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BY GORDON Q. GUILLERGAN
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Sunday, February 26, 2017
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“We met each other when we were young, before we knew enough about disappointment, and once we did we found we reminded each other of it.” – Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
IN THE olden days it is common to have children betrothed to someone else’s children, especially among affluent families or Chinese families, for the purpose of business mergers or to avoid the distribution of wealth.
However, some children would grow up and refuse to marry who the parents’ wish for them to marry or if they do, settle to a loveless marriage.
Our Family Code requires that for a minor to marry, parental consent is needed. But could the parents give their consent to the marriage of their child below 18 years old?
Under Article 14 of the Family Code, in case either or both of the contracting parties are between the ages of 18 and 21, they shall exhibit to the local civil registrar the consent of their father, mother, surviving parent or guardian, or persons having legal charge of them, in the order mentioned.
The parental consent shall be manifested in writing by the interested party who personally appears before the proper local civil registrar, or in the form of an affidavit made in the presence of two witnesses and attested before any official authorized by law to administer oaths. The personal manifestation shall be recorded in both applications for marriage license, and the affidavit, if one is executed instead, shall be attached to said applications.
Non-compliance with the requirement of parental consent does not make the marriage invalid or void but merely annullable, which means that the marriage is valid until annulled. As a result, a petition for the annulment of the marriage may be filed by the parents, guardian or person having substitute parental authority over the party seeking the annulment, in that order, unless after attaining the age of 21, such party freely cohabited with the other and both lived together as husband and wife.
However, according to Atty. Fred Pamaos, the marriage of a person below 18 years of age, even with the consent of the parents, are void ab initio or void from the very beginning. Capacity to marry of both parties is an essential requisite of marriage, the absence of which renders the marriage null and void.
Personally, I see marriage as something that two people shall consensually go into. So to force your children to marry someone they don’t want would have adverse psychological effect not only to them but to their children. I know we all will be able to learn to love someone but wouldn’t it be nice to marry someone you chose to love, not someone you simply learn to love./PN
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