Exceptional Circumstances of Lowering the Minimum Age of Marriage: Types, the Criterion of Respect, and Problems of Regulation

The paper is devoted to the study of law rules, doctrinal positions and jurisprudence dealing with exceptional circumstances that serve as a basis for minor marriage. The relevance of the study is primarily predetermined by the taken and planned actions of the state authorities undertaken to develop draft laws aimed at improving the content of Art. 13 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation regulating the age of marriage. The author draws the following conclusions. Conditions for reducing the overall minimum age of marriage for persons under 16 years of age, as well as for older minors, should be governed at the federal level. The list of exceptional (reasonable) circumstances should be exhaustive, since the current open list of life circumstances applied to reduce the overall minimum marriage age leads to excessive freedom of enforcement discretion. Both the Russian and international legislator consider “child” marriage as a negative social phenomenon. In this regard, the issuance of permission to marry as a minor should be dictated by even more unfavorable social circumstances that have arisen in the life of the minor. Marriage should contribute to overcoming or leveling (smoothing) these adverse factors. Only the circumstances in which the marriage is proportionate to the legal consequences it causes (the acquisition of full civil legal capacity by minors, termination of the parents’ obligations to financially support their minor children who have entered into marriage, providing them with housing, etc.) can be considered as good reasons for reducing the minimum marriage age. These circumstances also include pregnancy and the birth of a child.