‘Why can't I get married?’—Denmark and the ‘Twenty-four year law’

The Problem of Dependency: Immigration, Gender, and the Welfare State

“…This line of argumentation, regarding age, maturity and independence, was important for justifying the proposed age limit for family immigration. A similar line of argumentation figured in the Danish debate as a reason for the existing "twenty-foru year law" (Fair 2010). Such arguments are not a new in Scandinavian legislative tradition; the marriage laws of the early 20 th century had a relatively high minimum age for marriage and such regulations aimed at securing that the woman should be an independent individual when entering into marriage (Melby 2006, 148, 408).…”

“…During this period, Denmark has passed new legislation in order to reduce the number of family immigrants and prevent forced marriages (Bredal 2005;Fair 2010). These Danish regulations are discussed in the Norwegian white paper on the new immigration act, and partly as a result of attention drawn to the issue by the media, the prevention of forced marriage figure as a central concern in the document.…”

“…As mentioned earlier, the Norwegian government report for the new immigration act suggested requiring both spouses to be above 21 years old as a condition for family immigration, when marrying a person from outside the EEA area (NOU 2004: 20, 239-250). Both the legitimacy and the effectiveness of such rules have been contested (Bredal 2005;Fair 2010;Hagelund 2008;Schmidt et al 2009). Due to this criticism, the age limit for family immigration was, in Norway as opposed to in Denmark, withdrawn from the final law proposal for the new immigration act.…”

“…Moreover, the arguments presented for the subsistence requirement in the Norwegian context, namely prevention of forced marriage and the problem of welfare dependency, are also in the Danish debate presented as the two major problems to address (Fair 2010, 144). Anyhow, the Danish debate and legislation differed from the Norwegian one in the sense that there is a more clear distinction between arranged and forced marriages in Norwegian regulation and that Denmark has a more explicit aim to reduce family immigration in general (Bredal 2005;Fair 2010;Hagelund 2008). In the Norwegian law proposal, the problem of forced marriage is presented in the same way as in the preceding white paper, but the solution is depicted differently, and the subsistence requirement now figures as an important initiative for preventing forced marriage.…”

“…The two main arguments concern the prevention of forced marriage and the need to avoid burdens on the welfare state caused by immigration. The first argument, about prevention of forced marriages, places the subsistence requirement within the context of a highly relevant and much debated issue throughout contemporary Europe (Bredal 2005;Fair 2010; Hagelund parliamentary debate on this proposal. The subsistence requirement will function as a prism for examining how dependency is presented as a problem within Norwegian gender equality policies, welfare policies and immigration policies, and the Norwegian case will be discussed in relation to the wider Scandinavian and European context.…”