"In announcing on Monday that her daughter Bristol was five months pregnant, Sarah Palin, John McCain's choice for a running mate, added a quick qualification that might, in another era, have eliminated the potential for embarrassment: The 17-year-old girl was to be married to the 18-year-old father of the baby."
- Sarah Kershaw, New York Times News Service, 9/6/08
"... the practice of early marriage has a negative impact on the right to health, education and work and the ICESCR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Economic,_Social_and_Cultural_Rights) Committee has also recommended that the legal minimum age of marriage be raised to 18.
"A woman’s right to choose a spouse and enter freely into marriage is central to her life and to her dignity and equality as a human being. An examination of States parties' reports discloses that there are countries, which, on the basis of custom, religious beliefs or the ethnic origins of particular groups of people, permit forced marriages or remarriages. Other countries allow a woman's marriage to be arranged for payment or preferment and in others; women’s poverty forces them to marry foreign nationals for financial security. Subject to reasonable restrictions based for example on a woman's youth or consanguinity with her partner, a woman’s right to choose when, if, and whom she will marry must be protected and enforced law."
- UNICEF Working Paper, "Child Marriage and the Law," http://www.unicef.org/policyanalysis/files/Child_Marriage_and_the_Law.pdf
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