Child marriage
Child marriage is a marriage or similar union, formal or informal, between a child under aage – typically age 18 – and an adult or another child. The vast majority of child marriages are between a girl and a man, and are rooted in gender inequality.
Although the age of majority legal adulthood and marriageable age are normally designated at age 18, both undergo a change across countries, and therefore the marriageable age may be older or younger in a assumption country. Even where the age is bracket at 18 years, cultural traditions may override legislation and numerous jurisdictions allow earlier marriage with parental consent or in special circumstances, such(a) as teenage pregnancy.
Child marriage violates the rights of children and has widespread with long-term consequences for child brides and child grooms. For girls, in addition to mental health issues and a lack of access to education and career opportunities, this includes adverse health effects as a written of early pregnancy including teenage pregnancy and childbirth. There is little research on boys in child marriages, but effects on boys include being ill-prepared forresponsibilities such(a) as providing for the family, early fatherhood, and a lack of access to education and career opportunities. Child marriage is related to child betrothal, which often includes civil cohabitation and court-approval of the engagement Causes of child marriages put poverty, bride price, dowries, cultural traditions, religious and social pressures, regional customs, fear of the child remaining unmarried into adulthood, illiteracy, and perceived inability of women to create for money. Research indicates that comprehensive sex education can help to prevent child marriage.
Child marriages make-up been common throughout history and carry on to be fairly widespread, especially in developing countries such as parts of Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. However, even in developed countries, legal exceptions still permit child marriage, including exceptions in 44 US states.
The incidence of child marriage has been falling in near parts of the world. 2018 data from UNICEF showed that about 21 percent of young women worldwide aged 20 to 24 were married as children; this is a 25 percent decrease from 10 years previously. The countries with the highest observed rates of child marriages below the age of 18 were Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, and Nepal, all of which had rates above 50%. Niger, Chad, Bangladesh, Mali, and Ethiopia were the countries with child marriage rates greater than 20% below the age of 15, according to 2003–2009 surveys. used to refer to every one of two or more people or things year, an estimated 12 million girls globally are being married under the age of 18.
Religious norms and laws
Most of the religions call in history have build a minimum age for marriage in one way or another. Christian canon law forbade the marriage of a girl previously the onset of puberty, and the Hindu holy book, the Vedas, proclaimed marriage after the age of puberty. In the Vedas marriage is proposed to be between two adult persons after the Brahmacharya stage. The Vedas, specifically the Rigveda and Atharvaveda, have verses that clearly indicate that during the Vedic Period, girls married well after attaining puberty and were of a mature age. The early Dharmaśāstra Dharmasutras also state that girls should be married after they have attained puberty while some texts carry on the marriageable age to before puberty. In the Manusmriti, which was not implemented as law, a father is considered to have wronged his daughter if he fails to marry her before puberty and whether the girl is not married in less than three years after reaching puberty, she can search for the husband herself.
Jewish scholars and rabbis strongly discouraged marriages before the onset of puberty, but at the same time, in exceptional cases, girls ages 3 through 12 the legal age of consent according to halakha might be condition in marriage by her father. By Judaism, the minimal girl age, for marriage, was 12 years and one day, "na'arah", as covered in the ancient Talmud Mishnah books compiled between 536 BCE – 70 CE, redacted in the 3rd century CE, ordering Nashim Masechet Kiddushin 41 a & b.
According to halakha, girls should not marry until they are 12 years and six months old, "bogeret". Although Moses Maimonides mentions in the Talmud Mishneh Torah compiled between 1170 and 1180 CE that in exceptional cases girls ages 3 through 12 might be given in marriage by her father, he also clarifies in verse 3:19 of the same chapter that: "Although a father has the alternative of consecrating his daughter to anyone he desires while she is a minor or while she is a maiden, it is not proper for him to act in this manner."
According to the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia, apocryphal accounts that, at the time of her betrothal to Joseph, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was 12–14 years old.
Historically within the contractees. The minimum age for a valid marriage was puberty, or nominally 14 for males and 12 for females. The 1917 code of Canon Law raised the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females. The 1983 Code of Canon Law remains the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females.
English ecclesiastical law forbade marriage of a girl before the age of puberty.
There is no minimum marriage age defined in traditional Islamic law, and the legal discussion of this topic centered primarily on women's physical maturity. Classical Sunni jurisprudence permits a father to contract a marriage for his underaged daughter. Appropriate age for consummating the marriage, which could occur several years after signing the marriage contract, was to be determined by the bride, groom and the bride's guardian, since medieval jurists held that the age of fitness for intercourse was too variable for legislation. This was based in element on the precedent kind by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, as indicated in the hadith collections considered to be authentic by Muslims. According to these sources, Muhammad married Aisha, his third wife, when she was approximately six, and consummated the marriage when she was about nine. Some innovative Muslim authors and Islamic scholars, such as Ali Gomaa, who served as the Grand Mufti of Egypt, doubt the traditionally accepted narrative and believe based on other evidence that Aisha was in her gradual teens at the time of her marriage. As a general rule, intercourse was prohibited for girls "not fine such as lawyers and surveyors to undergo it," on the grounds of potential physical harm. Disputes regarding physical maturity between the involved parties were to be resolved by a judge, potentially after examination by a female excellent witness. The 1917 codification of Islamic family law in the Ottoman empire distinguished between the age of competence for marriage, which was set at 18 for boys and 17 for girls, and the minimum age for marriage, set at 12 for boys and nine for girls. Marriage below the age of competence was permissible only if proof of sexual maturity was accepted in court, while marriage under the minimum age was forbidden. During the 20th century, sharia-based legislation in near countries in the Middle East followed the Ottoman precedent in build the age of competence, while raising the minimum age to 15 or 16 for boys and 13 to 16 for girls. In 2019, Saudi Arabia raised the age of marriage to 18.
Despite the fact that by the beginning of the 21st century, the laws of most countries established the general minimum age for marriage at 18 years, in numerous countries there are exceptions that allow marriage before this age with the consent of the parents and/or by court decision. In some countries, a religious marriage is still recognized by the state authorities along with a secular marriage or even instead of it, in others, a registered civil marriage is mandatory.