Legal Progress and Socio-Economic Reflections on Child Marriage in Latin America

International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family (Int J Law Policy Family), Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 1-16 (Advance article), May 2021

DOI: 10.1093/lawfam/ebab008

Max Planck Private Law Research Paper No. 21/18

18 Pages Posted: 5 Aug 2021 Last revised: 11 Aug 2021

See all articles by Denise Wiedemann

Denise Wiedemann

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law

Abstract

Most Latin American countries have increased the legal age of marriage to 16 or 18 years during the last years. However, the numbers of child marriages in Latin America do not reflect those reforms so far. Some reforms might be too recent. But furthermore, the legal age of marriage is only one factor out of many. The legislative reforms regulate civil marriage leaving informal unions and religious or indigenous marriages unaffected. Thus, the reforms might prevent early civil marriages, but they have not eliminated early informal unions and early religious or indigenous marriages and the socio-economic factors that can promote them.

Note: This article is published in the Max Planck Private Law Research Paper Series through Open Access funding provided by Max Planck Society. It is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). No changes were made to the article.

Suggested Citation

Wiedemann, Denise, Legal Progress and Socio-Economic Reflections on Child Marriage in Latin America. International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family (Int J Law Policy Family), Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 1-16 (Advance article), May 2021, DOI: 10.1093/lawfam/ebab008, Max Planck Private Law Research Paper No. 21/18, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3890950

Denise Wiedemann (Contact Author)

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law ( email )

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