How are we just raising marriage age to 18?

[Whattodonut]

Just that. Amazing its taken so long!

Soldiers joining the army at 16 cannot be deployed on the front line until they are 18 so no 16 year olds cannot fight and die for their country.

@WomanStanleyWoman2 - marriage at 16 was to deal with teenage pregnancy. This was why parental permission was needed in England. The parents agreed to avoid social stigma. It's not too long ago that an unwed teenage mother would have her baby taken away.

So you spotted ONE mistake. The rest still apply, no?

@KimberleyClark They used to be able to.

I don't see why Scotland should be a reference for the rest of the UK. Seems like the example not to follow. There is no good reason for getting married at 16, perhaps good sense will follow and the age for joining the army will also go up to 18. That'd be progress.

At least 40 years. At least. This is way overdue.

I totally agree. In the old days the Church took care of this and people who had religious weddings had guidance from priests. I don't think that's appropriate for the majority of people today to get this in the church (I wouldn't welcome sexual or emotional guidance from a priest particularly) but I do think some sort of mentoring or support would be useful.

Most people nowadays go into marriage without the faintest idea of the legal or financial ramifications, let alone the emotional ones.

We seemed to have kept all the worst things about Church weddings (the morality, the froth, the subjugation of women) without any of the sensible pragmatic tools that marriage can provide. It's a recipe for disaster.

Of course the ideal would be to get this from your parents as well but the concept of marriage has changed so much in the past two generations that this is probably meaningless.

My mum got married in 1970 because, well, that was what you did. I don't suppose it occurred to her not to get married and as it turned out she didn't work so it was the right thing for her. She wasn't religious but she wouldn't have considered having children out of wedlock.

I got married in 2006 because it seemed like the thing to do. I turned out to be a total disaster for me financially because he thought my job was both to support him financially and to take care of all the domestic load. So I got the hell out of dodge. My mum didn't warn me about this because I suppose it didn't cross her mind to think about it.

The economic dynamics of relationships have changed so much in the past 50 years. In the 1970s it was almost impossible to consider that a marriage could be financially detrimental to a woman because in nine cases out of ten the man would support her. Nowadays that's far from clear cut. As more and more women are breadwinners, the case for marriage is far weaker and it only really makes sense today if you are sure you are going to stop work for a lengthy period of time. So what's the point of it really?

I hope that by the time my daughter (now 12) is old enough to consider this marriage will be more or less obsolete: it won't serve any financial purpose for an independent woman (it already doesn't) and the moral case for it has long since been put to bed. But clearly it is still an important insurance policy for women who want to remain at home.

The whole thing needs to be totally reframed and taken out of the sickening Disney miasma of white dresses, gold rings and table settings, for starters. This massively clouds people's judgement about what the goal of marriage is. Then we can have a proper informed discussion about whether it's worth it.

I agree there should be an age when you are an adult probably 18, and from age 15 a gradual lessening of parental involvement in minor decisions and only allowing parents to overrule in certain circumstances that most should be joint decisions with guidance.
Under 12's are children in all areas of life and 12 is the age when criminal reponsibility starts and the transition to adulthood
There are still a few remaining limits at 21 like joining medical register as a doctor,
I agree that infantilising people age 18-25 is bad, you can't be old enough to work as a doctor in A & E but then be told other things you are too immature to deal with

No offence but I don't think I'd look to Scotland to show me the way to best safeguard teenagers.

I totally agree. In the old days the Church took care of this and people who had religious weddings had guidance from priests.

The old days? I attended a church marriage course before I got married. They still do them.

16 (now 18) is actually the highest it’s ever been. Until the 1929 Marriage Act in the UK, boys could marry at 14 and girls at 12 i.e. puberty.

I agree with raising the age to 18, but I think it’s taken so long as it finally decouples sex and marriage.

@Polis

They do, but they are less and less relevant. What percentage of the UK population self-identifies as Christian, let alone actually regularly attends church? It's something like 5%.

No offence but I don't think I'd look to Scotland to show me the way to best safeguard teenagers.

That's quite alright. You just go ahead and dismiss posts by anyone posting from Scotland, even when they are referencing laws that apply UK wide.

We could have done, but we wanted to be together and it just seemed the right thing to do.

Clearly, CLEARLY, since the thread is about 16 year olds, it’s a typo. Quite fucking blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that I’m referring to 16 year olds.

I don't think that would work. 17yo's will just end up finding a way to do it.

@AllDayBreakfast92

13 yos find a way to do it too.

I don't think we should remove a legal age of consent because teenagers still have sex.

As I also said, I don't think we should prosecute 2 teens

For a long time I have felt the age of consent is too young.I feel 16 is way too young to marry(Didnt realise this was the case!) Its mad .

It's going to be a criminal offence. Good.

I'm afraid I don't know much about child marriage in the UK. But I do know a little bit about it in the US. The issue is not that two young 16 year olds are madly in love and should we allow them to get married. Instead, the issue with child marriage is that in most cases, the child who is getting married is a girl, and she is usually marrying a man who is much older, often for cultural and/or religious reasons.
here are some statistics from the US. 78% of child marriages in the US are for minor girls to adult men. Now, admittedly, the adult man could be 19 which wouldn't be as big a deal, but in reality, that's NOT usually the case.

Ime, people only say this when they get older. Having sex at 16-17yo is perfectly fine if both parties are responsible about it. Certainly less risky than being in control of a car.

You can't get married in Ireland until 18

For those querying whether this might create a cross-border Scottish wedding industry, I believe the new laws apply to individuals domicile in England and Wales. (Although I suspect the rationale for this is less to do with Scotland and more to do with preventing forced/arranged marriages in Asia.)

Not completely true, members of the armed forces are seen as legitimate targets by many terrorists. It's quite possible for an under-18 member of the armed forces to die and I doubt many people would doubt part of their reasons for joining the army was to serve their country.

When I was at school we had a cadet force thing and it was strictly prohibited to wear the uniform when not on offical cadet training. You couldn't travel to/from school in it and if there was a trip to a shooting range you couldn't wear the uniform on the bus. The uniform made you a target (at the time mainly to the Irish terrorists) and the same is true today even if the specific people who are the main threat has changed.

Yes, I think it's to prevent forced child marriage. Unfortunately, in communities where this is prevalent the law only goes so far, and forced marriage at 18 to a 42 year old isn't THAT different to forced marriage at 16 to a 40 year old. But at least the girl has more chance of some education and sufficient maturity to possibly make a run for it if necessary so it feels like an excellent decision to me.