From next year, both men and women must be eighteen years old for lawful marriage.

On October 16 the Ministry of Justice decided to standardize the marriage age at eighteen since the civil code currently states females should be sixteen and males eighteen. After correcting relevant legal clauses, they will be presented to the National Assembly this year and will take effect from next year.

On September 18 the Ministry of Justice prepared a revised civil bill to standardize the age for marriage, setting it at seventeen years old, as the means for abolishing the element of sexual discrimination. However, while accepting opinions from various circles, positive opinion intensively turned towards eighteen years old, so one more year was added to the marriageable age.

As a matter of fact, the ministry conducted a public survey with an Internet portal site, targeting netizens and asking the possible age of getting married. The majority of respondents, 2,460 respondents out of 3,414, support eighteen years old, whereas merely 404 answered seventeen and the remaining 550 selected other options.

Other opinions included, “The restriction of setting a marriageable age should be abolished. It is the right time to get married when one could respect and take responsibility towards one’s partner and children.” and “Both seventeen and eighteen-year-olds are too young for marriage, the age should go up to over twenty years old.”

Persons at the ministry stated, “To manage the duties of married life, high school education is needed to maintain social and economic maturity. Considering the age of high school graduates reaches eighteen, that is the right time to enter married life”.

On the other hand, six countries in Europe, including Germany and France, acknowledged the differences of marital ages of the two genders and they recently simplified it to eighteen. The United States and the United Kingdom also legalized the age at sixteen for both men and women. It is a world trend to unify the marriage age.

입력시간: 2006. 10.17. 10:13