Child Marriage
| Synonyms: | Underage Marriage |
| See also: | Arranged Marriage, Forced marriage, Marriage of Convenience (trope), Marriage Law |
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Child Marriage is a trope in fanworks, where a marriage takes place between a child and an adult, or another child under a certain age. Within fandom, child marriage is a term generally used when one of the spouses is less than 18 years of age. However real life and fictional cultural practices and laws vary considerably.
Sometimes it used in association with other marriage tropes, which can lead a child to be in such a relationship, consensual or not. As in forced marriages or arranged marriages, marriages of convenience and marriage law. On fanfiction website Ao3 the use of the child marriage tag is rare. The very similar "Underage Marriage" tag is currently a synonym of "Underage - Freeform" tag, meaning many Child Marriage fics could be in that tag. Creators are also using other marriage related tags alongside Ao3's Underage content warning.
Some fandoms are more likely to have stories depicting child marriage. For example Game of Thrones and HotD fanworks regularly depict marriages between underage characters, or an adult and an underage character, because it is an accepted practice in Westeros. Many of these begin as marriages of convenience or for political advantage.
Some underage marriage stories are written to explciitly depict unhealthy relationship dynamics and abuse scenarios, and are critical of the practice of child marriage.
Archives & Fannish Links
- Child Marriage works on Ao3