Doctrinal Debate on the Age of Contracting of Marital in Ibero-America

Abstract

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015, grants fundamental importance to the principles of equality and non-discrimination and aims to realize Human Rights for all. From this perspective, target 3 of Goal no. 5 admonishes States to eliminate harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child and early marriages. Since adopting the SDGs, the U.N. has promoted raising the age of marriage: in nine countries, marriage is prohibited for children under 18 years; in the rest, it is allowed from the age of 16, with parental or judicial authorisation. This literature review article analyses the doctrinal debate on legislative reforms to raise the age of marriage in 21 Latin American countries, in addition to Spain and Portugal. The searches have been done in Dialnet, Scielo, Scopus, and Google Scholar; most records are in Spanish and Portuguese.