This thread concentrates on legal marriageable age in England & Wales though there have been a couple of brief references to Scotland.
Scots Law is not always the same as that of England & Wales - and this is definitely a case where Scots Law was, and is, different especially with respect to the matter of parental consent.
The General Register Office of Scotland, on its site at:
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/regscot/getting-married-in-scotland/has the following quote (emphases added):
"
What was and is the minimum age for marriage in Scotland? Before 1929, Scots law followed Roman law in allowing a
girl to marry at
twelve years of age and a
boy at
fourteen,
without any requirement for
parental consent. However, according to one early 20th-century source*, marriage in Scotland at such young ages was in practice almost unknown. No doubt if marriages between children had become common, there would have been public pressure to raise the legal minimum age of marriage earlier than 1929. The Age of Marriage Act 1929 (applying in Scotland, England & Wales but not in Northern Ireland) made void any marriage between persons either of whom was under the age of sixteen.
Sixteen remains the
lower age-limit today, contained in the current legislation, the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977. Scots law still has
no requirement for parental consent."
JAP
