How do I prevent my forced marriage? I'm an 18 year old girl in Philippines studying in a college. My father wanted me to marry to someone and already arranged it without even asking me. But I don't want to marry. I'm 18 now, can law help me in any way? Am I independent to marry at my own will?
The legal solution is very simple. Under Philippine law (Title 1, Marriage, Article 2) No marriage shall be valid, unless these essential requisites are present: (1) Legal capacity of the contracting parties who must be a male and a female; and (2) Consent freely given in the presence of the solemnizing officer. If you do not consent to the marriage during the ceremony, that is the end of the matter, you are not married. You can also refuse to apply for a license under article 11 (which requires your sworn application – refuse to swear). If your are threatened with violence, you can report this threat to the police, since not even your father is allowed to threaten to assault or kill you.
Are you in the United States? If so, you're an adult and therefore legally free to move out of your parents' home and to enter into contracts. As a legal matter, you don't really need to do much at all beyond turn 18 to be permitted to sign a lease. There are of course all manner of practical impediments to finding a place to live (perhaps you have inadequate income, credit, or references), but none that should be insurmountable. EDIT: You've indicated in the comments that you may be under a guardianship, but you seem to be indicating that you doubt whether this is true. If you are under a guardianship, your rights are likely to be quite different than under usual circumstances. It seems quite unlikely to me that an adult who has the mental capacity to come asking these questions could be under a guardianship without knowing about it. Given that your parents are the purported guardians, I don't know how you could have been placed under their guardianship without appearing in court sometime around your 18th birthday, which I assume you'd remember. You should determine whether you are under a guardianship. You can probably do this by searching the court records online for each county you've lived in. Alternatively, you could contact adult protective services or an equivalent agency.
I’ve managed to answer my own question. Age discrimination legislation only applies to over 18s: It’s only discrimination if a trader or service provider treats you unfairly because of: age - if you’re 18 or over disability gender reassignment pregnancy and maternity race religion or belief sex sexual orientation Source
Fun one! First on the question of whether it matters if the agreement is written, I don't imagine it would make a difference in most of the US. We only require written contracts for agreements that meet certain requirements, those include contracts over a certain dollar amount, contracts involving the sale of land and contracts that cannot be completed within the year. Depending on the facts of your hypo, the writing requirement may be in play, but either way, it doesn't really make the situation more or less interesting; it's not a unique issue to this sort of contract. Second, the baseline assumption is that people can form legally binding contracts. The question is, whether something forbids the sort of contract you have in mind. I can think of a few things: It would be reasonably challenging to define what conduct is forbidden by the agreement. But that is merely a challenge not a road block. You could easily come up with a laundry list of forbidden acts to accomplish your result. Two people cannot contract to force the behavior of a third person, barring special circumstance. But again this isn't important since it's just a matter of drafting. In other words the contract probably would not say Juliet cannot go to the movies with Romeo, rather it would say Romeo cannot go the movies with Juliet. Even drafted in the less ideal way, he operative concept is whether the father could enforce a breach. So, the contract COULD be worded to say "If Juliet attends a movie while Romeo is present, Romeo must pay the father $xx dollars." Most importantly a party cannot form a contract that violates public policy. This is sometimes referred to "legality of objects", as in the object/goal of the contract must be legal. Contracts for prostitution, or the sale of a child (i.e. certain adoption contracts), or illegal products, would likely trip over this category. Here however, I can't readily think of a public policy basis to challenge the contract. Surely (some) states have stated a public policy favoring marriage, but it would likely be a challenge to contend the contract to not date (or not marry) was void because of such a policy. I can't think of any reason that the father couldn't enforce this sort of agreement. Finally, even if the contract was not enforceable, it's highly likely that Romeo could not simply take the money and breach. There are basis to demand return of the money even if no enforceable agreement exists. I am not your lawyer. Seek counsel from a lawyer in your area before taking any action. This answer is provided without research and for purely academic reasons. I have no special knowledge of this area of law.
