting married. The only differance is in one case there is a paper [marriage contract] and other is free for all but the actions and consequences are same.

 

[MultaniGuy]

Go get a Bachelor's Degree and a Master's Degree first then get married

Otherwise you will be living in poverty.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Go get a Bachelor's Degree and a Master's Degree first then get married

I agree. That is why I said 21. That should be enough to get degree and or other vocational qualifications.

 

[Thəorətic Muslim]

9 - 10

sach pyaar andhaa hoonda

 

[AHMED85]

When you have sufficient stuff to live a marital life after legalized age.

Its not depends on age.

Simple.

Because other factors cause to non stable even worse life after marriage.

 

[Hyde]

I would have chosen 25 if there was an option for that with conditional marriage allowed at the of 18 for valid reasons such as property matters etc

 

[Hassan Guy]

How come there isn't a poll for dudes

 

[MultaniGuy]

I agree. That is why I said 21. That should be enough to get degree and or other vocational qualifications.

Especially in this day and age where everything is so competitive. Women need to be educated first.

Whether it is in the business world or elsewhere.

Kazuo Hirai Chairman of SONY.

 

[Kailash Kumar]

A marriage entails -

• a sexual relationship
• possible children born out of that relationship.

Please tell me what is the differance between a 12 year old girl married and a 12 year old girl having rampant ext everywhere? The only diffeance is the former has one partner [if she has child they will know the dad], the latter dozens [if she gets has child there will be dozen suspects].

Point being in it's impact there is precious little differance. A 12 year old having sex with lots of guys and getting preganant will degrade her life chances as much as 12 year old getting married. The only differance is in one case there is a paper [marriage contract] and other is free for all but the actions and consequences are same.

You are correct that to many people marriage is just a paper.
It does not represent a certain way of living anymore, since many people can get the same things they would get in a marriage, without being married.

But it is like you say: 'Girls can get married at 12 years, who cares?, I see a lot of other girls who screw up their lives at 12 years, so why should it matter if she screws up her life by getting married at 12 years? It all ends the same.'

Just because some girls at 12 years who are not married screw up their life, is no justification for screwing up the life of other girls of 12 years by getting them married.

It is also not so much the piece of paper what concerns me.
A piece of paper does not enable or prevent people from messing up their life.

What does is the opportunity to do so or not do so.

Now many men have the opportunity to destroy the future of a young girl by marrying her.
If the legal age would be raised (and this would be enforced), then she could choose to have a better future.

But then you say that girls in, for example, the town near you already have that freedom, but they still destroy their future.

So freedom alone does not guarantee that girls will make the right choices to have a good future.

Well, you cannot have freedom without responsibility.
That responsibility must lie with the girls who have freedom to make their choices.

And that is where it goes wrong in the West.
The existence of the welfare state.

If people know that the welfare state will always 'save' them, then they will have the opportunity to misbehave.
If the welfare state would not exist or be more restricted to those who really need it and not to those who abuse it, then people would have to be more responsible.

So to sum up:
You can give girls freedom, teach them responsibility and create a society / environment where freedom and responsibility are both expected.

This, I believe, will keep most girls responsible since it is expected from them and irresponsible behaviour will not be rewarded.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Just because some girls at 12 years who are not married screw up their life, is no justification for screwing up the life of other girls of 12 years by getting them married.

I did not justify it. I merely pointed out the problem at hand exists in differant forms across the world. Which is -

• Underage marriage in countries like Pakistan
• Underage sex like in UK

The results are same. Those who cry on about underage marriage often ignore the same problem proliferating under differant social circumstances. But the import is same. Lives reduced, lives destroyed.