These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: [The new legal marriage age: 21 years].
    Author: Tallon F.
    Journal: Imbonezamuryango; 1992 Dec; (25):24-5. PubMed ID: 12319662.
    Abstract:
    In Rwanda, Presidential Decree No. 102/05 of March 13, 1992 executed Law No. 42/1988, which was not enforced after its passage in October 1988. Its principal provisions relate to civil marriage. Only monogamous civil marriage is recognized by law. Civil marriage is the voluntary union of a man and woman. A man and woman younger than 21 cannot marry except for grave reasons. Consanguineous marriages down to the seventh line of the family tree are prohibited. Other prohibited marriages include marriages between a person and his/her parents-in-law, an adoptive parent and the adopted child, an adoptive parent and descendants of the adopted child, the spouse of an adoptive parent and the adopted child, adopted children of the same adoptive parent, and an adopted child and a child of the adoptive parent. No one can remarry before annulment or dissolution of the preceding marriage. The wife cannot remarry before 300 days have passed since the end of the preceding marriage in case of pregnancy. At the end of the 300 days, she must have a medical certificate established by an ad hoc commission attesting that she is or is not pregnant. Before the wedding, the civil service officer posts at the civil state bureau information on future spouses and where the wedding will take place. The most important issue to emerge from this law is the legal marriage age being 21 rather than 18. The legislator set it at 21 as a means to realize objectives of the population policy. It favors a fertility slow-down. Some persons will say that this new law will have little effect on fertility. It is perhaps true since the last population census shows that the mean age at first union is almost 23 and civil marriage is only one of three existing forms of union.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]