Should we allow 16 year old children to get married at such a young age?
I believe we should not allow them to marry at a young age! Why? People change and don’t stay the same from when you first fell in love as many people fall in and out of love in life! Also life throws a lot of opportunists our way such as new jobs, travelling to different countries and happiness in ourselves. This is why we should raise the minimum age to 25! Sounds crazy just keep reading …
People, both adults and kids, don’t always realise that there are more people in the world and it is easy to think that we know why we should stay with this person forever but what if when you grow up you also grow apart! We are not the same person from when we are younger, we mature over time! It is difficult to realise that the person we love now may not love us the same way in 10 or 20 years’ time. As we grow are brain grows with us which is why we change the way we feel towards each other.
Can you believe over 85% of people divorce from age 24 to 30? This is because most people don’t reach full maturity until this period of time, this can show that we may not love them the same way when you were children or you may love someone else! There are over 7 billion people on the planet and you probably haven’t met half those people on the planet this means that you could also meet the love of your life later and shouldn’t marry someone so young. As they say “There are many more fish in the sea.” This is why the minimum age should be 25.
Why 16 year olds should not be allowed to get married…
Imagine a world where the word ‘divorce’ is so rarely used that people barely know its meaning. Imagine a world where happy, loving married couples are the norm instead of the ‘lucky ones’. Imagine a world where saying ‘I do’ no longer means ‘I think I do…’. This could be a reality if we raise the minimum marrying age to 20. Yes, it sounds extreme: but hear me out.
Campaigners, like me and maybe you, worry vulnerable young girls are being pressured into getting married against their will, destroying their chances to mature at their own rate and to finish their education. Approximately 1 in 3 girls in the developing world are married before the age of 18, and this NEEDS to stop! Girls marrying at a young age is happening across the globe and we could be the first to prevent this giving other countries a great example. In Africa, child marriage is driven by poverty and has many physical effects on girls’ health such as cervical cancer, malaria and death during child birth.
Quite often, young people who marry at 16 miss out on educational opportunities, particularly where they reach the age of 16 before finishing secondary education in some cases some do not even finish the school year or take their GCSES.
Hopefully you are with me on this. In order to stop 16 year old marriages we need to come together and skilfully persuade the government to take action and bring an end to young people – basically children- getting married. To cut down on the amount of divorces and young women becoming ill because of diseases such as cervical cancer.
‘Currently the legal age at which you can marry in the UK is 16,as long as you have parental consent’
Imagine if your 16 year old child asked for your consent to their marriage. What would you do?
I asked my dad what he would do if I asked him, and he replied, “Well I would say are you sure, your basically still a child, but if your happy, then I’m happy”. At 16 you might think that that’s what you want, but in reality, is it really.
65% of people that got married below the age of 18 are now divorced. Is this really what we want? Imagine a world where people rarely used the word ‘divorce’. Where people find their soulmates instead of marring people who they thought they loved. Where the minimum age to marry is 18. If you are 16 and you have found ‘the one’ then that’s great, but just wait two more years and you’ll see if you still agree with the decision that you made earlier on in your life.
At sixteen, you can make many choices that you will regret in your adult life. There is a difference between a teenager and a young adult. You are simply still a child and not ready to make life long decisions. There are 105 countries with the law that the legal age which you can marry is 18. This law should be adapted to the UK and scientists believe that divorce rates will decrease by 23%.
‘Currently the legal age at which you can marry in the UK is 16,as long as you have parental consent’
Imagine if your 16 year old child asked for your consent to their marriage. What would you do?
I asked my dad what he would do if I asked him, and he replied, “Well I would say are you sure, your basically still a child, but if your happy, then I’m happy”. At 16 you might think that that’s what you want, but in reality, is it really.
65% of people that got married below the age of 18 are now divorced. Is this really what we want? Imagine a world where people rarely used the word ‘divorce’. Where people find their soulmates instead of marring people who they thought they loved. Where the minimum age to marry is 18. If you are 16 and you have found ‘the one’ then that’s great, but just wait two more years and you’ll see if you still agree with the decision that you made earlier on in your life.
At sixteen, you can make many choices that you will regret in your adult life. There is a difference between a teenager and a young adult. You are simply still a child and not ready to make life long decisions. There are 105 countries with the law that the legal age which you can marry is 18. This law should be adapted to the UK and scientists believe that divorce rates will decrease by 23%.
‘Currently the legal age at which you can marry in the UK is 16,as long as you have parental consent’
Imagine if your 16 year old child asked for your consent to their marriage. What would you do?
I asked my dad what he would do if I asked him, and he replied, “Well I would say are you sure, your basically still a child, but if your happy, then I’m happy”. At 16 you might think that that’s what you want, but in reality, is it really.
65% of people that got married below the age of 18 are now divorced. Is this really what we want? Imagine a world where people rarely used the word ‘divorce’. Where people find their soulmates instead of marring people who they thought they loved. Where the minimum age to marry is 18. If you are 16 and you have found ‘the one’ then that’s great, but just wait two more years and you’ll see if you still agree with the decision that you made earlier on in your life.
At sixteen, you can make many choices that you will regret in your adult life. There is a difference between a teenager and a young adult. You are simply still a child and not ready to make life long decisions. There are 105 countries with the law that the legal age which you can marry is 18. This law should be adapted to the UK and scientists believe that divorce rates will decrease by 23%.
Young marriage could happen to anyone. This means that teen marriage is a big step in a person’s life and isn’t something young kids can just run into. This is important because young people need to know the different consequences on teen marriage. They need to know why teens shouldn’t get married and how important it is to wait until you are really ready for such a big commitment. Also, they need to learn about the outcome of teen marriage because most of the time it won’t turn out in their favour. From this information we can learn that many people do marry young, however, they might not be completely happy and satisfied with their decision because they are way too young to tell.
The legal age at which you can marry in the UK is 16, as long as you have parental consent.
Do you think a 16-year-old should be allowed to decide who he/she is going to spend the rest of their lives with? Do you think they are mature enough to make these kinds of decisions?
I think that the legal age for marriage should be at least 18 years of age and no lower because I don’t think that 16-year-old are old enough to make these decisions. There are still a lot of teens at the age of 15 or 16 that make stupid and irrational decisions every day.
Also, as it shows here, people who are younger are more likely to divorce
And people who marry older are more likely to have a long happy marriage
Age Women Men
20 to 24 years 36.6% 38.8%
25 to 29 years 16.4% 22.3%
30 to 34 years 8.5% 11.6%
35 to 39 tears 5.1% 6.5%
It is a fact that 18 years of age or younger, whether they have been married or not, 25 percent have gone through a marital split.
St Monica's Creative Writing Blog 