"Explanations relating to the Charter of Fundamental Rights" on the website you linked to is very clear that the Charter of Fundamental Rights only means the EU institutions can't discriminate based on age, and that EU law is not allowed to be age discriminatory. It doesn't mean that individual acts of age discrimination are illegal: In contrast, the provision in Article 21(1) does not create any power to enact anti-discrimination laws in these areas of Member State or private action, nor does it lay down a sweeping ban of discrimination in such wide-ranging areas. Instead, it only addresses discriminations by the institutions and bodies of the Union themselves, when exercising powers conferred under the Treaties, and by Member States only when they are implementing Union law. The practice of youth and senior discounts is older than the charter of fundamental rights. The charter will be interpreted in the light of continuity, it definitely wasn't the intention to outlaw price discrimination. There are specific laws that make price discrimination based on certain principles legal, e.g. UK equality act: Age discrimination - when discrimination is allowed in the provision of goods or services
What kind of contract would that be? One about... arbitration? One about &quot;I hereby relinquish my claim for payment of X?&quot; --- children cannot be taken away from their father, no matter what. - OP That contract is void in germany because this contract not only violates public policy, it tries to modify something that is regulated by law into a way that does offer less than the law demands as a minimum. That's not allowed in Germany. Further, a clause that gives custody to the father by default is also Sittenwidrig in Germany, and thus void under §138 BGB. So would be a clause that gives it to the mother by default by the way. In a case of controversy, only a court order can assign guardianship. And only the court can take guardianship away. When the kid is born its guardianship gets assigned to the parents as guardians by §1626 BGB. While it is possible to give your partner guardianship if you're not married under 1626a BGB it is explicitly impossible to assign guardianship for any compensation to either party (e.g. the mother or the new guardian may not receive anything other than the guardianship in the specific paper) under 1626b BGB. Thus a contract that does anything else in addition to guardianship, like a prenup, voids at least the guardianship clauses. And you have to tell the court about that assignment of guardianship under ($1626d BGB). Now comes the kicker: §1628 BGB forces the parents to apply to the court to solve any problems of huge impact, such as guardianship: So technically, mediation results are fully non-binding and you can not mandate it. Also, since all marriages are through the state, it needs a formal instrument of the state to be dissolved. The only three ways that the state ever allowed this to be done after WW2 were a) annulment through a court, which only was possible till 1998, or b) divorce through a court, c) death of one of the marriage partners. Yes, it takes a judge to divorce a marriage under $1313 BGB or one of the two married to die. Because you can't divorce without a filing in court, a clause that demands to divorce in some way that is not including §1313 BGB, that clause would be void. It might be legal to have a clause that demands to try to solve issues in arbitration before filing for divorce or sorting the belongings in such a way, but it can't supplant the court requirement.
Every state requires at least two witnesses to a will unless it is entirely written in your own handwriting. A lawyer as a witness is fine. A spouse as a witness is not ideal as she would be an interested party if there was a dispute over whether it was executed. It may not be prohibited, but I would never do that in my practice ever. I discontinued a will signing just last week because we only had a lawyer and a spouse and not other witnesses. I would be somewhat concerned.
The question didn't mention marital status, but since states formally recognize that relationship it's helpful to start there. tl;dr: The Supreme Court decided state laws that required a woman to notify her spouse were unconstitutional. Thus it's unlikely there'd be grounds for suit. Background The central mechanism of Roe v. Wade (U.S. 1973) was a balancing act between what it decided was a 14th amendment right to privacy and the state's interest in both the health of the woman and the potentiality of life. Because Roe explicitly recognized a state interest, Pennsylvania passed a statute in 1982 that required informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period. It also mandated parental consent for minors (with some exceptions) and spousal notification. This reached the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of SE Penn. v. Casey (U.S. 1992). There, the court upheld most of the Pennsylvania law (reinforcing its statement in Roe that a state does have an interest) but struck down the spousal notification portion. To do that, it determined the appropriate test was whether a state was placing an undue burden---a significant obstacle---in the path of a woman seeking an abortion prior to fetal viability. It reasoned that: state regulation impacts a female's liberty more than male's during pregnancy (by way of biology) if a man and woman disagree, only one can prevail not all women are equally impacted by a notification mandate (for reasons of domestic violence, etc.) Combining this with the notion that women do not lose any constitutionally protected liberty upon marriage, it decided spousal notification would be a significant obstacle and thus an undue burden. In other words, unmarried women don't have spouses to notify, so placing a notification requirement on married women creates an additional burden that the court found undue. To get back to the question, the father certainly has a right to file a suit against the female (...and it happens from time to time). However, it likely wouldn't go far. Since unmarried women were the baseline in Casey, it's unlikely there'd be grounds for either married or unmarried fathers to sue their female partners. This comes up frequently under the moniker of "Father's Rights," which has gained less traction in the U.S. than in other countries. That said, Wisconsin recently introduced a bill that would allow fathers to proceed against abortion providers.