People > Age at first marriage for women: Countries Compared

<p>The high council on integration, a government advisory body, estimates that as many as 70,000 adolescents in France were living in arranged marriages in 2003. Virtually all were first- or second-generation immigrants. <p>France’s justice ministry said figures indicate that approximately 1,200 minors were married in the country in 2004 and that many more are taken abroad every year to enter arranged marriages.">On March 29, the French parliament’s upper house gave its support to a bill that would raise the minimum legal age for women to get married from 15 to 18. <p>Article 144 of France’s civil (or Napoleonic) code states that, “The man who is not yet attained the age of 18, and the woman who is not yet 15, may not enter into wedlock." This article, along with about half of the code’s total of 2,281 articles, came into force in 1804 and has not been amended. <p>The high council on integration, a government advisory body, estimates that as many as 70,000 adolescents in France were living in arranged marriages in 2003. Virtually all were first- or second-generation immigrants. <p>France’s justice ministry said figures indicate that approximately 1,200 minors were married in the country in 2004 and that many more are taken abroad every year to enter arranged marriages.