Marriage age may be raised

A bill to raise the legal marriage age from 17 to 18 was approved by Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairson Sunday and is headed for a preliminary vote on the Knesset floor.

According to a Ynet News report, a Justice Ministry spokesman expressed support for the bill, submitted by Likud MK Yariv Levin, saying that it made sense to raise the age for marriage since 18 was the age of legal adult status and marriage was a legal contract.

According to Haaretz, official statistics from 2008 show that more than 2,000 minors got married that year.

Quoted in a Maariv article, Levin showed that married minor couples have a higher rate of divorce, domestic violence and financial difficulties than those who marry later in life. Deputy Prime Minister Gila Gamliel (Likud), a supporter of the bill, said the law would allow minors to complete their education up to age 18. “Marriage by minors does not allow for higher education and social mobility… and perpetuates the cycle of poverty from generation to generation.”

The bill also seeks to target forced marriages, which are customary in some communities, most notably among the Bedouin minority.

The proposal leaves a broad loophole in the form of “special circumstances” that would allow marriage at a younger age, without defining those circumstances exactly. Such marriages would have to be court approved.