After my humble article “Can the legal age of marriage be lowered to 18 years old” was published in the “Beijing News” on January 4, it was picked up by major portals The website reprinted it and caused a heated discussion on the Internet, with many opponents and supporters. Opponents said: “Marriage is a responsibility, are you able to bear it when you are 18 years old?” “Is this possible? How many 18-year-olds are financially independent now? How can they not be financially independent? Get married?” “Early marriage and early childbearing are feudal bad habits. It is already the 21st century, why do the Bricks still advocate early marriage?” [Oxford Cloth]
I think these opponents misunderstand the meaning of “legal age for marriage.” In fact, lowering the legal age of marriage does not mean promoting early marriage. This is because the legal age for marriage is only the minimum age legally allowed to register marriage. It does not mean that you should get married or must get married when you reach the legal marriage age. According to some people’s logic, allowing 18-year-olds to get married means advocating 18-year-olds to get married. Then the law also allows 80-year-olds to get married. Can it be said that the law advocates people not getting married until they are 80?
Our country’s law stipulates that 18-year-old citizens are adults with full capacity for civil conduct, and marriage is also a civil action. If a person has not reached the legal age for marriage, it means that he does not have full capacity for civil conduct. There is an Internet joke that says: “The law stipulates that men can join the army at the age of 18 and get married at the age of 22, which shows that women are more difficult to deal with than the enemy and marriage is more dangerous than fighting.” This joke is an irony of the excessively high legal age for marriage. 【Textile】
Yes, many people are not financially independent by the age of 18, but There are also many people who have to rely on their parents to support themselves until the age of 22. According to the logic of some opponents, does it mean that the legal age of marriage should be higher than 22?
Since lowering the legal age of marriage is not to promote early marriage, what is the practical significance of lowering the legal age of marriage? For urban residents, lowering the legal marriage age may not have practical significance; but for some rural residents, it does. Some rural youth do not go to high school, but go to work after graduating from junior high school (generally around 15 years old when they graduate from junior high school). Because these rural youths enter society earlier, they mature psychologically earlier and have certain financial capabilities.
Now there are some young men and women aged 18 or 19 in rural areas who want to get married after falling in love, but because they do not reach the legal age for marriage , couldn’t get a marriage certificate. Although it was a de facto marriage, the law did not recognize this kind of marriage, so they had to “illegal cohabitation.” Some couples become pregnant before marriage and cannot register their marriage. If the child is born, the family planning department will collect “social maintenance fees” and have no choice but to have an abortion. This is one of the reasons why the abortion rate among Chinese women is high. 【Oxford cloth manufacturer】
In the vast rural areas of our country, men under the age of 22 , it has become a common fact for women to get married under the age of 20. However, the current legal age for marriage is an insurmountable obstacle in front of them. Just because they are one or two years younger than the legal age for marriage, their marriage relationship, children’s household registration, and some legitimate rights and interests are not protected by law. This has also led to an increase in unmarried pregnancies, unmarried mothers, and children with illegal household registration in rural areas. Therefore, instead of not allowing them to register for marriage, resulting in numerous “illegal cohabitations”, it is better to lower the legal age for marriage, allow them to register for marriage, and protect the marriage rights of these young men and women.
Some people suggest lowering the legal age of marriage to 17 or 16 years old. I think minors are notIt is appropriate to get married, and the adult already has full capacity for civil conduct. Therefore, the legal age for marriage should be the same as the legal age of adulthood. 【Oxford cloth wholesale】
my country’s “Marriage Law” revised in 1980 raised the legal age for marriage The current age limit of 22 for boys and 20 for girls is mainly due to the implementation of the “one-child” policy to control population growth. Now that our country has entered the “second child era”, it is necessary to lower the outdated and excessive legal marriage age.
-Suzhou Oxford cloth manufacturer: www.wcxfz.com
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